I can’t help thinking this is a bit if an early April fool.

To quote the news article

A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive said: “We often come across half-baked decisions taken in the name of health and safety, but this one takes the biscuit.

Edited: Just seen that “b r” has already picked up on this quote

They’ve agreed just £200 off for the old heap against an over priced but still reasonable Audi. I filled it up on Thursday…. £68… so yes I am that tight.

Why don’t you delay taking delivery of your new car for a week or two?

In 1989 or 1990, when I was 17 or 18, I used you go to the local with my mates most Friday and Saturday nights. After closing time we would walk home and cut through the golf course as this saved a significant amount of time. One night whilst walking across the fairway we found a parked up dumper truck and the keys were in the ignition. After a while we managed to get it started and we drove off down the fairway in a world of our own (drunk and the dumper truck had no lights). All was going well until we drove it into a gully across the fairway. Unfortunately we rolled the dumper truck onto its side but luckily we all escaped injury. We legged it off, in hystrics. That was until we saw the local newspaper the next week, which had a vandal headline and a photo of the upturned dumper truck. I bet the Saturday morning golfers weren’t pleased to find a new obstacle on their fairway?

Lush

I’m now considering spending my car allowance with Ling – was going to shop round, but all the deals are much the same as it’s a competitive space, so I may as well go with someone I like. Smart, irreverent, able to turn a stupid situation to her advantage. I admire these characteristics and they’ve won a customer.

Planning on ordering a DeLorean?

I’ve been watching the Tirreno Adriatico this week on Eurosport with Anthony McCrossan and Magnus Backstedt as the commentators 😕

Scam the scammers!

One of the funniest scam the scammer stories I found on the net was “the road to the skeleton coast”

http://www.419eater.com/html/SkeletonCoast/

It does txt’s and phone calls.

What else does the kid need?

And snake!

The Islabike Benin 29er would probably be ideal for the terrain that she wants to ride.

Ignore it.

Just go inside, switch on the telly and take your mind of the whole thing with a good film.

I remember when the Wispa was originally launched in 1983. At the time i was living in Bishop Auckland and from memory I was paying 16p for a bar.

I used to like Firetrap stuff but since they were bought by the Ashley empire the quality had gone downhill.
I also now avoid USC as this starts to look more like Sports Direct everytime I pass it. I do wonder how long the likes of Diesel will continue to supply USC now Ashley owns them?

The cheap Lidl one has finally chosen to hack me off enough to start looking for a new one.

Same here, so 3 weeks ago I bought a Park Tools PCS9 from Amazon for £69.

Comparing the stands are like chalk and cheese.

And others

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intense-951-FRO-DH-bike-/290863311027?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item43b8cde8b3

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2011-SPECIALIZED-S-WORKS-STUMPJUMPER-CARBON-29er-LARGE-/290863311088?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item43b8cde8f0

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Moots-Mooto-XZ-29er-Titanium-Mountain-Bike-/400413209909?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item5d3a7cb535

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/COLNAGO-50th-ANNIVERSARY-/290863311006?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item43b8cde89e

Love the description on the Moots

This bicycle was built in June of 2010. I am only selling because I am getting a pro-deal ?team bike? from my sponsor. I would say that this Moots ?dream bike? is best suited to someone 5?10? or larger! The suspension is ideal for a heavier, X games aggressive rider. ll be happy to answer any and all questions about this bicycle and also ?show? the bicycle locally, if you happen to be in Ottawa

The genuine contact listing in the business details section shows a different email address

Business seller information
Tesco Outlet
Field of Dreams
Olympus Court,
Swansea Vale
Swansea
SA7 0AQ
United Kingdom

Phone:01792 761820
Email:theteam@tesco-outlet.co.uk
VAT number: GB 220430231

I think Tesco might like to know their account has been hacked (assuming the Tesco account is actually genuine)…

Looking at the other items for sale, it looks like the genuine Tesco’s.

I guessing someone has hacked their account, placed the ad and will scam someone.

The other issue is the use of drugs not sanctioned for use within the human food chain

So Contador was innocent after all 😉

if you can’t trust them on the meat what else can’t you trust them on?

I was just having this very conversation with my wife. So how many food (not just meat) manufacturers are mis-labelling their products? It does make you wonder.

What about this Sierra Cosworth

I’ve been trawling through this thread and before it goes overboard, the OP gets offered 80 squid and he doesn’t even mullet over! I think that is quite shellfish. Although as the buyer is new to eBay, that could indicate that he is up to somefin fishy and if you did shell it to him, you really could get stuck between a rock and a hard plaice.

The reason they need £10K is because the vehicle has depreciated significantly within the first year and they don’t want to loose money.

For example (These are just made up figures):

Say you Contract Hire a new vehicle over 48 months. The cost of that vehicle is say £10000 new excl VAT. The finance company work out a future value for the vehicle. Lets call that £4000. They then deduct the £4000 from the £10000 and they then build in their profit margin (There are no interest charges on Contract Hire). Lets call the profit a £1000.

So your vehicle would cost you £10000 less £4000 plus £1000 = £7000 divided by the term = approximately £146 per month. Now after one year you decide you want out of the agreement. You have paid 15 payments at £146 (£2190). The vehicle is worth say £7000 (today). The contract hire company would add your payments so far and the current value (So £9190 in total) and then they would deduct that from the amount they needed back £11,000 (£10000 plus their £1000 profit).

So they need £11000 but you have only paid £9190, so you would then need to pay £1810 to get out of the Contract Hire early.

OP – Ask Volkswagen Finance what they have valued the vehicle at (excl VAT)? Work out what you have paid back so far (excl VAT)? Add the two amounts together and at a guess this figure is likely to be £10,000 less than the original vehicle cost (Again excl VAT). That will be why they want £10k from you.

As the vehicle is Contract Hire you CAN’T sell it or transfer it. The vehicle was bought by Volkswagen Finance and they are hiring it to you. It is not your vehicle, you have just signed into a long term hire agreement. Contact Hire should be viewed as a rental agreement over years rather than weeks or days.

I’m guessing that you signed up to a 4 year Contract Hire agreement and the only way to get out of the agreement is to get Volkswagen Finance to value the vehicle, they will then work out what you would need to pay plus the vehicle to close the agreement.

We pay cash and it seems it’s no longer “king”. Too many kick backs from the finance company.

TBH cash has never been seen as “king”. It is only consumers that see it that way.

The commissions a dealer will earn are relatively small in the scheme of the whole business.

The reasons dealers want you to fund with them are:
A) Most dealers have forecourts full of cars and dealers don’t have pockets full of cash to buy these cars. They tend to use finance company stocking plans. Therefore the more customers they introduce to a finance company the better their negotiation position as to what interest rate the finance company charges them for their stock cars.
B) These days customer loyalty is “King” and customers who finance are more likely to repurchase again from the same dealer. I believe that 30% plus of customers who finance through the dealer buy again from the same dealer, where as less than 5% of cash customers buy from the same dealer on their next purchase. So a finance customer is 6 times more likely to buy from the same dealer again!
C) Loyalty and renewals are so important that some of the dealers within the BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Audi use Chrysalis renewals software. This software estimates your cars current value and it estimates your settlement figure. When the software calculates that the customer is in a position of equity, the dealer will ring you up with a good news story (ie you can change your car today for a similar monthly payment, with no deposit).
D) Many manufacturers offer free or subsidised service plans when you take finance. Again this is about keeping you in their business. If you go back and have your car serviced you are having more “touch points” with the dealer and again you are more likely to purchase from them again. If you don’t take finance and therefore if you don’t get the free service plan, you could go anywhere to get your car serviced.
E) 80% of customers who buy cars from franchised dealers buy their car with borrowed money. Whether that is dealer finance, bank loan, remortgage, direct lenders (Tesco, Sainsburys etc). So as 4 in 5 are borrowing the money from somewhere, the dealer might as well try and persuade you to borrow from them rather than somewhere else.
F) They also want you to buy Paint Protection, GAP insurance and other add on’s. If you turn up with £10k for a £10k car you are unlikely to buy any of the add on products. However if you finance you may buy some of the add on products, especially when it may only add £10 or so to your monthly payment.

So yes finance commission is important to dealers, but so is customer loyalty, so are stocking charges and so are service customers. These are the reasons why they want you to fund through them.

Sorry to the original OP, as we seem to have changed the direction of your thread!

Not sure how it will affect the finance industry though, in particular the amount of Commission they will be willing to give to people who sell their products.

And if there is commission claw back from the dealers if the loan is cancelled within 14 days, how much discount are the dealers going to be willing to give based on commission they may not even get.

ROW isn’t an issue with finance companies as the number of customers who exercise their right is less than 1.5%

Taking out finance and paying it off straight away is likely to cost you something around £700 – £1000 in Fees and Compulsory interest on a loan of that amount.

Wrong……if you exercise your “Right to Withdraw” within 14 days of signing the agreement, you only have to pay the interest up until the point that you exercise your “Right to withdraw”. Ie if you notify the finance company within 5 days, you will only pay 5 days interest.

After 14 days your ROW lapses and you then would need to ask for a settlement figure and then you would need to pay the acceptance fees plus interest up until the day you request the settlement, plus 30 days interest. So if you ask for a settlement on day 15 you would pay 45 days interest plus the fees.

Paying with hard saved cash (or bank transfer, whatever is required, money’s in the bank)

Out of curiosity, why would you want to put your own hard earned savings into a depreciating asset. Why not consider the dealer funding options and keep your hard earns savings in the bank?

Buying at auction is a binding commitment and carries the same legal implications as a signed contract by private treaty. Normally agents/auctioneers will have copies of legal documentation provided by the seller’s solicitors which can be sent to you.

You will need To arrange a mortgage in principal with a bank before buying at auction.

Make sure you have a deposit ready for payment on auction day (Normally 10%), when the contracts are signed. You could lose your 10% deposit if you fail to complete within the time given (normally within 28 working days – I think).

This is how most dealers fund their stock and all this stock will show on HPI. Although you are concerned, I really think you have nothing to worry about. Evans Halshaw are one of the biggest dealer groups in the UK and probably have 1000’s of cars on stocking plans. They will also sell 1000’s of car everyday. So everyday they will be added and taking vehicles off their stocking plans. If you were buying from Bob’s Backstreet Garage, you’d have more reasons to be concerned.

If you go ahead, the best thing to do it to check with HPI in say a week, as the records should hopefully be all updated by then.

However if you are really concerned, I have a very simple solution.

1) Finance the vehicle with the dealership.
2) This way the your finance agreement won’t be opened until the stocking loan is cleared.
3) Once your finance agreement is opened and live, contact the finance company and tell them that you wish to exercise your “Right of Withdrawl”.

You will then have to repay the finance company within 28 days (I think). There will be a slight charge for this but it will be minimal. The finance company can only charge you daily interest up until the day you request the ROW. Ie if you phone them after 5 days, they will charge you 5 days interest. They can also charge you a penalty of up to 28 days interest (So in theory if you ring after 5 days the most you should pay is 33 days interest.)

This will be a small price to pay if you are overly concerned.

After phoning the dealership Evans Halshaw it turns out they are saying the finance will dissappear the minute the car transfers ownership

Although Lombard may update their database immediately, I don’t believe they update the HPI databases immediately. I’m guessing that Lombard will provide a daily data feed to HPI, which will update their records.

and there is a new model on the way

This will have an impact on future residual values of the outgoing model

the Volvo was predicted to be worth around £12k after 60k miles and three years

Again the outgoing model but the residuals are always set conservatively and they normal quote a figure which is around 85% of the predicted future value. So in theory the true trade value is 3 years is more likely to be £14k ish.

This got my interest. Then checking the official Volvo used car page, it was displaying similar models but perhaps even older for about 6-8k more than its own predicted residual price!!

I suspect that the current model has a trade value today of somewhere between £16K and £18k. The dealer would advertise the vehicle for around £2000 more than the trade price. If they then sold the car for the advertised price, they would have to pay VAT of £400, the vehicle preparation costs could be around £500 (servicing, removing dents, etc). The buyers will also expect more for their part exchange than it is really worth (Called an over allowance), and this could be another £500 deducted from the profit. So although the dealer might start with £2000, they then have to deduct the above and they could be left with say £600 profit. And that is before the Sales person is paid any commission.

The other thing to consider is that some of the vehicles that are £8k more than the predicted residual you mention, could also have a couple of thousand pounds worth of extras and the dealer will try and sell these vehicles for more because of the extras.

Dealers make more money on 2nd-hand cars than on new, or so I’m told.

True. Dealers make very little if anything from new sales as they are chasing manufacturer targets etc. In fact one of the reasons they may use the likes of drive the deal is just to get volume and then hope that they hit their quarterly or annual target. Risky as if they fail to hit that target, they may not get any bonuses and they may already have sold the vehicles at a loss. If it wasn’t for used car sales, i suspect many businesses would go out of business fairly quickly.

This was a pizza delivery guy

Let’s just hope his insurance covers him for using the car at work then…

You will be able to claim against the third party’s insurer. The fact that he/she may be in breach of his/her policy conditions will not affect you. Exclusions of indemnity to damage caused would only affect the other person’s rights to claim for damage to their vehicle.

For example: if a drink driver hits your car, their insurer would pay for damage to your vehicle but would not cover the damage to their clients vehicle. I can’t remember the legal term/name but insurers have a statutory duty/obligation to cover 3rd parties, when their client has caused the damage. Although they will probably try every which way they can, to get out of making a payment!

Sounds to me that the letter is coming from a no win no fee solicitor? If the claim was coming from the claimants insurance company, surely they would just contact your mum’s insurer directly?

FWIW – she must get her insurance company to dispute this false claim. My wife had an accident on the M3, in the morning rush hour in September 2006. The traffic was more or less stationary and she lightly rolled into a Honda CRV in front but the cars no more than kissed each other! There was no damage to her car and “no visible damage” to the Honda. They exchanged details and went on their way. Months later my wife heard from her insurer that they had paid out over £8000. My wife didn’t ask what this related too, but at no point did her insurer contact her to confirm her side of events. Unfortunately that claim against her, has meant she has been paying stupid premiums ever since.

Anybody who adds dot com to an adjective……….aaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh

For example
knackered.com
Bored.com

It’s not cool, it’s not cleaver, it’s just effing annoying.com 😉

I was talking to my mate about nuclear missiles and the Cold War threat. We were talking about the 4 minute warning etc, My mates wife then joined in the conversation and after we explained to her what nuclear weapons were, panic set in and she asked if the Government know about these missiles?

We have all heard this story but I genuinely worked with a women in the early 1990’s, who missed her junction on the M25 and because she knew it was an orbital motorway, she kept going until got to the junction again.

In 2010 I bought a Ragley Mmmbop frame. After riding it for a few months, I had to retire her as she was just too harsh! I think my teeth are still rattling 😉 I sold the frame and with the proceeds (plus some extra cash), I decided to buy another frame. After reading many of the fan-boi threads on here about the Soul, I eventually decided to take the plunge and bought a 2nd hand frame in mid 2011. I didn’t know what to expect and TBH, after my Mmmbop experience I wasn’t expecting much. How wrong could I be. The Soul is a joy to ride (In fact it is way better than I ever expected!). It just suits me. If anything ever happened to her, i would be gutted. Yes i am now a fan-boi and yes whilst it wouldn’t suit everybody, I would certainly recommend the Soul. It’s the bike I ride the most.

From Wikipedia (I know it may not be 100% accurate)

In some usages, the term dinner has continued to refer to the largest meal of the day, even when this meal is eaten at the end of the day and is preceded by two other meals. In this terminology, the preceding meals are usually referred to as breakfast and lunch.

In parts of the rural American South and northern England, the word “dinner” traditionally has been used for the midday meal even if it was a light snack taken to school or work.. The (lighter) meal following dinner has traditionally been referred to as supper or tea, though middle- and northern- English people still often refer to a large evening meal as tea.

Tea.
Who looked after you at school for your midday meal? DINNER ladies!

You’re right P20. Dinner ladies did serve school dinners, which were my main cooked meal of the day. Back in the 80’s I would then have tea in the evening, which was normally a light meal. As an adult, I now have my cooked main meal in the evening.

Where do I buy a sledge?

Try your LSS 😉

1) Any DHB merino base layer. I’ve got 2 Icebreaker merino base layers that are still going strong after 7 and 3 years. DHB merino seems to last a matter of months before holes start appearing everywhere. I bought one around Christmas 2011 and I sent it back in June last year. Wiggle replaced it but the replacement is even worse. It looks like the moths have been at it! Note to self: Stick with Icebreaker.

2) Endura Humvee’s shorts – Just rubbish, which is weird considering I love the Endura Singlestrack shorts and the discontinued Endura Burner shorts.

3) Fox Livewire Jersey – I bought one of these in summer of 2009 or 2010. I spent every ride sweating like a rapist and the jersey held all the sweat (I would have been better off wearing a bin liner). I sold it on eBay after 6 weeks for a £5 less than I’d paid for it. If you need a cheap but decent summer jersey buy the Endura Humvee (Odd when their shorts are rubbish).

As we are now a more transient society than we a couple of generations ago, I do wonder if over time whether the stronger more dominant accents will start to spread out from the current areas, to the extent where we eventually end up with one or two dialects for the whole of the UK?

Out if curiosity why do most people not hear foreign English dialects? For example when talking to an American or Australian why do we only tend to hear an American or Australian accent? Would somebody from Perth have a totally different accent from somebody in Sydney. Would somebody from Florida sound different from somebody in Iowa and why is that difference not that noticeable to us?

I’m a medium in most things, but always size down for Endura. Medium Humvees are a bit “it ain’t half hot mum” on me

Just to confuse things. I’m a medium in most thing but I need to size up for Endura. 34 inch waist but need Large Humvee’s and Singletrack’s. Infact the popper on my Humvee’s normally pops open whilst riding! ;-(

add to the pot self employed, ‘company directors’ etc who will be able to ‘account’ their way around it.

I was talking to my mate about this before Christmas. He is a MD of his own company and pays himself £70k per year in salary. His wife is on the payroll and gets £10k per year for admin, but she has never been near his office. They have 4 kids, so I guess the loss to them could be significant. To ensure they don’t lose, his wife will become the Company Secretary and get a salary increase and he will take a salary drop to £50k.

The double benefit here is, that they will also see an increase in their take home salary. He currently pays 40% tax on the £20k that he will transfer to his wife but she will only pay standard rate, when she starts earning it. So for arguments sake he will pay roughly (excl NI) £8k tax on the £20k he earns but once his wife takes that part of his salary, she will pay roughly £4k. So as a family they will be £4k better off and retain their family allowance. The cost to their business be be nil, but HMRC will lose out.

So win/win for him.