Dealer’s Diary

Every option box ticked, including the essential split rear seat (nearly a £500 option), sunroof, sat-nav...

 Could you imagine if it was announced that M&S was responsible for taking back your old underwear once you’d finished with it? What’s more, they then had to re-sell it – at a price you decided? Their share prices would be worthless as the business model would be derided as lunacy. Yet that’s effectively what us car dealers are expected to do time and again. During the corona crisis I got a phone call from a customer I’d sold a car to seven years previously. They’d had their licence taken away for health reasons. Their car had stood unmoved, outside for the past six plus months.

A former colleague of mine is a buyer for one of those firms that will absolutely buy your car. During lockdown he was buying cars for 50% of book, but with the proviso that the cars being offered were both highly desirable and in top nick. Brutally, he was denying the customer the chance to sleep on the offer. Take it now or leave it – hesitation wasn’t an option. Anything but the very best wouldn’t elicit a bid of any insult.

Now I was a lot fairer than that.

This car needed at a couple of boolers, a battery and wipers for the MOT as a minimum. I didn’t know what else it needed – I’d not seen it since selling it – but a full service and valet was a definite. I offered fractionally below mid-book on the basis that it couldn’t be retailed until freedom of movement was allowed again and as I would have to travel to where it was parked-up, there could be other issues lurking which were unseen such as brakes or corrosion.

The customer was taken aback by the price. He’d done his homework and wanted Top Book. Why he couldn’t have told me what he wanted at the start,

I’ve no idea as it would have saved a lot of frustration. His son had told him what it was worth. Which begs the question, why was it my responsibility to take it away and achieve top money and not that of his expert son to do the leg work?

I didn’t know what else it needed – I’d not seen it since selling it – but a full service and valet was a definite…

 Just recently I’ve been smoking around in a Jaguar XF that was about to turn 10-years-old. Let’s get it out here now, I thought I was going to collect a XJ6 (X300 model) from the customer, so the XF was always going to be a disappointment from then on in.

But dear me, did this thing grate on me. OK, let’s be positive, it looked terrific in pale blue metallic with a two-tone tan leather interior. One owner, just 30k, kept in a heated garage, every option box ticked, including the essential split rear seat (nearly a £500 option), sunroof, sat-nav and crucially, a petrol V6 coupled with a 6-speed auto – also equipped with those pointless paddle shifts. The performance was stonking, the gearbox slurring the changes like me on a Friday night and the steering had an electric turn-in.

But its ride joggled dreadfully come the Saturday morning when I was hungover. The S-TYPE was so much better than this. Where was the waft? I’m told the XF was designed for the Autobahn – but this was misguided when XFS don’t go further than the garden centre. This car wasn’t on daft rimz either, with sensible profile tyres. Infuriatingly, the driver’s door fitted where it touched, requiring a hefty slam. It’s not a coincidence that the same factory used to clag the SD1 bodyshells together.

It consumed unleaded at between 19.5mpg when driven with enthusiasm and 20.5 when cantering. So, guess how you drive it, especially given the aforementioned ride? Oh, and the cruise control was as reliable as a politician’s promise. But what about the theatre of those revolving air-vents? What about it? They were stuck open and the aircon had no gas. The sunroof literally broke in its runners when I pushed the button for a breeze of fresh air. The wind noise from it vied with the driver’s door seal for the most roar from then on in.

As the XJ40 had the Randle Handle, so the XF had the revolving gearshift dial that magically elevates out of that deep centre console. But only if the engine is running. Guess who’d reversed it against a neighbour’s garage while they were away? Yip. And guess what happened to the battery, which is located in the boot? It was as flat as my enthusiasm for the car. I couldn’t find an under-bonnet point to jump start it. I couldn’t move it because it was stuck in Park. Nightmare.

Unsurprisingly, I traded it on, I couldn’t face the constant worry of retailing it and then standing for any nightmare electrical or trim faults appearing over the course of the following six months. Give me an old XJ6 reeking of stale Hamlets any day of the week.