Dodgy dodgem dealings

Before I retired in 2011, I worked for ten years as a car salesman, seven of which were at a Vauxhall main dealer.

When the first scrappage scheme was brought out we were all under the impression that we would be seeing plenty of old bangers as part exchanges, and we did see a lot of cars that shouldn’t really have been on the road.

One chap had acted quickly, going out and buying half a dozen proper wrecks that had no value but were MoT’d for longer than six months. These were then registered by different family members and as the required six months ownership period arrived he turned up with each one to organise the deal for them. The paperwork was impeccable and each of his relatives turned a £75 scrap car into £2k. This was neatly done but wasn’t really in the spirit of the scheme, as the whole plan was to take old polluting vehicles off the road and these vehicles were not really on the road, they were scrap cars with MoTs.

On the flipside there were some very nice one owner cars that probably had a £1k value at the time which were

also traded in. I distinctly remember an early Volkswagen Golf that was absolutely mint, but that went for scrap, too. It is at this point that Vauxhall needs to take additional measures to stop these good cars from being wrecked before they go off to Autogreen.

The young salesmen at my branch had no sense of respect or value for these immaculate cars and took great pleasure in playing dodgems with them in the part exchange parking area, damaging good panels, smashing lights and windows.

There was a lack of control from the managers who had no respect for the value of the body parts either. Classic car body panels are also worth saving!

Martin James Wild, Todmorden, West Yorkshire