Monkey business

I try not to watch any of those TV programmes which feature the buying, selling and repairing of motor vehicles. The fact that these shows are made for light entertainment and to generate money from advertising – as opposed to the sale of the car in question – seems utterly lost on most of the audience.

Take the line I endured the other day. Faced with a wreckage of a swopper in the shape of a second-gen Clio, fit only for scrap and in such a state I’d have been reluctant to actually drive it to Hanratty’s (the scrapyard), I offered a generous £150 for it. This customer, however, was not having it. That’s because he had watched one of these shows on the 50in TV in his living room – a show which had earnestly informed him that any car with a full MOT is worth at least £500.

How do you counteract that kind of reply without sounding churlish? Or telling the punter to contact one of those Z-list celebs via social media to see if they’ll take it off his hands for a monkey? Or indeed, refusing to take it in part-exchange at all?

The otherwise very sound individual was convinced these guys were giving ‘public service broadcasting’. Apparently all one has to do to make money is take a scrapper, stick a ticket on it and pocket the difference. If there was a willing queue of punters with £500 for any old car with a full ticket, then this kid could have struck a deal with one of them. Fortunately, I convinced him of how it is in the real world, and a deal was done.