Jagwhar

A recent panic regarding a pressing need for a tax disc for an ex motability car (hence unable to be taxed locally) and our driver snowbound saw me beetling up the dual carriageway to the nearby city one morning to visit the DVLA office and obtain said tax disc for a car which was due out later that day. The DVLA office is situated in the middle of a huge retail estate that also houses what must be almost every car marque currently available. Our group has four different franchises there alone!

Tax disc obtained it was time to leave, but a dicey combination of the bitter cold and middle aged plumbing left me in need of what I believe our American cousins refer to as a “comfort stop”. Unfortunately the only public facilities were a couple of miles in the wrong direction, but no matter, I had a cunning plan. I’d simply pop into a nearby car dealership on the auspices of picking up a brochure, and nip into the gents whilst I was there. Of course since brochures are free I had the run of pretty much any car make in existence to choose from so decided to go for a combination of nearness (I’m not getting any younger and pressing needs become ever more pressing with age) and prestige.

Just across the road I spied a Jaguar dealership. That’d do nicely.

Jaguar have come a long way even in the last few years. This once great marque was seen as close to the pinnacle of prestige many years ago, the chairman’s car, the prime ministers personal transport. But a combination of British Leyland influence (and build quality) in the eighties and bad product planning in the nineties (who on earth believed the X Type was a good idea) saw Jaguar limp bleeding into the noughties with an image that was more Arfur Daley and golf club wannabe than boardroom chic. Yes the prime minister still uses one, but Trousers Down Brown is hardly the ad exec’s dream brand ambassador.

Non the less I’ve always had a soft spot for dear old Jag, and I delight in their recent return to form with the cool and delightfully detailed XF and the Aston Martinesque XK. I hear they’re dropping the Jag wannabe X Type too, and I have very high hopes for the forthcoming XJ, a car that finally buries the whiff of tweed and pipe smoke forever.

I parked the company Fiesta (which, incidentally, has rather disappointingly stopped being vivid green and seems to have turned blue and sprouted an extra pair of doors) and pushed open the heavy glass showroom door. I was greeted politely by an immaculately coiffured salesman in an expensive suit and proper watch who enquired if he could be of assistance? I asked whether they had the brochure of the new XJ yet as my father had requested I pick one up for him. I did this for two reasons, firstly so that he wouldn’t want to take my details as a potential contact or engage me in conversation about the car (time and bladder were pressing), and secondly in case he’d clocked the Fiesta. I’d have hated for him to think I was some kind of timewaster who’d just popped in for a brochure and to use the loo’s…

Whilst he went to find me a brochure I popped to the loo and, mission accomplished, returned to the showroom. Our man from Jag had my glossy XJ marketing material all ready so I thanked him, bade him goodbye, and headed for the door. As I got there I stopped and took a last long reflective gaze at the beautifully furnished showroom, the glitteringly expensive cars, the church-like hush and the deep buttoned leather sofas that surrounded the expensive looking coffee table in the customer courtesy area.

And I thought “Hmmmm…”

PS. XJ Portfolio 3.0 V6 diesel, long wheelbase, in Lunar Grey, Cashew leather seats with Truffle contrast stitch and piping, Jet softgrain dash upper (anything too light just reflects in the windscreen on sunny days) and Canvas headlining, with Satin American Walnut veneers, and embossed Leaper on the headrests. 19″ Aleutian wheels, Bowers & Wilkins 1200w premium sound system, heated and cooled massaging seats front and rear, heated steering wheel with remote controls, adaptive front headlights, rear parking camera, DAB radio and digital television.

Cracking Kerridge.

I did it, finally I did it!!

Did a deal with a customer, sat down to do the inevitable paperwork, and got stuck into the dreaded Kerridge computer system fully expecting to grind to a halt and seek help. But as I filled in boxes and activated “Wizards” to choose sales options and ploughed on through it all gradually came together. Finally I finished on the operating screen with the customers details in, car details in, part exchange car details in, deposit taken, balance showing, right car figures showing, all in the right places and adding up. Scarcely able to believe my luck I tentatively hit “print”. And a perfect completed order form rolled off the printer like the answer to a million prayers.

Resisting the temptation to pull my shirt up over my head footballer stylie and run around the showroom holding the sacred document over my head and screaming I slid it in front of the customer for his signature before flourishing my own on the document and giving him a copy. Job done.

Well, job done apart from all the other paperwork of taking the deposit, creating a receipt, filling it in on the daily banking, doing a HPI check on the p/x, quoting and then proposing the finance, raising the finance paperwork, getting it signed, getting correct proofs of ID for the finance house, faxing the whole lot off to the finance house, getting the deal “confirmed”, raising the invoice and p/x invoice, getting a job card raised for a service and valet, booking the car in for a service and a valet, organising “Diamond Bright” paintwork and interior protection if the customer wants it, organising drive-away insurance, arranging a cheque for it to be taxed, getting fuel put in it, organising the used car warranty, filling in the warranty book, obtaining and preparing the V5, making sure we’ve got a valid MOT certificate (and booking it for one if not), preparing the hand-over sheet, finding the spare key that definitely went with the main key to the service department (and which they definitely did not get), making sure any accessories they wanted or the wheel trim that was missing and we promised would be fitted is there, organising the V5, MOT, and insurance certificate to obtain the tax disc, then later making sure we have finance payout, or taking the balance if no finance, providing another receipt for that, filling that in on the banking, making sure all the receipts go off correctly to HQ, running through the insurance programs we offer, doing the FSA forms to confirm eligibility and prove we’ve offered them, raising the invoice and paperwork for any of the programs they do want, running through all the paperwork with the owner, a full handover of the car with the owner making sure they’re happy with all of the operations, and finally making sure all the relevant paperwork goes off for archiving and that I have copies of it for my records of course.

Naturally that all applies only to used car sales. New car sales are far more complex…

Two days later I sold another and confidently sat down to create another order form. Only to find that despite filling in details of the part exchanged car properly and it appearing on the order form, it resolutely refused to enter the p/x car’s value. After much faffing I finally conceded defeat and sought out a colleague. Turns out there’s an anonymous little section where, if you click it with the mouse, a tick magically appears. Then it links the p/x car’s value to the order form correctly.

G’aaaahhh!!!!

So far, so good.

As Christmas approaches and life slows a little in the car sales world I come to you in a contemplative mood tonight. We’re still shifting metal but the joys of Christmas preparations are clearly taking their time and toll on potential punters and we’re finding a little slack in the day, which is rather nice actually. Time to slow down and take stock.

So where are we at? Or more specifically, where am I at?

Well I seem to be finding my groove, slotting in. The thick fog of admin is starting to become a little clearer, not gone completely but more of a light mist with fog patches these days. I can muddle through most of it with little intervention. The computerised customer handling/car ordering/deposit taking/finance arranging/order form creating computer system called Kerridge is still proving a complete mystery however. Bits of it I can cope with, some of it I’m positively adroit at, but stringing it all together? No.

The journalism side of things rumbles on at it’s inexorably slow rate, but I did finally get to do that review, complete with photographer and engineer so who knows, if The Editor likes what I throw together it could yet prove to be a catalyst for future options. We shall see.

That Saab convertible sadly never came in so I missed out there. Funnily enough I spotted an identical one on the motorway today, could even have been the same one in fact, and it’s such a lovely looking car. But I’m a big believer in fate and I guess it wasn’t to be. Probably too soon to be thinking about such toys anyway so hey ho, onward and upward, maybe next year.

The Blonde is still very much in evidence, more so than ever in fact. It feels almost like a proper grown up relationship, a novelty for me but in a very good and positive way. She is of course more beautiful, wise, kind, supportive and warmhearted than ever. (Hello Al!) And she’s keeping the Polite Hatchback clean despite the filthy weather, bless her! We’re even spending Christmas together, awww…

Other than that, all pretty quiet on the Western Front. I’m not a winter person, I prefer to hibernate and wait for spring. Actually I’d prefer to jet out to Sandy Lane or Necker Island for the winter months, but I may have to find something just a tad more rewarding than car sales before I’m able to make that a reality.

But as we drift quietly toward Christmas I have to report that after what can best be described as an “interesting” year the vibe generally is good. Whilst not quite the dream ticket, life at Ford is proving comfortable and financially supportive, and good place to hide and ride out the financial turbulence that I fear hasn’t buffeted it’s last yet, and I think if nothing else it will prove a good move for the future.

I’m sure next year will be the start of fresh challenges and adventures and a blog full of rants, raves, and raconteurs, but for the moment I’m feeling mellow, settled, happy and generally at peace with the world.

So it just remains for me to thank you for all your support and good wishes this year, it really has been and still is genuinely appreciated.

And wish you all a very happy Christmas.

Idiot lights.

Arriving at work one bitterly cold day this week my early morning reverie was shattered by a phone call from an anxious customer. It seemed she’d been startled that same morning by a warning light that had mysteriously appeared on her dashboard. Was it ok to continue to drive the car, should she book it in to be checked?

I was about to politely transfer her to the service department and return to my early morning contemplation of life, the universe, and everything when I had a sudden suspicion. Could she describe the light to me, I wondered? Was there anything a little different about it?

Why, yes there was now I mentioned it, she reported. It wasn’t a usual round lamp, it had a jagged edge. A little like a snowflake in fact. What could it possibly mean?

“Simple my dear lady, it means you’re too stupid to own a car. Please sell it at once and catch the bus from now on” I replied. In my head. I smiled down the phone and gently explained to her that there was no cause for alarm, it was simply the “frost alert” that triggered below five degrees centigrade to warn the driver of the possibility of ice on the road.

There’s always one I mused, replacing the handset.

An hour later a chap dropped in. He was on holiday, didn’t have his handbook in the car, was concerned about a mysterious warning light that had appeared on the dash of his C-Max.

It seems that there is in fact more that one…

Lead us not into…

It wasn’t even our dealership. Another company within the group had a customer local to us who was interested in a new car, and they were sending one up for him to see and so that they could have a look at his. Nothing for us to do except introduce them to one another and leave them to it.

I thought no more of it until a low sleek Saab 93 Aero Cabriolet swept onto the forecourt just after the new car had arrived.

Now everyone has their predilections. Some people like art, others are into fine dining or malt whiskies or horse racing or expensive watches (ahem) or foot worship. Hey, whatever floats your boat.

But I like, and I mean really like open top cars. And for strange and unexplained reasons perhaps linked to some bizarre childhood experience involving Swedish furniture I’ve always had a soft spot for Saab Convertibles.

This one was a classic looking 2002 car with only 48,000 miles. Silver with a blue soft top, full leather, air conditioning and the essential heated seats, I could hear it calling me softly from the other side of the plate glass showroom window.

I tried to put it out of my mind, I’ve only been with the company eight weeks, far too early to be spending money on expensive and unnecessary toys. (Yes alright Al, far too early to be spending money on any more expensive and unnecessary toys).

I made a quick call to the sales manager of the other dealership, was it coming in part exchange, any idea how much? Maybe, and not too mad a price.

Half an hour later I watched it glide quietly back out. I can’t, I mustn’t, I shan’t, I won’t.

Probably.

Just like Oscar Wilde, I can resist everything except temptation…

Death and taxes.

They burst through the door in a noisy explosion of pushchairs, Primark and under fives. Seems she’d just dropped her fourth and they needed a bigger motor. A brand new twenty two grand S-Max people carrier fits the bill rather well they’d decided, very nice too.

The finance appraisal was revealing. She didn’t work, he’d been working a few months as a building labourer, part time mind, don’t want to overdo these things. House all provided for them, naturally.

The new S-Max was out of reach, but a nice four year old low mileage model was within their monthly budget. At late twenties and with a couple of their kids happily destroying the showroom behind their oblivious parents I couldn’t help rather bitterly musing that maybe they were only another sprog and a nice ADHD carers allowance away from that new S-Max after all.

Those who’ve been with this blog from the beginning will recall my ruminating on the benefit system in this country before. It seems to me that very quickly into adulthood (and sometimes before) you’re designated a giver, or a taker. Either you relax into a warm bath of benefits, council houses and kids, and reward yourself with a shiny ten grand S-Max once you pass four sprogs, or you get labeled a worker bee and you get out there and you earn and you pay and you pay and you earn. And you pay. After all, someone has to keep the system afloat.

I had good reason to reflect on this a day or two after the S-Max family. Twenty five years of giving had entitled me to the princely sum of £64/week and a bit of help with the council tax when I lost my job. Not enough to finance a pair of roller skates. Or live on. Pretty clear which category I fall into.

Indeed, over my nearly six month period of unemployment I was able to claim the princely sum of precisely £1,240-08. A rather exact figure, but there’s a good reason why I know this. And it’s because a day or two after the S-Max family were in choosing their new wheels I received a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions.

It seems that now I’m back to my rightful place on the treadmill they’d like some of it back please. And to that end they’ve informed me that the entire amount is now liable for income tax and will be added to my earnings for the purposes of claiming it back from me.

A rough calculation suggests that £385 will be clawed back. Over a quarter of it! Absolutely staggering!!!

And bear this in mind, I’m earning much less than I was. Had I secured a job at my previous pay-scale I could have been taxed on some or all of it at 40%!

Still, I suppose someone has to keep the takers in fags, booze, satellite TV’s and five figure motorcars.

Benjamin Franklin once postulated that “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

He was right. Especially about the taxes.

Innit.

Contestant ready!?

Remember Gladiators? Brilliant series screened in the early ’90s and more recently re-created on Sky although I understand without the same level of success. For those that haven’t seen it, it was an adversarial game show where members of the public went up against The Gladiators in various battles such as trying to swing via ropes from one platform to another whilst the gladiator tried to intercept and then bring them down. At the end of the show their score was transposed into a head start time in a race against a Gladiator around an indoor assault course, finishing with the dreaded Travelator, which was basically an inclined treadmill like a down escalator without steps which they had to run up. This took real determination as it was running at some speed and they had to outpace it to the top, whilst of course being chased (or chasing) a Gladiator.

Well the last six weeks has felt a little like that Travelator as I’ve raced like mad to try and learn the many and manifold procedures and systems without tripping and falling, sliding straight back down to the bottom again. And in truth that I don’t feel like I’m off it yet, but as things start to come together I’m able to run a little less hard and still feel like I’m making progress.

I’ve also managed a few days off for a mini-break with The Blonde. And boy, did I need them. A couple of nights away at a very lovely hotel by the coast was just what was needed to recharge the batteries, fall back and re-group. I didn’t realise just how very tired I was till I stopped (I think even The Blonde was surprised) but I felt absolutely drained. Fortunately the weather was perfect, strong winds and persistent rain curbed even The Blondes penchant for walking miles and miles, substituting instead a session in the wonderful spa facilities where the welcoming embrace of a heated pool and a wonderful jacuzzi helped sooth shattered mind.

We came home refreshed and renewed and I returned to the metaphorical treadmill reinvigorated.

In truth, car sales isn ‘t that hard. The challenge has been learning a completely new job whilst being thrown in at the deep end to just get on with it, which can be a stressful approach. In particular there seems to be no instructional process, it’s simply a case of muddling through and relying on colleagues for help and guidance which has, I fear, been frustrating for all at times.

So how’s it going? Well, I’m shifting a few cars, both new and used. And I think that once I get properly up to speed it’ll be ok. Whether I see myself doing it for another twenty years is another matter, but for the moment it’s a job and it’s an income and right now that’s paramount.

What I do need to try and do however is up the pressure on the writing side of things. And with that in mind I’ve been in touch with The Editor again to push on with the big test review I’m supposed to be writing. Like everything it’s proving not to be without it’s challenges. But that’s life and yet again we muddle through.

Muddling through, it seems to be the watchword for the moment…

The last rites.

British Racing Green is an evocative colour for an MG convertible. Add black leather to the mix and it’s a smart little fun roadster. The MGF in question had both, and although getting on a bit (it was a T plate so 1999) the mileage was low and condition more than fair. It was the owners pride and joy, she loved that car but needed something more practical and the deal was too good to refuse so it went in p/x against a brand new Fiesta.

I watched the new owners pick the little MG up, lowering the hood before gleefully roaring off up the road to the crisp blare of the mid mounted 1.8 litre engine. I hope they enjoyed that cars run to it’s new home, it’d be its last. They were scrap dealers, the car yet another victim of Gordon Browns innovative scrappage scheme. A “book” p/x price of about £900 for the MG made it a no brainer.

Now don’t get me wrong, we’ve seen some terrible old clunkers go through the system, their appointment at the jaws of the crusher long overdue. But there’s some awful waste going on around it, that MGF just one example of a perfectly good perfectly serviceable motor car being killed in the name of being “green” in the non British Racing sense.

Trouble is, no one’s yet managed to convince me quite how crushing perfectly good cars and replacing them with brand new ones that might use a bit less fuel, but come with all the inherent ecological cost involved with building and delivering a car (remember many of these come by ship from far flung corners of the globe) might be an ecologically good thing. Let’s be honest, it isn’t is it? The green thing to do would be to keep old cars on the road as long as practically possible, not throw them away after ten years and build new ones in their place.

The only real beneficiaries of the scheme are the motor traders, who get a sales boost by being able (with Government “help”) to sell cars to certain people for £2,000 less, and those customers able to benefit. So why not extend the scheme to anyone? Simply offer £2,000 off to anyone who wants to buy a new car. Because if you did that you wouldn’t be creating the forced demand that killing thousands of perfectly serviceable cars creates. Forget the green credentials of this scheme then, it’s a pure money making scheme for the dealers and for the Government.

Money making for the Government? Aren’t they the ones funding the scheme? Well yes. And yet, no. Scrap your perfectly serviceable MGF for the most basic Ford Fiesta for example, and you’ll get a £2,000 scrappage allowance off the circa £11K price tag making it £9K on the road. Now the manufacturer has to fund half of that discount, the government the other half, so Gordon’s only in for a £1,000. And immediately the car is sold they instantly recoup over £1,000 in VAT! Make it a £22K Mondeo and the government is still in for a grand, but with well over two coming straight back! Not daft are they?

So is it a good scheme? By and large yes it is. It doesn’t really cost the government (hence us) anything. The dealers are down a grand on each sale but happy with the increased business. And plenty of happy buyers are sporting about in brand new motors with far more discount than they’d ever have achieved normally.

But as I watched that poor old MG disappear on it’s final journey, paintwork glistening, roof down and exhaust growling, off to join the ranks of perfectly decent cars being destroyed for no real benefit to anyone, I couldn’t help thinking that something somewhere just wasn’t quite right…

Fiscal prudence.

You’re a bank, and you’re about to lend me fifteen thousand pounds to buy myself a brand spanking new motorcar. Which is jolly nice of you.

So what is the one single most important thing you’re going to want to know?

I mean, there are lots of things that are important. You’re going to want to know where I live. How long I’ve lived there. Whether I’ve got a good history of paying my bills and debts. Whether I’ve got a job and how long I’ve had it. All of these things are clearly very relevant.

But what is the one single over-riding concern?

To my mind it’s simple. And it is, can I afford to pay you back? That there is the one fundamental crux that the whole process of lending me a large sum of money that I’m going to pay you back over several years rests on. Without that basic ability to pay then however good my credit rating, however reliable and upstanding I am, I’m simply not able to fulfil my obligation to you.

So if I have a sudden rush of blood to the head and decide I’m going to splash out £15K on a brand new Ford Focus and you’re going to fund it for me the one single most important question has to be how much do I earn, and how much are my normal monthly outgoings? Once you know the answer to those two questions you’ll have a pretty good idea of my physical ability to service my loan to you.

Agreed?

So bearing that in mind, you can imagine how surprised I was whilst proposing a customer for finance (a proposal that was instantly approved and accepted on line with no human intervention by the finance company) to discover that there is absolutely no enquiry into income, and absolutely no enquiry into outgoings.

Technically speaking, if you’re a shelf stacker in Sainsburys (as I nearly was, had there been any jobs going) with your meagre income just about keeping your financial head above water, but you have an excellent credit rating (not hard to achieve) you can walk into a showroom and order a brand new twenty five thousand pound BMW, whack it onto finance and drive off a few days later in your shiny new car.

You won’t be able to afford to pay for it of course, but there’s nothing to stop you doing it should you wish.

And this is the brave new world of prudent responsible finance institutions dedicated to thwarting the years of excess lending that led to the financial meltdown that ended us in the mess we’re currently in.

Good eh?

Deep under cover…

Report to M. London.

Scrambler code #901845.

Report follows:

Have penetrated the innermost sanctum of car sales lair, deep undercover.

Have discovered many secrets and unearthed various plots.

However main mission so far unsuccessful, regret as yet am no nearer to uncovering the ultimate mystery.

Am still unable to discern quite why they insist on displaying cars on the forecourt with the tailgates up.

Will remain undercover until can shed further light on this..

007 out.