Dealer ’s Diary
Peter Simpson provides us with an insight into the automotive sales trading world – and beyond.
► I’ve just replaced my other half ’s 2010 Kia Sorento with another; there isn’t really anything wrong with it, in fact for a 12-year-old Kia with 125,000 on the clock, it drove pretty well. It was also a presentable and reliable-enough old thing, served us well as a family-wagon, and during August covered nearly 3000 miles in around four weeks for our annual holiday. In fact, we’d probably have kept it for another year or so were it not for a stunning 2014 top-spec example coming our way at a price too good to pass up.
However, driving Old Sorento and New Sorento in succession revealed that Old Sorento had got a slightly noisy back axle. It wasn’t severe; as I say it wasn’t until I drove another that I really noticed it at all and Sarah and I had both been driving it daily, including on regular 150-200 mile round trips. It was also a whine rather than knocking sound, and, I’m sure, been exactly the same throughout our ownership – the sort of thing which will probably carry on as it is more-or-less indefinitely. A noise like that could also probably be considered normal wear and tear for a car of the age and miles. But then again, any axle on 125k could fail at any time.
The problem, though, is dealing with something like this in a selling situation – it’s only right and proper to make people aware of it, and in a trading situation there is almost certainly a legal obligation to do so. It’s especially important in an online-selling, and I include in that person-to-person sales where the initial contact is online – it really isn’t fair to expect someone to come out and view a car which has an issue like this, without first making them aware of something they’ll almost certainly notice when they come anyway.
But how do you present it? Many people describe pret
