Autotrader searches

Autotrader searches

Author
Discussion

clockworks

Original Poster:

6,111 posts

152 months

Wednesday 3rd April
quotequote all
I've been looking on Autotrader to see if I can spot some of these "bargain" EVs that are apparently flooding the market.

Because of where I live - far west of Cornwall - I tend to search by distance.

I'm finding that I see very few cars actually being sold by dealers that have them on their local forecourt.
Swamped by cars from national chains (Cinch, Arval) and manufacturer approved used/online sales (VW, Volvo, Ford, Mercedes, etc.).

Makes searching for physical cars that I can look at locally a right pain.

Mr Tidy

24,258 posts

134 months

Wednesday 3rd April
quotequote all
Your location is always going to limit the local options.

Especially as I imagine a lot of them will be cars moved on at the end of PCP/lease deals so tend to end up with those sort of dealers.

And perhaps they wouldn't get to Cornwall on one charge!

Good luck finding what you want, but I think you might need to be willing to travel.

cj2013

1,409 posts

133 months

Wednesday 3rd April
quotequote all
Yes, I find this annoying too.

The results are flooded with cars that aren't actually anywhere near you, but "could be" if you wanted them to.

I have no idea how you're supposed to test drive with Cinch - assuming you're just supposed to do it like clothes shopping online and return stuff if you don't fancy it

S366

1,096 posts

149 months

Wednesday 3rd April
quotequote all
It’s because most used dealers won’t touch EV’s, I’m ‘in the trade’ myself and nearly all the dealers I know won’t touch them, so WBAC won’t send them to BCA as they’ll get low bids and likewise for the main dealers who take them in part-ex.
It’s mainly down to the fast depreciation on them, many dealers have cars on stocking finance and can’t risk having cars in stock that can depreciate fast and end up owing more than retail, this also means that finance companies have very low residual values on them so PCP costs are high, which again makes most dealers not want to have them in stock.
I actually know of one guy whose business was previously very successful, but last year(after trying to focus on EV’s), he had so many of them losing value too quickly(they were on stocking finance), the business went bankrupt.

clockworks

Original Poster:

6,111 posts

152 months

Thursday 4th April
quotequote all
I appreciate that there probably aren't that many dealers locally holding EV stock, and that most will be coming off lease further away from me.

When I searched by distance, I got a few at the local VW dealer, then 9 pages of Cinch cars, then a couple at Volvo and Ford dealers, then several pages of Arval stock. The Ford and Volvo dealers were also showing dozens of Mach E and EX30 available in their networks, as well as physical stock

I discovered that I could hide the Cinch cars by typing "-cinch" into the keyword box.

Rayny

1,398 posts

208 months

Thursday 4th April
quotequote all
clockworks said:
I appreciate that there probably aren't that many dealers locally holding EV stock, and that most will be coming off lease further away from me.

When I searched by distance, I got a few at the local VW dealer, then 9 pages of Cinch cars, then a couple at Volvo and Ford dealers, then several pages of Arval stock. The Ford and Volvo dealers were also showing dozens of Mach E and EX30 available in their networks, as well as physical stock

I discovered that I could hide the Cinch cars by typing "-cinch" into the keyword box.
Many thanks for that - Cinch and Carsa adverts have made Autotrader such a pain to use.
It works if you do not use the quotation marks.

clockworks

Original Poster:

6,111 posts

152 months

Thursday 4th April
quotequote all
Rayny said:
Many thanks for that - Cinch and Carsa adverts have made Autotrader such a pain to use.
It works if you do not use the quotation marks.
Yes, without the quotation marks