WHAT THE FUCK???!!!!

[Lpgc]

I think I'd be down there a bit sharpish and withdraw my caravan in case the land and property thereon was siezed by bayliffs or criminal investigators.

I didn't mention this in my post on the subject but I've been through today and moved my caravan from where it was onto the new guys area (which as said was originally part of the old business). Met the new guy (one of the partners) who seems straight up, but obviously conmen do seem straight up or they wouldn't be very good at being conmen. They/ he does seem to be spending some money on the new site and is apparently putting a new key entry system on a new entrance. The place is filling up rapidly with caravans and motorhomes, some expensive equipment in there (not my caravan lol).

Yesterday he told me it was the same £500 per year storage fee, but today after moving my caravan he said he'd send me the payment details by phone txt message for me to pay when I got back home. The txt message says the new fee is £550 and gives an email address to forward a copy of my caravan insurance to... I haven't paid or replied to the txt message yet.

A problem with moving it would be it was a chore to find a storage yard in the first place. I originally stored it very locally but that storage yard closed down so I had to move it at the end of the contract and I struggled then to find anywhere else to store it.

New place Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572453990698 . The old place where I originally had my caravan stored can be seen towards the left of the picture on the Facebook page, there was always direct access (via a gate between them) and the new place was always part of / associated with the old place, but now they're saying different deals with the landowner etc...

 

[Highway Dave]

Loads of space in the yard here but there's always several cars, my boat, etc, and I need to keep enough free space for more cars / customer cars that I'm converting to LPG... So I store my big caravan in a fairly local caravan storage yard.

Yesterday I received a phone call from a fella who said the storage yard had gone bust, he had no association with the storage yard but he (and his business partner) were setting up a storage yard on adjacent land.. This is land that I know used to be part of / associated with the storage yard where my caravan was stored. He said I had until the end of this week to remove my caravan. I paid £500 to store it there for a year in around April or May time last year, so to me this meant I'd lost 2 or 3 months worth of the £500 annual fee and had the inconvenience of trying to find somewhere else to store it... So I asked since he was opening a caravan storage yard next door to where I'd stored mine, if I could simply move it to his storage yard (on land that I knew was associated / part of really) from the yard where mine was. He said that would be find but since he had no association with the old owner I'd need to pay the fees again now instead of in April / May.

The bloke who called me seemed very upfront and accommodating but still you think he could be a conman, so this morning I phoned the business that is/was the caravan storage yard where it was already stored, the one that I'd been told had gone bust and spoke to the owner. He told me a sob story about how he'd been 'done over' by the landowner and was out of pocket by £190k (which was supposed to be his pension pot) due to the landowner pulling the rug out from under his business. I queried how he was £190k out of pocket, he explained this by saying that 20 years ago when he took the land on it was on a gentlemen's agreement type basis so he had no contract for the land lease and at that point (20 years ago) he'd spent £190k doing the place up to make it fit to store caravans on after the council had claimed it was contaminated land that he needed to clean up. He said he very much regretted not being able to return any full or part storage fees that people had paid him because he was out of pocket himself, and that he felt terrible that some people had paid £500 in November and effectively lost their money because of the situation. He also said that his security guard / gateman was dying and he was the only person who had all the records, so he couldn't even phone all his customers to explain the situation and ask them to remove their caravans. Immediately after my phone call with him it occurred to me that I should have done my homework first and checked to see if anyone else was talking about the storage yard going bust, and during my search a link appeared to Company House, I clicked on the link and found they were insolvent in May 2024... If they were insolvent in May 2024 it begs the question why they (he) were still accepting payment from customers knowing that they probably wouldn't be able to honour the caravan storage part of the deal because their landowners would be kicking them off doesn't it?

So to me there is something very fishy about this. I was originally concerned the fella who phoned me yesterday (the new storage yard owner) might have been a conman, now I'm wondering if both the original storage yard owner and the new owners might be in on something fishy together (get customers to pay twice for the same thing). If the new owners bought the old owners business then they should take on any existing debts and honour existing contracts? The original owner should repay people who still have storage time that they paid for remaining, it doesn't wash that he says he has no money when he was still taking payments for contracts he couldn't honour after going insolvent?

I didn't mention this in my post on the subject but I've been through today and moved my caravan from where it was onto the new guys area (which as said was originally part of the old business). Met the new guy (one of the partners) who seems straight up, but obviously conmen do seem straight up or they wouldn't be very good at being conmen. They/ he does seem to be spending some money on the new site and is apparently putting a new key entry system on a new entrance. The place is filling up rapidly with caravans and motorhomes, some expensive equipment in there (not my caravan lol).

Yesterday he told me it was the same £500 per year storage fee, but today after moving my caravan he said he'd send me the payment details by phone txt message for me to pay when I got back home. The txt message says the new fee is £550 and gives an email address to forward a copy of my caravan insurance to... I haven't paid or replied to the txt message yet.

A problem with moving it would be it was a chore to find a storage yard in the first place. I originally stored it very locally but that storage yard closed down so I had to move it at the end of the contract and I struggled then to find anywhere else to store it.

New place Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572453990698 . The old place where I originally had my caravan stored can be seen towards the left of the picture on the Facebook page, there was always direct access (via a gate between them) and the new place was always part of / associated with the old place, but now they're saying different deals with the landowner etc...

Do you think it could simply be a delboy/rodney type ploy wherein the old business continues under new name/management etc
The £50 extra and customers loosing out on what it’s cost them is kind of an added bonus
In other words, a bit of a legal con

 

[Elgraman]

Bizarre

1. In September, I went to the VW dealership and asked what grade of oil they put in the up! gti, AT THEIR OWN PLACE, as the digital service record says it was serviced their before sale.

2. They gave me a generic print out, saying the up! gti uses 0w-20 (I thought it might be this or 5w-30, going by forum talk. Manual's useless)

3) I asked a mechanic on that day, and he confirmed 0w-20


4) Noticed today the oil is halfway between low and high on the dipstick. Okay of course but thought I'd better have the top up oil

5) Rang up parts, as I wanted to get the VAG 1L 0W-20. The parts guy says hold it, it's 0w-30 it uses. He says it says that what it needs on the computer. I said to him about the print out I had (now thrown out), and how I checked backstage with a mechanic. He's still adamant it's not 0w-20

6) Asked him if it'd matter (small VAG 0w-30 top up if VAG 0W-20 is in it). Says he don't know

7) Can't proceed at all until he sees his boss tomorrow.

 

[WhatsThisFor]

£720 per year on a C63 V8 AMG - 2013

FFS - Thats that then.

 

[Yasawas]

£720 per year on a C63 V8 AMG - 2013

FFS - Thats that then.

That’s nothing to a man of your means

You must make that an hour on your Only Fans

 

[LeStempy]

He earns EOC commission on a per post basis so a drop in the ocean.

 

[WhatsThisFor]

That’s nothing to a man of your means

You must make that an hour on your Only Fans

I haven't worked since November, i have to make rational decisions, i was going to swallow the sub 10 miles to a Fiver£ as it was a weekend treat vehicle, but then he mentioned the road tax.

 

[WhatsThisFor]

He earns EOC commission on a per post basis so a drop in the ocean.

That is a contentious issue and we have both been warned not to mention PPP or we will be starting afresh on MumsNet.

 

[Yasawas]

Rational doesn’t suit you!!

 

[Gwilo365]

£720 per year on a C63 V8 AMG - 2013

FFS - Thats that then.

There's another large dollop of Ying for ya....

 

[Lpgc]

Do you think it could simply be a delboy/rodney type ploy wherein the old business continues under new name/management etc
The £50 extra and customers loosing out on what it’s cost them is kind of an added bonus
In other words, a bit of a legal con

Yes that thought did occur early on to me too mate.

But what to do....

 

[Lpgc]

Bizarre

1. In September, I went to the VW dealership and asked what grade of oil they put in the up! gti, AT THEIR OWN PLACE, as the digital service record says it was serviced their before sale.

2. They gave me a generic print out, saying the up! gti uses 0w-20 (I thought it might be this or 5w-30, going by forum talk. Manual's useless)

3) I asked a mechanic on that day, and he confirmed 0w-20


4) Noticed today the oil is halfway between low and high on the dipstick. Okay of course but thought I'd better have the top up oil

5) Rang up parts, as I wanted to get the VAG 1L 0W-20. The parts guy says hold it, it's 0w-30 it uses. He says it says that what it needs on the computer. I said to him about the print out I had (now thrown out), and how I checked backstage with a mechanic. He's still adamant it's not 0w-20

6) Asked him if it'd matter (small VAG 0w-30 top up if VAG 0W-20 is in it). Says he don't know

7) Can't proceed at all until he sees his boss tomorrow.

Enter your reg number now and search for engine oil on sites like EuroCarParts, Halfords, etc, read the owners manual, see what other owners have to say on Up! forums and consider what the mechanics at the garage/dealer had to say? If you say to the mechanic or boss at the garage/dealer's - Your boss / mechanic gave me a different answer for spec of oil so which of you two is correct and why can't you answer this simple question, they might pull their finger out...

 

[Lpgc]

£720 per year on a C63 V8 AMG - 2013

FFS - Thats that then.

If that's for 'road fund' (?) it's not surprising for a 6.3L V8 lol.

I like the 63 stuff and the older 55 supercharged stuff (with smaller supercharger pully) around the same, converted many of both variants to LPG.

Cheaper tax if you go a fair bit older and get a supercharged 55

If it were for insurance, could have a traders policy like me. It costs me the same for insurance regardless of what I own / drive lol. Way too expensive for someone who only runs one vehicle but if you run a few vehicles it can be a lot cheaper even if you don't really do any trading or work on vehicles.

Edit... But you'd have to at least be able to 'show' that you do work on customer vehicles or buy/sell vehicles or risk them claiming fraud if there was a claim. And strictly speaking no claims bonus isn't transferable between private and trade policy's, but obviously in some ways it is because one of the main questions is "Have you had any accidents or claims?"

 

[WhatsThisFor]

If that's for 'road fund' (?) it's not surprising for a 6.3L V8 lol.

I like the 63 stuff and the older 55 supercharged stuff (with smaller supercharger pully) around the same, converted many of both variants to LPG.

Cheaper tax if you go a fair bit older and get a supercharged 55

If it were for insurance, could have a traders policy like me. It costs me the same for insurance regardless of what I own / drive lol. Way too expensive for someone who only runs one vehicle but if you run a few vehicles it can be a lot cheaper even if you don't really do any trading or work on vehicles.

I have 5 cars, a motorbike and a Scooter in our vehicle family ......all of them are insured separately and most with different companies, my 'assistant, wife and carer' is in charge of this department and i am very happy with the arrangement.

 

[kfgas]

If that's for 'road fund' (?) it's not surprising for a 6.3L V8 lol.

I like the 63 stuff and the older 55 supercharged stuff (with smaller supercharger pully) around the same, converted many of both variants to LPG.

Cheaper tax if you go a fair bit older and get a supercharged 55

If it were for insurance, could have a traders policy like me. It costs me the same for insurance regardless of what I own / drive lol. Way too expensive for someone who only runs one vehicle but if you run a few vehicles it can be a lot cheaper even if you don't really do any trading or work on vehicles.

I have a 2004 SL55 which has been sorned since about last August but from memory was about £400 the year before, insurance on 3000 miles per year which I renewed last June to keep it going approx £150 per year as part of a multi car policy

 

[Elgraman]

Enter your reg number now and search for engine oil on sites like EuroCarParts, Halfords, etc, read the owners manual, see what other owners have to say on Up! forums and consider what the mechanics at the garage/dealer had to say? If you say to the mechanic or boss at the garage/dealer's - Your boss / mechanic gave me a different answer for spec of oil so which of you two is correct and why can't you answer this simple question, they might pull their finger out...

Cheers. That's correct. It's mad. They said they'd ring me tomorrow, but I take the dog on one of her walks in the general area sometimes, so might go there myself. I say might as there was some flooding in that direction earlier on so will have to see if that goes.

My brother's mazda print out after a service a few months back had something like 5w30 mazda oil 0w-20 (!!). He rang them up and had all sorts of 'think it's 5w-30' 'should be' etc etc


Off the top of your head is mixing a little 0w-30 with 0w-20 (or visa versa) 'ok'?

The manual says something along the lines of its okay if you can't get the grade, so long as it's VW504 or VW508, which they both are.

Still, though crazy.

 

[WhatsThisFor]

£720 per year on a C63 V8 AMG - 2013

FFS - Thats that then.

The vehicle in question.

When i visit my static caravan for some R&R - i would see this car parked outside the church on the entrance to the site just as it is pictured here.

The place is only 40 mins from home yet it is a different world, when i saw this advert i thought it was fate that i should try and buy it.

Apparently it was owned by a local GP who didnt venture out of his constituency.

Anyway, i want it, its mint, the mileage is ultra low yet its had lots of tyres ?

I would say its £5000 over priced yet fair given its history and low miles.



Anyway, over to the EOC sleuths to examine a car im not going to buy....ish.



And just as fate would have it, I've had a private message about the sale of my drivers seat, every little helps.

 

[Highway Dave]

View attachment 112437

The vehicle in question.

When i visit my static caravan for some R&R - i would see this car parked outside the church on the entrance to the site just as it is pictured here.

The place is only 40 mins from home yet it is a different world, when i saw this advert i thought it was fate that i should try and buy it.

Apparently it was owned by a local GP who didnt venture out of his constituency.

Anyway, i want it, its mint, the mileage is ultra low yet its had lots of tyres ?

I would say its £5000 over priced yet fair given its history and low miles.



Anyway, over to the EOC sleuths to examine a car im not going to buy....ish.



And just as fate would have it, I've had a private message about the sale of my drivers seat, every little helps.

Ish———

 

[Lpgc]

Cheers. That's correct. It's mad. They said they'd ring me tomorrow, but I take the dog on one of her walks in the general area sometimes, so might go there myself. I say might as there was some flooding in that direction earlier on so will have to see if that goes.

My brother's mazda print out after a service a few months back had something like 5w30 mazda oil 0w-20 (!!). He rang them up and had all sorts of 'think it's 5w-30' 'should be' etc etc


Off the top of your head is mixing a little 0w-30 with 0w-20 (or visa versa) 'ok'?

The manual says something along the lines of its okay if you can't get the grade, so long as it's VW504 or VW508, which they both are.

Still, though crazy.

I think that would be fine, but it would be better if you're doing a full oil change to put in the recommended grade mate.

 

[Elgraman]

I think that would be fine, but it would be better if you're doing a full oil change to put in the recommended grade mate.

Cheers. It's not a full change, it'll just a top up. Mid way between the dipstick markers is fine of course, but the service isn't due until mid August, so could quite easily def need topping up, so i wanted the 1L bottle at hand just in case.
Yes, when it goes in in August, I'll nick in backstage and shot over to the guy doing to ask what he's sticking in.
My hunch is 0w-20 is in it. That what was on the print out and what a random mechanic said when I asked, showing him the sheet (from the same parts place who now says ow-30 lol. Mad how I going to have to go to a place which did the oil.....to find out exactly what I've got to buy to top up.