Caledonia Vehicle Solutions is Ayrshire’s premier used vehicle specialist. They offer a contemporary approach to the used vehicle market with keen pricing without compromising on product quality. They also specialise in finance packages at competitive rate and can even consider people who may have had trouble with credit in the past. I met Jason at their Ayr showroom and warehouses in Peebles Street.

Jason Skimming has teamed with his dad Jim to pass their thirty years expertise of the used cars market to the general public

“Caledonia Vehicle Solutions as a company was formed in 2012. We’ve been going for eleven years. It started as we previously had a big car supermarket with a couple of business partners involved. As the direction of the business wasn’t where we were hoping it to go, we decided my father and myself that we wanted to pull back from that and start again and basically go back to the basics. That’s what we did. We left and moved out to Prestwick by the airport. We stayed there for four years and at this site for seven years.”

“We’re specialising in sport, performance and luxury cars. This is our niche. For example, you’ve got Arnold Clark up the road and there’s a Vauxhall dealer at the end of the street. If somebody wants a Vauxhall Corsa, they’ve got plenty to pick from. So, there is no point for us to try and compete in that market against a company that size. We had to carve our own niche, sport and performance cars.

We are not a volume dealership in term of doing massive numbers. It’s more quality over quantity for us. We prepare the cars right. It takes a little bit longer. For example, when a customer buys a car, it may take a week to ten days before they get their new car. But we put the car through the workshop, check it all over, MOT it. Whatever it needs, it will get. The key for us is in the preparation, making sure that the cars are prepped right. They are second hand cars and nobody has got a crystal ball, so we obviously can’t tell further down the road what’s going to happen. But what we can do is to make sure that it’s prepped at the highest standards and obviously we put a warranty on the car, so if there is something that happens within a six month period of somebody buying it, then they are covered under warranty.”

“The demographic has changed in our business. When we were out at Prestwick Airport, our premisses were out a dead end street. There was no passage. People would come and see us but there would be nobody just passing by to have a look. They would already have seen the car on the internet and would specifically be coming to that area to see us. I would say then, our business was about fifty per cent within a twenty miles radius. Now, the demographic has really shifted, as we’ve got a presence in the town centre. We’ve got frontage, we’ve got signs. People know where we are and who we are. The longevity of the business has probably helped with that as well. People are familiar with the brand now. I would say the demographic now is probably eighty per cent of our business being within twenty miles radius. It’s crazy the shift since we started.”

The impact of social media on the business.

“I would say the social media thing is really massive for us. It’s been a great help. From a business perspective, it’s huge. It’s a slow burner. People think you can just build a social media presence and that’s you away but we are twelve years building that. We’ve got 7 500 followers on Facebook. They are all organic as well as you don’t benefit from buying fake profiles. Facebook is the main one. Instagram doesn’t give as much back and it’s a difficult one to crack. Facebook has been really really good. One Saturday afternoon, I posted a car and fifteen minutes later a person came in and bought it. They had seen it on Facebook which is amazing to have that instant response. We don’t have that instant response from any other media advertising platform we use.”

“We have to look at the size of business we are as well. Do we have any aspirations to grow and any bigger? I’m not so sure. Sometimes, it’s the little fire that keeps you warm. We had a used car supermarket before with a hundred cars in stock and were we any happier than we are now? No, definitely not because it’s the stress factor involved in running an operation that size and a lot of staff. We’ re a small team of five. We could do with another mechanic just now. We’re lucky with the employees that we’ve got.

We’re selling pretty much a car a day ; five or six cars a week. We could sell more if we had more space. We only stock thirty-five cars. We’re turning over twenty to twenty-five cars a month. We shifted the concentration from selling volume to selling specialist. When you sell something that’s specialist, the market place is smaller, so you wouldn’t sell as many. As I say, we focus on quality over quantity now.

We source the cars from all over the place. We travel down south regularly We’ve got a transporter that we load up and pick cars up. We take planes, trains, taxis, whatever we need to if it’s the right car. We’ve got a very good network of people. We’ve got our own website Car Buyer Ayrshire. If people are looking to sell their car, we will come to them. We can go and visit somebody at their workplace, their house, if they are looking to sell their car. We are not like “We Buy Any Car”, we won’t buy any car but we will pay good money for the right car, as long as it fits our stock profile and what we are looking to sell. We stock German, Japanese, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, all the prestige brands. We’ve had some supercars as well , the likes of Bentley, Lamborghini, but very very few.”

“Wherever you look at it, a car is a monthly expense and because it’s unfortunately a depreciating asset (unless you hang on long enough and it becomes a classic), whether you finance it or you don’t, it’s going to cost you money every month and depreciated repayments. We offer a lot of finance products as we are a finance broker. We use a panel of lenders, some great lenders with strong PCP products for used cars. This is great for people to keep their monthly payment down. We are finding that our customers are changing their car around about every three to four years. What the PCP does, it basically allows these people to buy a more expensive car but not pay as much a month. You can tailor a PCP to last three or four years. In regards of PCP for used car, as long as the car meets the parameters at the start of the PCP that’s ok. It needs to be under five years old and under 60 000miles. It is great for us for some of the most expensive stuff, the PCP makes it affordable.”

Check the latest stock online here

Phone: 01292 287977 / 07894 305613 / Email

Visit Caledonia Vehicle Solution showroom at

9-13 Peebles Street, Ayr, South Ayrshire, KA8 8DP

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