About us

The idea for Carfile was first dreamt up over 25 years ago when my father, Pat was working as a Fleet Director for an Austin Rover Dealership. He had customers approach him for Austin Rover product and although he could offer good savings there was not much he could do if they didn’t like the Austin Maestro and wanted to buy a Ford Escort! They often did and it became very frustrating as you can imagine, so he decided to set up a list of dealer contacts for all Makes and Carfile was born.

In the early years he would take quarter page black and white adverts in WhatCar? Magazine every month and would regularly be called by their Feature Writers looking for a story. After 25 years we still advertise every month in WhatCar? (Half or Full Colour Page now!) But are one of their Trade Advisors and we help them decide on Target Pricing every month.

Pat has appeared on BBC1’s Panorama as a Trade Advisor and is somewhat of a legend in the Motor Trade.

As regards myself, I worked for the Honda Dealer Network for over 12 years prior to my Directorship at Carfile in 2005 and bring with me the knowledge of how Dealerships work and what we can do to save you money! I have maintained the successful Cornerstones of our business. Highly respected Personal Customer Service, Transparent Sales Process, No Third Party Contracts and brought Carfile into the modern age. We are now on our Third Generation Website which has increased our Sales Capacity tremendously.

Over the years we have gathered hundreds of dealer contacts so we offer almost all Brands of Car and Commercial and any type of deal. We have thousands and thousands of satisfied customers, some of which have been kind enough to write to us and say so (See http://www.carfile.net/testimonials ) and have saved them Millions including Royalty and Peers of the Realm but we never forget our business plan and that is to save you the General Public as much money as possible and with your safety in mind. That is why we only use Main UK Franchise dealers to supply direct to you. We sell normal 1st owner cars and do NOT sell Pre-registered cars. We are paid typically 1% separately by our supplying Dealerships for every successful sale that THEY make. This is the only way to guarantee you are never subject to a third party contract. (Normally associated with Brokers)

The sales team have been trained to deal with our customers in a kind and helpful manner. This is something that has been noted by What Car? Magazine's recent survey of Brokers giving Carfile a full 5 Star rating for customer service. I am proud to fly the pioneering Carfile flag and I deal with as many enquiries as I can personally.

We look forward to doing business with you.

Jonathan Lawless
Sales Director

jl@carfile.net