Adding a Car to the Database

Having resistered as a Member, you can add a car to the database. Later, you can modify any of the details, or delete it from the database when it has been sold. You may add more than one car to the database.

There are no restrictions on the age or condition of the vehicle but it must, of course, be left hand drive.

Your advert should be brief and to the point. Before you start to add the car, make sure you have all the information you need and if you are including photographs, make sure that you know where to find them on your computer.

Car Make (Manufacturer)

Select a make of car from the drop-down list. We use this method to protect against typing errors - a wrongly spelled name could mean that your car will not be picked up by a visitor searching by car make.

If you cannot see the make on the list, please email us reporting this omission. We will add this make to the database as soon as possible.

Car Model

Enter the car model (for example, E320D, Mondeo 2.0, etc). You can use a maximum of 50 characters for this.

Price: Currency

Price: Amount

Enter the price, just the number (for example, 29,950 or 43500). Be realistic about the asking price.

Description

Describe the vehicle and the important features, emphasising those features that distinguish it from others of its type. Important items to include are the mileage, colour, service history, condition, and number of owners. The maximum amount of information you can insert here is 320 characters (about 5 lines of description).

If you wish, you can include the current location of the vehicle in the Description field. Depending upon customer demand, we may add a "mapping" feature in the future.

It will probably help if you use standard industry abbreviations, please see a partial list below. However, remember that many potential buyers will not be familiar with these abbreviations.

You may also add your contact details to the description if you wish. Be aware, however, that this places your contact details into the public domain, i.e. this public website.

Photographs

You may include a maximum of 4 photographs of the vehicle. Good quality photos will greatly enhance the advert, but remember that these should be a true representation of the vehicle for sale, not stock images, nor photos for which you do not hold the copyright.

Technical Details

Images should be in JPEG format (i.e. the file will have a name something like xxxx.jpg).

Caution: most browsers will not display an image whose file name contains certain special characters, such as # & or %, even though Windows and the Mac Operating System allow file names to contain these characters. To be certain that your photos can be displayed, therefore, you should ensure that the file names contain only a combination of the following characters: upper and lower case letters, numbers, hyphens, underscore.

Examples: the filename abCD-123_x4.jpg would be fine, but a photo with the filename abCD%123.jpg would probably not display in a browser.

The ratio of the width to the height of each image should be 4:3. This is a standard option in most digital cameras and phones. The size displayed on the Car Detail page is 300 x 225 pixels. We have chosen this size as a balance between the size of the image on the screen and the time taken for a potential buyer to download it.

Please note the following points:

• If your original images are smaller than this, the quality will be reduced when displayed on the screen;
• Typically, your camera may have an option to produce images of 800 x 600 pixels. When you upload a file of this size, it is automatically reduced to 300 x 225 pixels for storage at our website;
• If you use a different image width/height ratio, such as 3:2 (for example, 600 x 400 pixels), the image displayed on the screen will be distorted to fit the 4:3 format;
• If your original images are very large, the system may time out while you are uploading the files, especially if you are using a slow connection (e.g. dial-up).

This page last updated: 8th January 2008