Over to Manchester to a large disposal site for a major rental company. The number of these sites is dwindling – it used to be that all rental companies disposed of their vehicles, but no longer.

The company in question told me that lower supply has kept demand high, and prices have been fairly stable for much of the year.

The 07 plate still remains strong with around a £400 premium over the 56 plate on a Ford Fiesta and up to £500 on a Focus and Mondeo.

Demand from large groups who retail ex-rental cars is still good, and providing this continues, and retail customers are still out there buying, prices should remain buoyant.

Interestingly, the site is located next door to Manchester United’s training ground, and when I left I saw a procession of black Bentley Continental GT convertibles pulling out, headed by Wayne Rooney. Obviously, this is the car of the moment for Premiership stars.

Received pictures of the new Audi A4, which I went to see over in Germany a few weeks ago.

It prompted me to question whether Audi can do anything wrong given its current success? At the moment, the answer is no, but in 2000 it did have a blip.

Remember the A2?

This car was too expensive, had too much technology, too much aluminium, but more importantly was way ahead of its time. If this car was launched today it would be hailed as a hero thanks to its low CO2 emissions.

Dealers tell me that they have been sought-after in the past year, but this is now beginning to slow down.

Despite this, A2s are still making strong money. An 04/54 SE with 60,000 miles is worth around £6,000, which is well ahead of its closest competitors.

Another Volvo visit. Last week John Wallace from the fleet department came up to Leeds, and this week it was Ruth Griffin, used car sales manager, who made the trip north.

She told us that the weekly auctions, at prime sites to sell ex-management, rental and demonstrators, is working really well.

She enters more than 50 vehicles per week and the vast majority sell first time, mainly to Volvo dealers. This allows Volvo to top up its stock on a regular basis, and no longer has to wait for infrequent closed sales.

Went to Skipton to see John Mahony, national leasing manager, and Jeff Peyton-Bruhl, national operations and remarketing manager, at Hyundai.

They were preparing for the first of three weekends around the country with invited fleet customers and end users for an informal event to test the new i30 hatchback.

In total there will be around 80 guests invited. It is only two years ago that John was THE fleet department at Hyundai UK, now there are 10 in the department – including support staff. John told me that interest at dealers for the i30 is good, as it is from fleet customers.