The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

When I was out with my mates on a Friday night when I was in my twenties, our topics of conversation didn’t include things like the economy, immigrant crisis (although with the surge of immigrants from India and Pakistan at the time maybe it should have been), the weather or the price of a loaf of bread.

As none of us was particularly passionate about football it meant that the whole of the evening was taken up discussing women, cars and more cars. We were preoccupied with radial tyres, straight through exhaust systems and go faster stripes but the new generation of car drivers struggle to understand the concept of checking oil levels and tyre pressures, more interested in the number of watts that the stereo system kicks out and whether the car has heated seats.

There is still a passion for driving cars but not for the way cars are made and run, hence the reason why I believe we have a serious skills deficit in this country. We know that there is a lack of doctors and nurses and some joke about the number of plumbers, electricians and carpenters that have come to the UK from Poland, because we have a lack of qualified specialists in the UK.

But I wasn’t aware that we had a similar problem in the car industry. It seems that manufacturers are having to look abroad for people to work in engineering and on the factory floor because we have a severe skills shortage. I was as surprised to read that it doesn’t stop there.

We even have a severe shortage of sales staff to work in dealership showrooms. Andy Palmer, CEO of Aston Martin who started working with the company as an apprentice, said that the problem spreads wider than the manufacturers.

The problem exists within the manufacturers of hi-tech parts that fit into the cars, they are also having to search abroad for labour or have the parts made abroad and import them. Part of the problem is the growth of the industry which is suffering from its own success.

Whilst the industry continues to grow faster than most other industries, with not enough people to fill the vacancies, there will continue to be a need to bring in labour from abroad, something that this Government seems to be fighting against. The same problem exists in my industry, that of brokers.

When I attend events that are attended mainly by finance brokers it is clear that our industry doesn’t encourage women to join the industry and with an average age closer to 60 than 20 there are few youngsters coming into the industry. This is all very worrying. By Graham Hill

We seem to be having a week of environmental issues! MP’s have prepared a new clean air report for consideration by the Government. In it they recommend that a new scrappage scheme be introduced for diesels and vehicle excise duty (car tax) should be based on nitrogen oxides as well as CO2 and not just CO2 as it is at the moment.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

The report was presented to the Chancellor before his Autumn Statement by the Environmental Audit Committee in a hope that he would take note and encourage people out of ‘polluting diesels’. The chairman of the committee, Huw Irranca-Davies, urged the Chancellor to strike a better balance, he went on to say ‘A National scrappage scheme could provide a shortcut to cleaning up the air in our cities.’

Whilst the Chancellor only retained the 3% benefit in kind loading on diesels in the Autumn Statement that’s not to say that more won’t be done in next year’s budget. My own view is that whilst we should focus on the environment we should stop all this knee jerk reaction, the like of which we’ve seen following the VW debacle.

They did it with pay day lenders which has ended up taking out competition and increasing the use of illegal money lenders and by extending the rules into the whole of the consumer finance industry, to an unnecessary degree, they could end up pushing us back into recession.

Things may look good for the Chancellor at the moment but will it still look quite so rosy in a year’s time when ‘affordability tests’ become the focus of attention by the PPI lawyers? By Graham Hill

2 years ago I reported on some comments made by an environmental and technical expert who said that European targets for emissions were not only becoming difficult to meet but impossible to meet.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

He explained that an internal combustion engine burns fossil fuel which has the negative effect of emitting undesirable gasses and particles that pollute the air. That is a fact that can’t be changed. The objectives to continually reduce the gasses is fine and very environmentally friendly but technology and additives can only go so far before the targets are impossible to meet.

We all know that the harder we drive our cars the higher the amount of fuel we use. We may get from A to B quicker but we use much more fuel in doing so and it goes without saying the more fuel we use the more gas we emit from the exhaust. So as we reach the limit of gas reduction is the next step a control on the way we drive.

The only measure used at the moment is CO2 but will NOx enter the equation following the VW debacle? And by halving the NOx emissions target (Euro VI diesel engines) have we created an impossible task for the manufacturers? As we know fuel consumption figures are shown using different driving conditions, urban, extra urban and combined.

They may not exactly reflect actual driving conditions but we have three, often very different figures so why do we have just one CO2 emission figure as well as other singular gas emission figures when clearly they must differ from 10mph to 100mph? It was clear, even 2 years ago when I expressed my opinion on this subject that some creativity would have to enter the equation if targets were to be met.

However, I didn’t expect that creativity to extend to out and out deception. And whilst there wasn’t a murmur when the new Euro VI emissions came into effect on the first of September, following the VW debacle many manufacturers have announced that they are struggling to meet the Euro VI targets – strange that isn’t it? So what next? Will we see driving style and speed controls?

Limits on motorways dropped to 60mph and a drop from 30 to 20 around town? Or maybe cameras that can measure acceleration away from lights to stop drivers from pretending to be Lewis Hamilton? All very worrying for us petrol heads! By Graham Hill

Has anything changed in your life that you feel could affect your car insurance? Have you had an accident or managed to clock up some points on your driving licence. Maybe you have had your eyes tested and been told you are as blind as a bat?

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

All of these things are pretty obvious but what about the not so obvious. I read recently about a spate of damage caused to nearly a hundred cars in Bournemouth by vandals.

If any of the owners were like me and managed to fill their garage up with junk, forcing them to park their cars in the road but didn’t tell their insurer that the car was now parked in the street overnight they could find themselves having a visit from their insurance company to see if they could park their car in their garage overnight, if not the insurer could refuse the claim.

You must advise the insurance company of any changes that could affect the premium, even if it is lower. If you move house you might remember to change your driving licence but what about the insurance? Where you live can affect your premium as can the job you do.

You may get a promotion or change employers in which case you should tell your insurance company. uSwitch carried out a survey to see how many drivers were potentially at risk because the information held by your insurer is out of date or inaccurate. The figure was a staggering 60%. When asked 41% of drivers were unaware that they had to tell their insurance companies about changes of circumstances.

They were also unaware that with most insurance companies every time you change details there is a charge of, on average, £22 but it can be as high as £50, something uSwitch suggest you check before you take out a new insurance policy, especially if any changes are imminent such as moving jobs or home. By Graham Hill

For years pundits have been predicting the demise of main dealers. The emergence of brokers, the Internet, car supermarkets have all caused the prophets of doom to claim that dealerships would cease to exist other than to sell used cars and carry out service and maintenance.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

But of course no such thing ever happened and dealers happily sell as many new cars as ever. But following the last warning could that be about to finally change? When Hyundai ‘set up shop’ in the Bluewater shopping centre near Dartford in Kent it was predicted that this futuristic way of selling cars was like garlic bread as Peter Kaye would say – ‘The Future’.

They gave the shop a funky name as well to appeal to a younger audience, they called it Rockar and added an equally funky futuristic web site to support the ‘shop’. The idea was to put car sales where people were in numbers rather than stick the dealership out in the middle of an industrial estate where people wouldn’t just drop in they had to make a concerted effort to go there. So a year on – did it work?

Replacing hard nosed salesmen with softly softly ‘angels’ providing advice and support rather than selling was a big change – did it work? Are we now going to see a move away from coffee shops in shopping centres to be replaced by car shops from every manufacturer? The answer is – possibly – moving towards probably.

Hyundai clearly don’t want their competitors to know how successful they have been but Auto Express has managed to collect some statistics. After just a year Rockar is in the top ten of Hyundai dealers for cars sold – good start. A massive 163,000 people have walked into the store over the last year.

The average age of the visitors is 39 compared to the average age of visitors to other dealerships which is 52. This average age was mainly as a result of the massive success they had with the scrappage scheme which was taken advantage of by older drivers. Women accounted for 54% of the customers, roughly double the number in other Hyundai dealerships.

And half of Rockar customers transact online after visiting the store in person. Whilst Hyundai played down their success by pointing out that they will never be without a network of bricks and mortar dealers but added that the increased use of the Internet in the transaction means that customers are moving closer to Bricks and Clicks.

It was a big and expensive gamble for Hyundai to take but is seems to be working as they announced another Rockar store next month in the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, East London. Maybe it won’t be long before we see other manufacturers not only follow suit but maybe create their own shopping centre and we will see the Ford Centre or the Mercedes Centre – you heard it here first.