The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

How much is a jar of marmalade? This is a serious question, do you know? Very few of us know the answer, mainly because there isn’t just one answer. I carried out a little experiment and found that I could buy a jar of marmalade for 69 pence. The most expensive jar I could find was £4.99, that’s a difference equating to 723%. Now not being expert on marmalade, although I do like a bit of thinly cut on a slice of brown Read more »

The recent problems experienced by Toyota have raised the question of safety in cars and should drivers and manufacturers be spending more time and effort on safety equipment than adjustable cup holders and refrigerated glove compartments (could never quite work that one out – cold gloves?). Clearly the answer is yes. There are more people travelling in cars than on aircraft but those piloting the planes are Read more »

If you think you are having a bad day at work, consider the young mechanic working in a garage in New Malden. He had a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti in for an MOT after which he took it out for a road test. This lad in his early 20’s crashed the car into a lamp-post, flew over a 2 foot wall and landed in the middle of a roundabout. Severely shocked but otherwise unhurt the lad was heard to utter that his bosses would kill him. The value of the car? £218,000! Have a nice day. By Graham Hill

I don’t know why but every time someone starts to explain how wonderful the scrappage scheme was the hairs on the back of my neck start to bristle. The latest is Graham Hope, deputy editor of Auto Express. He says that whist not everyone was in favour of the scrappage scheme it brought ‘some benefits, not least its condemnation of thousands of death traps’. His comments are an introduction to an article about the Read more »

The 2010 What Car and J D Power Ownership Satisfaction Survey is out now and available in the July issue of What Car. The survey arrives at its findings after analysing returns from 17,200 motorists travelling a total of 300 million miles in their cars. 104 models from 27 manufacturers have been rated with every aspect of owning scrutinised. The satisfaction percentage score is made up of four sections. Read more »

The new prime minister has suggested that he won’t pick on motorists to dig the country out of the deficit single handed – yeah right! To date we’ve had to accept that if we are to save the bit of atmosphere above the UK we must think green and therefore drive more fuel efficient and low CO2 emitting vehicles. The way the government has done this is to make us pay, obviously reluctantly but of course it’s for our own good Read more »

You won’t believe the next piece of advice offered by Peter Rodger, Chief Examiner at the Institute of Advanced Motorists! He is suggesting that we queue jump when there are holdups on motorwaysand multilane carriageways. He suggests that where there is an obstruction, such as an accident or work being carried out that shuts down one or more lanes, that instead of forming an orderly queue, like us Brits always do, Read more »

The now famous Graham Hill new car review focuses this week on another unnatural car, the 4Dr Aston Martin Rapide. First of all Aston Martin create the craziest car ever, their new city car, then they bring out a 4Dr saloon. I was beginning to think these sport car producers had lost the plot until I recently saw the 4Dr Porsche Panamera in the flesh and it actually looked pretty good. I was all set to hate it but I Read more »

One of the biggest confusions over end of lease charges is that of scuffed alloy wheels with bills for repairs being as high as £120 per wheel. Many drivers cannot understand why scuffs to alloy wheels are chargeable as damage. As one woman that wrote to me explained ‘We all scrape wheels on the pavement when parking, surely it is no different to worn carpets, and stone chips?’ The fact is that if you are driving Read more »

We have a bit of an exclusive from GHA Finance this week. I am often fighting with dealers and my quoting systems to get the keenest rates for my clients. But whilst we try to get the rates as low as possible customers see this as the only area where they can make cost savings when changing their cars. In fact this shouldn’t be the end of the journey, it should be the start. There are many things you can do to minimise your transport costs which we have discussed in the past such as:  Read more »