Are Magistrates Going Soft On Drivers?

Sunday, 3. October 2010

It would seem that magistrates have gone soft, as a result of the recession, if you have accidentally reached the automatic driving ban of 12 points on your licence. Some say this is wrong and that the ban should be automatically imposed, especially in extreme cases like the driver who was allowed to keep his licence even after he amassed 54 Read more »

Which Is Better Petrol Or Diesel?

Thursday, 30. September 2010

A photo of BPs latest pump design. The design ...
Image via Wikipedia

The gap is starting to open up between petrol and diesel at the pumps again, pushing drivers towards petrol cars. There is also continued concern that people that take diesels fitted with particulate filters, as all new diesel cars have to have fitted, do not understand that they need to run the car at over 50mph for at least 20 minutes in one session per month in order to create the chemical reaction that clears out the filter. If this isn’t done the filter clogs and needs to be replaced costing hundreds of Read more »

Call For Manufacturers To Reveal All Recalls

Thursday, 30. September 2010

AA vintage sidecar (date unknown) at the Great...
Image via Wikipedia

Auto Express has launched a campaign to force manufacturers to disclose known problems with their cars. At the moment the manufacturers only have to make public known safety faults that are subject to recall. For all other problems, such as reliability issues, these do not have to be made public. The AA, RAC and Retail Motor Industry Federation have all joined with Auto Express to put pressure on manufacturers to make public their technical service bulletins – the documents that detail the Read more »

A Warning About Online Insurance Comparison Sites

Wednesday, 29. September 2010

The dangers of using insurance comparison sites has been highlighted by incidents in which payouts could be avoided by the insurers because drivers have been confused by some of the questions that may have been handled differently and more clearly if an actual broker helped you to compete your application form. As most people know insurers have to be made aware of any modifications that have been fitted to the car. If the mods have not been declared the insurer could refuse payout in Read more »

Check The Small Print Of Your Insurance To See If You Are Properly Covered

Tuesday, 28. September 2010

Sicherheitsreifen, security tire, runflat system
Image via Wikipedia

As the number one car finance blogger IN THE WORLD I will soon be launching a mission to make the important small print in contracts – BIG PRINT. As an example of what I mean I’m grateful to Auto Express. They highlighted the case of Zubin Morar who took out a Car Care Plan insurance policy to cover his tyres against accidental damage. Zubin from Middlesex has a BMW 530i and unfortunately hit a pothole in Read more »

Graham Hill Promotes His Simple Guide To Car Finance

Monday, 27. September 2010

It’s turned out to be a pretty busy week following the launch of my new book, Graham Hill’s Simple Guide To Car Finance which I hope will get everyone driving a great car. Preparing for finance is vitally important at the moment as there is little money about to lend. So that tempting low APR or monthly lease rate, that gets you sending off your finance application, may lead to a decline if you are not totally Read more »

Graham Hill’s Gadget Of The Week – Mirror Nav

Saturday, 25. September 2010

Image representing Garmin as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase

Graham Hill’s gadget of the week is unfortunately only available on Ford cars but I have to say it seems like quite a good idea. It’s called a MirrorNavi and is essentially a sat nav built into the mirror – more like an extension to the left of the mirror with a 3.5” colour touch screen. It has no visible wires and can be installed into your car in an hour for ÂŁ299 + labour. It will help to reduce clutter, according to Ford and Read more »

Challenge To Plans To Change MOT Periods

Wednesday, 22. September 2010

The blue 'three triangles' logo, which station...
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If you are a regular reader of my newsletter and blog you will recall that I announced that the Government was considering moving out the first MOT to 2 years and the annual MOT tests thereafter to be moved from annual to bi-annual as a result of pressure to do so by the EU. This has sparked some strong resistance from road safety groups. RoadSafe has said that the Government shouldn’t change the current Read more »

Car Finance Made More Difficult Through Lack Of Cash

Wednesday, 22. September 2010

George Osborne MP, pictured speaking on the la...
Image via Wikipedia

One of the last meetings I attended at which we discussed the state of the motor finance industry, we were told by one of the leading accountancy practices in the UK along with a couple of large leasing operations that the biggest problem faced by the industry was lack of liquidity or in other words lack of money to lend to you and me. This has been confirmed by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Read more »

Could This Be Another Example Of Health & Safety Gone Crazy?

Tuesday, 21. September 2010

I’m all for making roads safer, especially when we are talking about making roads safer for children but sometimes I thing we go a little too far when it comes to health and safety when actions seem to be taken for the sake of taking them. Some of my favourite country fetes have been stopped from taking place because, thanks to health and safety, the insurance costs would be more than they raised for their local Read more »