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The importance of using a broker rather than a bucket shop for lease cars has been highlighted again this week following the consolidation of the leasing industry. Where your lease provider may have been merged or taken over by another provider you may find yourself subjected to end of lease charges that you may not have received by the original provider who may have been fairly relaxed about defleet recharges. Read more »

After King Mandelson announced that he would not, under any circumstances, extend the scrappage scheme, which was a bit of a relief to all of us hoping for some substantial bonuses from the manufacturers for the last quarter of the year, the one with the white hair and bushy black eyebrows stood up at the labour conference and announced that the scheme was being extended by Read more »

Whilst we are still having our flabbers gasted how big do you think the joint operation of Hyundai and Kia are? Most people think that production has only just been moved out of the garden shed but in fact the Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group has become the fourth largest global automotive manufacturer, according to the Automotive News Data Centre. In fact the Korean manufacturer has now overtaken Ford as they have seen production drop by 30% in the first half of 2009. With a lot of good feedback these days on Hyundai and Kia product maybe we should take a closer look at them. By Graham Hill

Still no money for motor finance. Back in March of this year the Automotive Assistance Programme (AAP) approved £2.3 billion of support to help, as ministers predicted, up to 100 companies through the crisis. To date not a penny has been paid out whilst those responsible for the pathetic scrappage scheme pat each other on the back. The provision of cheap wholesale money to lenders would get people back into new cars. In America, where they have similar problems and have staff looking into chat rooms and tweeting each other, it has been found Read more »

There are now some wide fluctuations in monthly contract hire rentals as many factors come into play. Amid fears that the industry is predicting the collapse of one of the major contract hire companies before the end of the year and possibly the loss of a few smaller ones, the industry is in a mess with rates all over the place. It isn’t uncommon for rates to have a spread of £50 + VAT per month between the cheapest and most expensive rates on the same car. Fleet Operations have found that in the case of a Ford Focus the spread was Read more »

Last week I attended Motor Finance Europe 2009, one of the most important events of the year with regard to identifying how the European motor industry and the finance sector in particular is coping with the downturn. So I packed a couple of bottles of Paracetamol in the briefcase along with a couple of razor blades as I was totally convinced that by lunchtime I would be feeling more than a little suicidal and Read more »

Car maker Saab, owned by struggling US manufacturer General Motors has filed for bankruptcy protection in Sweden whilst they look for a new parent. The Swedish government refused to match the $420 million investment that was offered by GM in order to turn the company around. GM would only provide the money if the Swedish government matched it. As the government was not prepared to risk tax payers Read more »

We are entering a very strange period at the moment in the motor industry. Many manufacturers have reduced production of new cars. Some have stopped altogether for up to 4 months. This drop in production is the result of a corresponding drop in demand (sales of new cars have dropped by 30 – 40% over the last few months). So  could it be that consumers and businesses are switching from new to used cars? If Read more »

If you are still one of those that likes to own a car but is worried by the loss in depreciation – if you are then don’t buy a Maybach 62 which is reported by trade valuers Parkers to have lost £128,899 during 2008. However, downsizing and demand for city cars has kept used prices of smaller cars high producing the lowest cash losses in 2008. You should therefore ditch the Maybach, Bentley or Aston and replace with one of the following: Read more »

Fraud and forgery crime increased by 16% in the 3^rd quarter of last year blamed on the credit crunch. Attention has been drawn towards brokers that arrange mortgages and finance as some of the main culprits helped along by the increasing acceptance of the Internet. As I recently reported things are getting tough for most of us involved in the finance industry and as happened in the last recession desperation Read more »