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Knowing what you are doing when it comes to car finance is so important. I know I bang on about it all the time but let me be quite clear if you guess and get it wrong it could end up costing you a fortune. In a recent edition of Auto Express a lady bought a 5 year old Mini Cooper S Convertible for £10,500 from a main dealer under the Cherished Car scheme. On her way home a warning light came on and the ABS cut in when it didn’t need to. Already a clear case of faulty goods. She returned to the Read more »

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Following on from the news that windscreen replacement company, Auto Windscreens, has gone into liquidation we hear that our roads are in the worst condition ever, despite an extra £600 million being spent on them last year. The information regarding the condition of our roads comes in a report called the Highways Condition Index (HCI) released by the Department for Transport. The report shows that only 68% of the roads were classified as ‘Good’ whilst 26% were ‘Reasonable’ and 6% were Read more »

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Big and brash Boris announced in 2009 that London would be the ‘Electric vehicle capital of Europe.’ The aim was to have 25,000 charging points by 2015 which I’m sure caused many manufacturers to sit up and take note believing that the UK was the electrical way forward. Unfortunately that ambitious target has had to be cut somewhat, by 23,700 in fact. Yep, the new figure for installation by 2013 is now down to 1,300. This is a further drop since this time last year when the figure was set at Read more »

It always surprises me when just before Christmas off licences go bust and shut down at the very time of year when one assumes that demand is peaking. It therefore came as an even bigger surprise when I heard of the collapse of windscreen replacement giant Auto Windscreens, the second largest windscreen replacement company in the UK, operating 68 fitting centres and 550 mobile units. The Derbyshire based company simply ran out of cash forcing it to put its 1100 staff on unpaid holiday. The Read more »

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It just goes to show how people differ in views when it comes to surveys. BMW was upset when they fared poorly in the 2010 Driver Power Survey, assessing the dealerships on many levels. BMW dropped from 12^th to 17^th only to be replaced by Mercedes at the number 12 spot. Now this I really can’t understand as my last car was a BMW and the dealer was superb. The car before and my current cars are both Mercedes and the service I receive from the Mercedes dealership is incredible. And Read more »

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Back down to earth a new road salt has been created to work in temperatures as low as -20 degrees Celsius and has received the thumbs up for use on Scottish roads. The road salt comes in liquid form like a de-icer, a mix of salt and magnesium chloride. It has proven effective at melting hard packed snow and ice in extreme cold. Regular salt only works down to -8 deg C. They are building up reserves at key motorway sites but there is a bit of a downside. The so-called Supersalt costs 12 times as Read more »

It’s been a busy week this week, I attended a round table discussion hosted by Motor Finance, the journal of the industry and one for which I have written a regular column for many years. This was followed by the annual dinner of the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA), attended by 1400 guests, all movers and shakers in the finance and leasing industry. Recession – what recession? Anyway, going back to the round table, one of the main items on the agenda was the new EU Consumer Credit Read more »

I have read several reports recently complaining about the motor insurance industry, it’s pretty much in turmoil with anomalies, inefficiencies over charging and deceit. I reported recently that some companies are now charging substantial arrangement and documentation fees in order to keep the monthly premiums low. We all know that there are a trillion terms in each policy making straight comparison very difficult so we tend to go for the cheapest and hope for the best. By that I mean try Read more »

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Auto Express has reminded us that when the Tory led coalition came to power they were going to stop Labour’s war on the motorist but has that war ended? They analyse the key areas:

Speed Cameras: We already know that many of the UK’s cameras have been switched off but we also know that many local people are being trained up to use speed Read more »

Labour MP Brian Donohoe is calling for tax discs to be scrapped suggesting that paper discs affixed to the windscreen is old fashioned and should be unnecessary in the 21^st century, whilst pointing out that the cost of creating the discs is £5 million a year and £14 million to send out suggesting that there must be other ways of displaying whether road tax has been paid including Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras. However, the police don’t agree saying that tax discs are vital for Read more »