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This next item is something that has affected me on many occasions. The closure of the Blackwall Tunnel. It has been shut an amazing 1,200 times in the past 9 months and drivers have been blamed. The tunnel in east London carries 100,000 vehicles a day through the twin tunnels under the River Thames – when it’s open. One of the tunnels was shut a total of 157 hours. Oversized vehicles were a problem whilst vehicle breakdowns were responsible for 287 closures, a third of which were due to Read more »

It seems that every week I read a similar story in Auto Express about a driver who has bought either a new or used car that has turned out to be a complete dog then struggled to get their money back. The fact is that the law is very clear on this point. If you buy faulty goods and a fault is found immediately or within the first 6 months you can return the goods and insist on a full refund. And the supplier must give you a full refund. On the other hand you can give the supplier the opportunity to either repair or replace the goods without losing your right to insist on a refund. In the latest case that Auto Express came to the rescue on a buyer of a new Hyundai i30 found the car starting to judder. The driver gave the dealership the opportunity to repair the fault which they attempted without success. The dealer and Hyundai offered a replacement but couldn’t guarantee that the fault would not exist in the replacement. This was 8 months later! The driver decided that he simply wanted his money back, which he received, after Auto Express stepped in – as a ‘gesture of goodwill.’ A gesture of bloody goodwill! It’s his legal right and he should also be entitled to compensation for the inconvenience. This infuriates me because dealers, supported by the manufacturers, feel they are above the law. It’s a disgrace but I really think that Auto Express should employ the services of a solicitor to bang off a formal letter each time they have a similar case to point out the driver’s legal entitlement and tell them to stick their ‘gestures of goodwill’ where the sun don’t shine. Have you experienced similar problems with a dealer not honouring your legal rights? Here’s a little graphic that I found on a Government website that may explain your rights a little easier than my wording:

By Graham Hill

DVLA figures show that one in ten motorists have points on their licence. The figures have been broken down by age sex and number of points. It also shows that the Government has collected £280 million from the 3.9 million drivers with points on their licence over the last 4 years (the minimum amount of time before points are cleared. That’s out of a total 37 million licence holders. The majority of drivers with points have just 3 points (3.2m). Just under 600,000 have 6 points and 92,000 Read more »

Garmin, manufacturer of sat nav’s has come up with a new device that will alert you via the sat nav if a car moves out of a pre-determined area acting as a tracking device. You can be alerted by text message or email. The new GTU 10 system can be self installed and self monitored. The kit links to any nuLink enabled Garman Sat Nav so you don’t have to be near your computer to check the units status. You can edit your preferences via your computer and view a history of where your car has Read more »

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Hello John, wanna buy a motor? Well actually a motoring school, the biggest in the UK, BSM. So how much you gonna pay for this luverly motoring school? A quid – done John! Sold to the AA at the back of the room. That’s actually how much the AA paid for BSM after going into administration at the end of January. The company went through a management buyout in 2009 when it was bought for £10 million but according to reports has struggled ever since. The company has 2,100 instructors Read more »

As fuel prices continue to rise the Government is under continual pressure to shelve the fuel duty hike. In April the duty will rise from its current 59pence per litre by inflation plus 1p, estimated at 3 to 4 pence per litre. Diesel is already at an all time high and still rising without the duty hike, causing the AA, RAC, Auto Express, RMIF and others to call on the Government to put the brakes on. The RAC pointed out that there have been 8 tax rises applied to petrol over the last 2 years making the Read more »

There is another web scam going about as revealed by the DVLA. The email which includes a few spelling mistakes (bit of a giveaway) asks the recipient to click on a Department for Transport web address and fill in some details. It goes on to warn that if you fail to do so it will cause you to lose your drivers licence and you will have to re-take your test. The URL (web address) isn’t obviously a DVLA address but the template used for the site looks genuine and includes links to agency pages in the Read more »

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 »