The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

Just recently manufacturer’s own finance arms have been competing head on with the major leasing specialists such as Lex, Lombard etc. In some cases this has put off customers from using brokers and, as a result, going direct to dealers. This can be dangerous because if you use a broker, who has been in the industry for sometime, such as me, we know which dealers to use in order to Read more »

On my soon to be released blog I talk about the way that the media misleads the public about, amongst other things, car finance. For some reason when it comes to anything vehicle related they put out reports that are poorly researched then draw conclusions that are either ill informed or simply inaccurate. This week we saw The Telegraph with headline news about the way that motorists are conned into Read more »

Apparently the use of hand held phones whilst driving has increased because of, wait for it, the recession! Yep, it’s true according to a survey carried out by ING Car Lease. Apparently more drivers who drive cars on business feel under pressure to receive and make calls when driving rather than miss important calls that may result in Read more »

Do you have a photo licence? If you do how long have you had it because if it is over or close to 10 years you will need to update the photo or face a fine of up to £1,000. In a poll carried out by Fleet News it was found that 24% of those questioned didn’t know that there was a requirement to renew the photograph, they thought it lasted as long as Read more »

Whilst on the subject of safety and collision avoidance, I’m often asked what certain expressions mean when I mention them in car specs that I send out in my video car deal of the week. So to help out here are a few quick summaries:

 ABS: Anti Lock Braking system, this prevents the wheels from locking under heavy braking. The disc pads grip the disc, then release then grip again but very fast thus preventing a skid and allowing the driver to steer whilst braking without skidding. It sounds like a machine gun when it operates.

EBD or EBFD: Electronic Brakeforce Distribution, this system varies the amount Read more »

If you are not aware of ESP or Electronic Stability Program (also known as ESC Electronic Stability Control) you must be new to my newsletter and never watched one of my new car videos. If you are aware of ESP you will know that I go on about it constantly because I truly believe that it should be fitted as standard on all cars now and not in a few years (2014) as has now been insisted upon by the EC. Around the world 1.4 million people die in Read more »

If you aren’t going to be sensible and take a car on lease through me don’t get conned by a dealer when negotiating the purchase price of a new car if you are specing it up with a pile of factory options. According to What Car, dealers receive exactly the same discounts from the manufacturer on the factory fitted options as they do on the car, so if your dealer is offering you Read more »

I was sitting outside a dealership a few days ago and saw something happening that I felt I should bring to your attention. I’ve raised this before and told the full story in my book, An Insider Guide To Car Finance. In my book I explain that a friend of mine was working in the reception of a very large main dealer and told me about a practice that she had part witnessed and been told about by staff that absolutely amazed me. In her dealership they were Read more »

The test of a finance arrangement isn’t so much the cost or the APR but in the current climate, what happens when things go wrong. Most of my readers know my views on the heavy promotion of personal loans rather than dealer HP but another issue was mentioned to me this week that again shows why HP is far more beneficial than a personal loan. When you take out dealer HP it is what is known as a Read more »

a few people have been asking about new cars and when a new car is a new car. I have explained this in detail in my book, An Insider Guide To Car Finance, which can be bought and downloaded online. But to summarise, the car must not have been registered to anyone else before you receive it, not even to the dealer and it must not have an ‘unreasonable’ mileage on the clock, expressed in one court case to be no more than 500 although I find this excessive. The strange rule is that Read more »