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Do you ever feel that you are banging your head against a brick wall? How many times did I say before Christmas that some of the deals that are available may never return so take them whilst you can. But no, obviously I was lying or simply trying to pull a few deals in to pay for my extravagant Christmas and New Year celebrations. The truth is that I wasn’t. There was a huge effort on the part of some manufacturers to Read more »

Mobile phones are in the spotlight again. This time as a result of the dangers posed by the various alert text messages causing drivers to check their phones whilst driving which is of course illegal and very dangerous. The one that has come in for most criticism is traffic alerts provided by Trafficmaster. The idea was to enable drivers to receive updates before Read more »

Apparently you could get free new cars from Vauxhall until recently provided you were a driving school and you ran a fleet of 3,500 vehicles. This astonishing fact has only just come to light as a result of Vauxhall refusing to provide free of charge cars any longer to BSM and telling them that they will now have to pay. Cars were provided on a 6 month turnaround so Vauxhall were providing 7,000 cars a year for free. BSM is owned by Aviva, formally Norwich Union, who now face costs of millions of pounds – time to sell shares? By Graham Hill

At the end of 2008 we were inundated with great deals and offers as manufacturers looked at ways to clear their overstock of cars but since the start of the new year we haven’t had anywhere near the same number of deals or the great value that we saw previously. Part of the reason is the continued weakness of the used car market whereby even if the manufacturers were giving as much away in bonuses and Read more »

In my opinion leasing is by far the most cost effective way of funding a car provided you can be flexible and look for the best deals around at the time you take your new car. However, there is one major drawback to leasing and one that I write about regularly in my newsletter, trade press and national press. It is the one area that I receive most complaints about from buyers of my book. It is the end of contract charges. I Read more »

As car manufacturers continue to beat a path to the Chancellor’s door I ask myself what they are going to ask for? We already know that cars in the UK are overpriced so why not cut prices in order to stimulate sales. On the other hand, as Lord Mendelson has suggested, it is the funding that needs to be looked at in order to make it possible and affordable for the public and small businesses to drive new cars and Read more »

If you like to drive a prestige car and have thought that owning is a much better option consider the Bentley GT Coupe owner whose car is now depreciating at £500 more per week more than it did 12 months ago which means, according to trade newspaper Fleet News that it has depreciated by more than £67,000 in its first year, that’s a staggering 56% off its new price of £120,000. Who said that owning a car is the best option?? By Graham Hill

1 in 12 seventeen to twenty five year old drivers don’t believe that they will ever get caught when drink driving compared to 1 in 25 older drivers. These findings were the result of a survey carried out amongst 4,000 drivers by safety charity BRAKE and Green Flag Motoring Assistance. Safety organisations have been pushing to extend police powers to enable them to breathalyse drivers without Read more »

When was the last time you had your eyes tested? And if you have glasses for driving do you wear them? In a survey carried out by Specsavers they found that one in 10 drivers have had an accident or near miss because they were not wearing their glasses while driving. The survey also found that 26% of drivers have not had their eyesight checked since they passed their test, of those nearly half Read more »

On the question of fuel, if you have been convinced that bio fuel is a much better option and your car is still covered by the manufacturers warranty you should check to see if using bio fuel affects your warranty. Unlike the EU it has ruled that each country can set its own levels of biodiesel concentration and that there is no mandatory need to label fuel at the filling stations. It is well known that a concentration of over Read more »