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Having a Thatcham alarm fitted on your car can reduce your insurance premiums, in some cases quite substantially. But questions have arisen about the quality of fitting of these alarms, which, if fitted incorrectly could invalidate your insurance if the car is stolen and due to faulty installation the alarm didn’t activate. In order to overcome this Thatcham have now introduced a new scheme to approve fitters that Read more »

Have you seen one of the new CCTV Smart cars in your travels? If you have then they have probably been spying on you. It’s the latest idea to catch motorists doing illegal things like parking. Known as ‘Drive by spies’ these cars have raised £8 million in fines over the last 12 months from 188,000 motorists. There are 54 CCTV equipped Smart ForTwo cars operating in different towns and cities. In Essex the units Read more »

Annual MOT tests may be stretched out to 2 years according to new Government plans. The proposal will save motorists £465 million per annum. The announcement came via the Lords through the Government’s transport spokesman, Earl Attlee who promised a review this year. However safety groups are fearful of the dangers involved, especially with older cars. Britain has the most rigorous testing regime in Read more »

If you read my detailed review of the new Aston Martin city car you’ll know how dopey I found the whole idea of an Aston Martin badge on the front of a silly small car. So I was shocked to see Ferrari follow suit with their new Fiat 500 based 695 Tributo Ferrari. Surely there won’t be buyers willing to pay £30,000 for a Fiat 500 with a Ferrari badge on the front? Would there? The car will have 183 bhp giving a 0-62 Read more »

What do you think the main reason is for having a row in a car? Halfords surveyed those that were on their mailing list and two thirds responded and admitted that it was poor navigation or the getting lost that led to the worst rows. Whilst 80% of women argued that it was the lack of planning by their partners that led to the row the same point was argued by 65% of men. The second biggest cause was the continuing Read more »

If you are a regular reader of my articles and newsletter you will know how I bang on about the benefits of the Electronic Safety Control (ESC or also called ESP). Car testers EuroNCAP say that all cars should be fitted with ESC now without waiting till they are legally obliged to do so. Only 60% of new cars are fitted with ESC compared to 99% in Sweden, 80% in Germany and 72% in Spain. If ESC isn’t fitted as standard on Read more »

Warnings have come out again from the AA who have reported a 6% increase in callouts for miss-fuelling during the first 6 months of 2010. It all seemed to have settled down last year as filling stations made sure that pumps were more clearly marked and manufacturers made it more obvious as to what fuel needed to be pumped into the tank. But for no apparent reason we have suddenly had this increase. The AA Read more »

If you have a fairly recent BMW you will need to keep an eye out for low flying birds using your car as a toilet! There has been a lot of publicity recently about lime damage caused to BMW paintwork because of lime in the pooh, according to BMW. They go on to say that they will not pay for any re-sprays as a result of damage caused by bird’s mess as the damage is caused ‘as a result of outside influence’. Not good Read more »

My gadget of the week is a 5 second jump start that is capable of charging up a flat battery in 5 – 8 seconds, enough to get the car started. If it doesn’t the manufacturer, Powertraveller, claims that a further 10 – 15 minute charge should do the trick. In 2009 there were a total of 1,084,150 callouts to emergency services to revive flat batteries, that’s two a minute! This handy new product can be stored in the glovebox Read more »

The renowned Graham Hill car review of the week looks at the new Mercedes CL Coupe, one of the last cars to be given a much needed makeover. We had a really cheap deal on some CL 500’s about 2 years ago which caused a massive stir and lots of enquiries so it just shows that what some saw as a bit of a relic still has some life in it and improved immensely by the makeover. The CL 500 is the 2dr coupe version Read more »