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I’ve warned in the past about selling your car that has hands free Bluetooth fitted and the need to delete your stored telephone numbers, especially if you have stored sensitive numbers that you wouldn’t want others to know. Well the situation is getting worse now that ‘connected’ cars are now being sold on or part exchanged.

Some cars built over the last couple of years are capable of connection to mobile devices via apps which is great for the owner of the new car but it can lead to all sorts of problems when these connected cars are bought by used car buyers down the line.

Tim Church from Weston-Super-Mare found this out when he sold his Land Rover Discovery Sport only to find that sometime later he was still able to access the car’s InControl App via the app on his phone. From his app he could still see the location of the new owner as well as whether the car was locked or not.

The latest connected facilities can include pre-warming or cooling the car from your app, remotely unlocking the car, downloading music as well as knowing where the car has been and is currently located. When questioned by Auto Express Land Rover said that it was the responsibility of the previous owner to remove the vehicle from their account when they sell it. I’m sure this will be of great comfort to new owners of Land Rovers! By Graham Hill

As you know my car reviews are legendary due to the fact that the manufacturers stopped sending me cars to test drive many years ago, so I thought ‘sod ‘em’ I’ll say exactly what I think as I don’t have to suck up to them in order to have a car to drive for the weekend.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

Unfortunately, whilst not a big fan of 4WD cars, I have to say that I’m impressed with the soon to be launched Discovery Sport that replaces the somewhat leggy Freelander and brings the Discovery style into the 21^st century.

It will come with 7 seats as standard and has adopted some of the latest Range Rover Sport lines, still popular with drug dealers (I’m told), premier division football players (new), 1^st division football players (used) and accountants (new). For some strange reason Jaguar Land Rover have decided to fit the new car with an old engine whilst launching at the same time the Jaguar XE with the new Ingenium engine.

I understand that the new engine will find its way into the new car later next year so might be worth waiting. The car will come with 2WD and 4WD powered by the eD4 and SD4 engines via a 9 speed auto or 6 speed manual gearbox. Improved tech spec. and style will no doubt appeal to lovers of 4WD cars although I have to say that the leather seats look like venetian blinds and the headrests on the back 2 seats look dopey.

I wait with interest to see the replacement full sized Discoveries which currently remind me of a hearse! Sorry, I couldn’t help myself! By Graham Hill

Image via Wikipedia

There seems to be a move back to company cars from cash for car alternatives. A few years ago when the Government changed the way the benefit in kind tax was calculated to a CO2 based system there was a big move to cash for car alternatives. Drivers liked the idea of driving a 3 year old BMW rather than a new Ford Mondeo but BMW’s are Read more »

Image via Wikipedia

I have the results of a very interesting reliability survey. Warranty Direct have surveyed 50,000 policies to conclude which cars, up to 10 years old are most reliable. The least likely to break down is the Toyota Corolla dating back to 1997 with a 3% chance of breaking down over a 12 month period. The least reliable car is the Land Rover Discovery Read more »

Insurance and fuel duty increases have been blamed for the inflation busting increase of 6.3% announced by the RAC in their Cost of Motoring Index. The average cost has increased by £346 over last year’s cost taking it up to £6,000. Depreciation has also had an effect although some costs such as Vehicle Excise Duty (car tax) and car finance have dropped. The annual study assesses the running costs of 17 new cars from the Toyota Yaris to the Land Rover Discovery. Each model’s bills are weighted Read more »

I revealed last week that the Hyundai i30 was voted the Auto Express Driver Power car of the year as voted by 23,000 drivers polled. This week I reveal the rest of the top 10. The cars were scored for 10 major features including reliability, build quality, running costs, performance, comfort, ride quality etc. The top ten were as follows: Read more »

According to Auto Express size matters, something, of course, that I have always subscribed to! Ooer missus, stop that tittering in the back, I’m talking about car safety – obviously. It seems that the bigger the car the less likely you are to be injured. Mind blowing as that might be, equally mind blowing is the most dangerous car is one of the smallest, the Rover Mini (not to be confused with the BMW Mini). The figures Read more »