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I’ve often pointed out to customers that they can now have their new cars serviced at non franchised dealers and still retain their warranty cover. This resulted from the changes that were made to the EU Block Exemption rules removing the stranglehold that manufacturers had over the servicing of new vehicles during the warranty period, that was cunningly extended by most manufacturers to 3 years. In an effort to Read more »

In a recent case, exposed in What Car a lady experienced a sunroof leak in her 2 year old Mondeo. She made a claim on Ford under her warranty agreement but was told that water ingress was not covered by her 3 year warranty beyond the first year but they made an offer to cover 30% of the repair cost and the dealer was prepared to cut his labour rate. The suggestion from What Car was to push for a bigger Read more »

I have been quite scathing about the extending lead times that car manufacturers have been quoting, questioning the management and accusing some manufacturers of using these extending lead times to manipulate the market prices of their cars. However, it would seem that I may not have been entirely right as I learned that many of the production delays have been Read more »

The importance of using a broker rather than a bucket shop for lease cars has been highlighted again this week following the consolidation of the leasing industry. Where your lease provider may have been merged or taken over by another provider you may find yourself subjected to end of lease charges that you may not have received by the original provider who may have been fairly relaxed about defleet recharges. Read more »

Tyres are on the move! Increasing in cost that is. The sudden jump in the cost of crude oil last year followed by the drop in value of sterling resulted in a continued increase in the cost of the raw materials that are used to manufacture tyres. This has meant that prices increased by 20% over recent months with the industry warning that prices will rise even further during 2009. Kwik Fit Fleet say they are expecting some Read more »

If you are hell bent on driving a 4 wheel drive I would make the most of it now as auction house Manheim have reported exceptional losses sustained by leasing companies when re-selling end of contract 4WD cars. At the moment manufacturers are offsetting poor resale values with big discounts and bonuses but the long term view is that manufacturers will scale down production and switch the lines over to smaller more desirable ‘greener’ cars. This will mean that they will give away less by way of bonuses making the lease cost of gas guzzling 4WD cars very high.But whilst we are in this honeymoon period and you like 4WD’s now is the time to take one because by the end of the year rates will potentially be horendous and deliveries even worse. Hands up who wants a Hummer? By Graham Hill