The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

Auto Express have just published the results of their driver survey to end up with a top 150 cars as voted by the 50,073 car owners that took part in the survey. The top car manufacturer, up one place from last year was Skoda, who regained this position after losing out to Lexus last year. Not only were they voted top manufacturer they had the top three cars with the Yeti, Citigo and Superb.

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.

A truly excellent company, according to their customers. At position 2 was Jaguar, up a place from 3^rd last year. Ride and ease of driving scored highly with Jaguar owners. Reliability and running costs were not so good, enough to prevent them from taking number one place. 3^rd place was a new entrant, MG.

The revived badge was somewhat of a surprise. The MG6 was top of the pops for handling and a creditable 6^th place in the overall model chart. It shaped up well for running costs although fuel consumption wasn’t so good, servicing costs did well. With only two models on sale MG have done well. In 4^th place, dropping 3 from last years number one slot, is Lexus.

The score achieved this year is actually higher than last year but because of strong competition Lexus has been demoted to 4^th. Nothing has actually gone wrong for Lexus who are still number one for reliability and build quality. It was also number one for in-car tech and runner up for ease of driving.

Very low places for practicality (always a problem when you only produce 4Dr saloons) and high running costs dragged the prestige car down. This was surprising as Lexus have become synonymous with hybrid technology these days. Another newcomer stormed in at 5^th place, the Dacia brand.

However it is thought that this was due to very low expectations and the cars performing better than expected. Areas such as affordability and running costs helped the car up the rankings. But it wasn’t all about low costs as the cars came a creditable 3^rd for reliability and 4^th for practicality.

3^rd place for in-car tech probably had more to do with the fact that some items included as standard were not expected in a budget car. Time will tell but well done Dacia. In 6^th place was Porsche up from 13^th last year. Impressive improvements have pushed them up a deserved 7 places with a score that would have pushed them up to 3^rd last year.

High scores in performance and handling were obvious reasons why they did well but they also scored well in build quality putting them in 2^nd place. Running costs and practicality didn’t help the manufacturer although ease of driving and seat comfort scored highly. 7^th was Kia, staying in the same place as last year.

Kia cars are above average and scored well in all categories without excelling in any particular section. Consistent is the word to describe Kia. In car technology scored well as did running costs helped more by servicing costs than fuel consumption. Performance and ease of driving scored not so well and prevented Kia from doing any better.

At 8^th was Mazda, down from 4^th place last year. Generally the drivers of Mazdas are no less happy than last year, it’s just that other manufacturers have improved pushing the bar higher. Running costs were a little disappointing but there were no major deficiencies, the report should read, not a bad effort but could do better.

Mercedes dropped from 5^th to 9^th but still managed to see off its main German rivals. The results reflected a general satisfaction although owners were not exactly blown away. Ease of driving and build quality helped it past BMW. Running costs scored badly as did practicality. Finally at 10^th place was BMW, up from 15^th.

Good scores for performance and handling contributed to the improved position and with the 5 Series considered to be the best executive saloon the 10^th place wasn’t surprising. For the positions of all 33 manufacturers please refer to Auto Express Driver Power results. By Graham Hill

Car Radio (Photo credit: nedrichards)

You know when you are on your computer and you start searching for holidays then by the magic of technology every time you open a page or carry out a search for something else you suddenly see holiday ads flash in front of you on the screen?

Well the same is about to happen on your radio. Instead of hearing general ads during programmes you will start to hear targeted ads.

Known as Aha Radio they say that instead of you hearing an ad for We Buy Any Car.Com you could hear we’ll buy your car for £8,900 based on your car being a 2007 BMW 320d with 80,000 miles on the clock, which of course is your car.

The new radio is in fact an Internet platform that will be bundled into infotainment systems in new cars from Porsche, Mazda and Ford so far. Their aim is to target the customers as they do on the Internet rather than scattergun.

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.

The ad breaks will be tailored based on the car you are driving, where you are going and where you are. For example it will detect that you are about to pass a branch of Starbucks and alert you to any deals going on at the time.

Safety experts might have something to say about this as it might prove to be a major distraction. A clever idea though. By Graham Hill Car Finance

There are some encouraging signs coming from the Japanese manufacturers with regard to recovery following the tsunami. Toyota and Nissan are working close to capacity now to fulfil orders and to replenish inventory of cars and parts depleted as a result of the March 11^th disaster. Whilst car production was ready to roll very quickly it was a Read more »

Image via Wikipedia

Just as you think that we are moving rapidly through the highest tech era this planet has ever been through with new advances being announced virtually daily you hear a story that makes you realise that we still actually live in the real world. I read that Mazda have recalled 65,000 of their 6 model cars in north and central America. Suddenly you think Read more »

Motor Codes, the body responsible for producing a National code of practice for servicing and repairs, have called for a single computer database containing every vehicle’s service record to be created to prevent crooks faking car service histories in order to inflate the car’s value. The call was made after it was found that it was possible to guy fake service books and ink stamps online on eBay. Auto Express Read more »

I’m not sure how useful this information is or what real conclusions can be drawn but I found it interesting so am passing it on. Under the Freedom of  Information Act the BBC obtained data regarding MOT failures and Business Car  analysed the figures to identify which cars had the highest pass rates and which cars had the highest fail rate. The statistics are based on 2004 registered cars that were MOT tested for the Read more »

Now for a bit of a technology update: Mazda has started to trial a new vehicle to vehicle communications system that can warn drivers of approaching danger such as approaching traffic at blind bends and intersections. Maplin has produced a do it yourself reversing camera that is powered through your cigarette lighter socket. The screen changes from colour during the day to black and white at night to make the screen clearer. It costs £130. Unipart is currently developing a ‘black box‘ that can automatically alert the emergency services if your car is involved in an accident or stolen. Unipart claims Read more »