Monday, 19. April 2010
As we know, we tend to follow behind America, whether it’s the weather, release of new technology, a recession, an economic recovery and so on. So I was pleased to read in the Wall Street Journal that the leasing industry is just taking off big style in the US with (surprisingly) Toyota leading the way with Honda following up offering incredible deals to move new cars with rates dropping lower than they were at the Read more »
Saturday, 10. April 2010
the EU is planning stricter rules on MOT testing. This will immediately increase the cost of the MOT as more items are to be checked. This has resulted from the European Union passing a new set of stricter rules on minimum road worthiness. The EU ministers agreed that ‘modern electronic systems be included in the list of items to be tested’. This change along with others already planned will be introduced in Read more »
Friday, 9. April 2010
My aspirational car is an Aston Martin and I expect to announce in the not too distant future that I have one following the successful launch and growth of my new business. However, that was until I saw their latest venture, the Aston Martin Cygnet which is based apparently on a Toyota iQ. To me it looks like a Fiat 500, can you believe it? I’ll see if I can find a picture but I think I may have to re-think this whole Aston Read more »
Thursday, 8. April 2010
‘I don’t mind what it is, I’m after something that does the job but doesn’t cost a lot per month.’ Quite a common request that I receive and so I have a bit of a rummage around and find a Kia on a really good deal or maybe a Hyundai or a Chevrolet. Suddenly the customer has become a bit more of a snob than even he thought he was but are we right to dismiss some of these makes? Martin Ward of CAP test drives cars all Read more »
Thursday, 1. April 2010
Who are EuroNCAP? Do you know? Well it turns out that far too few people do so they are on a mission to become more visible. They are a group formed in 1997 by the Transport Research Laboratory and they are the organisation that crash tests every new car to award it safety stars from the driver’s perspective, passenger perspective and pedestrian perspective. Over the years many companies have insisted upon Read more »
Saturday, 27. March 2010
The recent major recall by Toyota, as a result of their brake and accelerator problems, has given rise to some knee jerk reactions amongst drivers when they now receive recall notices. As I recently pointed out, recalls are fairly common but not all faults that are in need of attention are life threatening so there is no need to stop using the car and start taking the bus to work the moment a recall notice arrives in Read more »
Wednesday, 10. March 2010
Toyota finally looks as though it is seeing some light at the end of the tunnel after what must have been the worst start to a year in its history. So far this year 188,500 cars have been recalled, the majority of which require replacements to their accelerator linkages (180,000) and 8,500 Prius require modifications to their braking systems. The accelerator linkage repairs take about 30 minutes to complete. Whilst Read more »
Wednesday, 24. February 2010
Toyota finally looks as though it is seeing some light at the end of the tunnel after what must have been the worst start to a year in its history. So far this year 188,500 cars have been recalled, the majority of which require replacements to their accelerator linkages (180,000) and 8,500 Prius require modifications to their braking systems. The accelerator linkage repairs take about 30 minutes to complete. Whilst Read more »
Monday, 1. February 2010
Whilst the world’s biggest car manufacturer flounders around trying to find out why their cars have a habit of accelerating out of control and then not stopping with horrendous consequences, General Motors, in the US, is capitalising out of Toyota’s problems by offering incentives for people to move out of their Toyota and into a GM car offering such incentives as 5 year interest free finance, cashbacks and help to Read more »
Thursday, 28. January 2010
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 »