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Have you ever had a headlight bulb blow on your car? In truth, if you only ever drive new cars with a full manufacturer’s warranty you could be excused for believing that they would be covered for the term of the warranty so it wouldn’t matter if a bulb did blow. But if you think that – you might like to check the terms of your warranty.

Some manufacturers cover your light bulbs till the warranty runs out but others will cover the bulbs for a fixed term or until you reach the first service. They all seem to have a different approach. So I found it interesting to read the results of an investigation carried out by What Car.

Now, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t bother reporting on such an article. Especially as I had a bulb blow on my Mercedes after about 2 years. I simply popped into Halfords, bought a bulb for about £18 and they fitted it for me. In fact it took no more than seconds to disconnect the connector, flip a clip, replace the bulb, clip it in place, reconnect the connector and it was all done.

However, a friend with a Renault Megane found that in order to replace a headlamp bulb you have to practically dismantle the whole of the front of the car which can be extremely expensive, especially if this replacement isn’t part of the warranty. And it isn’t a job you could do yourself unless you are an engineer.

But it gets worse. When What Car carried out its survey it found that exchange bulbs varied greatly. The cheapest they found was a Suzuki Swift Halogen bulb, costing £4 with prices increasing up to a maximum of £20 for a Citroen C3 Halogen bulb. But that’s just Halogen bulbs.

If your car has High-Intensity Discharge bulbs fitted you could be in for a shock. According to some bulb manufacturers, the bulbs should last for 10 years whilst others say they should last the lifetime of the car.

So you may not have to replace a bulb but if you do it will be then that you will find out that you can’t simply replace the bulb, you have to replace the whole sealed unit  which, according to What Car, can cost from £211 on an Audi A1 S-Line to £846 for a replacement unit fitted to a Polo GTI. A Vauxhall Corsa can cost £317 whilst a Honda Jazz can be £714. And those prices don’t include fitting.

At these prices, it has been known that used cars with a blown bulb have been written off as it costs more to replace the bulb or headlamp unit than the car is worth. This is what What Car says: If you’re going to keep your car for many years or are buying second hand, we’d recommend avoiding models and trim levels that have sealed headlamp units. Stick with halogen bulbs if you want the cheapest replacement bulb costs, or go for a model such as the Mini Hatchback that lets you replace HID bulbs separately.

They go on to say that ‘If your car fails its MOT test because the lights aren’t bright enough, rather than replacing the light units, you can buy a headlight restoration kit for less than £20. You can use this kit to polish up yellowed or lightly scratched headlight lenses so they’re crystal clear again’. But of course, this won’t help if the bulb has blown.

Yet again a hidden cost that really should be made apparent when you buy your new or used car. And it raises the big question that I’ve been discussing around warranties. If your warranty has bulbs covered till your first service and a bulb goes after the service is this an enhancement of your legal rights – which is what a warranty should be? I would suggest not.

Don’t forget (see my PCP Report free on grahamhilltraining.com) that at the moment you are covered by the EU 2 year guarantee that comes with anything you buy, new or used, from a trader or business (not privately). By Graham Hill

This isn’t down to the cost of the glass itself, which is expensive enough, but more down to the cost of re-calibration of cameras and software. Something that most drivers are unaware of when they have a windscreen replaced.

Sadly this could well have an adverse effect on smaller independent windscreen replacement companies but could also lead to cars being less safe as the fitters, unable to re-calibrate as they don’t have the equipment, simply leave it leaving you with unsafe safety systems.

The safety systems fitted to new cars, called Advance Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) include autonomous emergency braking and lane assist, both of which rely upon cameras that operate through the windscreen. If the systems are not recalibrated following a windscreen replacement you may find that the car drifts out of its lane without detection or the emergency braking fails to identify an obstacle.

In 2015 just 1% of cars required recalibration. That has now increased to 9% of private cars and 34% of fleet/business cars as they tend to be newer. National Windscreens has invested £2 million in ADAS recalibration whilst Autoglass is launching 14 new recalibration centres and will have 70 workshops with the capability open by December 2018.

Dr Chris Davies, director of superiority at Belron (no seriously that’s his title), owners of Autoglass, explained why recalibration is necessary. When manufacturing the glass there are levels of tolerance and with slight differences in the positioning of the windscreen it can cause the cameras to effectively be in a different position.

Most cars require a static recalibration which can take place in a workshop but some must be dynamically recalibrated on the road. All recalibration must be carried out by a qualified engineer but dynamic recalibration needs the car to be driven at a fixed speed over a certain distance which can cause problems in city centres or at times of the year when you’ve got snow.

All of this makes it impossible for some smaller windscreen fitters to be able to do what is necessary to make the car safe so there is a risk that the recalibration doesn’t take place. Not good when your life could depend on it. If you know that your car doesn’t have ADAS systems fitted you should be fine but if in doubt make sure you use a major windscreen fitter.

Let me take you back a few years. I used to arrange stocking finance for dealers and traders i.e. they borrowed money to buy their stock then as they sold the vehicles they repaid the loan. On one occasion I was approached by a wholesaler who bought cars in bulk with big discounts and sold them to car supermarkets in smaller batches.

So they would buy 100 cars as a minimum then sell them in batches of 10. It turned out to be an accomodation. The cars were being bought by small daily rental companies who were given up to 45% discount by the manufacturers but funded by the wholesalers via me. The wholesaler would pay for the cars and pass back £100 per car to the rental company. In most instances, the daily rental company never saw the vehicles.

The wholesaler took £250 per car then sold to the supermarkets, still at massive discounts. I didn’t know this at the time but found out much later. On one occasion an order had been placed for 100 cars through a dealer. I won’t say which manufacturer. Before delivery, I had a call from the dealer. He said that he had 87 cars produced that were sub-spec. I didn’t know what this meant so asked to have it explained.

The dealer said that whilst the cars were all GL (not the actual model) the cars had fitted L spec. upholstery, missing fog lights and missing cup holders. He then asked if we wanted them? If we did he would knock £250 off the cost of each car. I called the wholesaler and told him what the dealer had said. He said that he was happy to include the 87 cars in the batch of 100 cars. He asked if they all had GL badges which the dealer confirmed.

Clearly selling sub spec. cars to daily rental companies is not a problem, after all if you were to hire a car for a few days you wouldn’t be questioning the interior or the missing spotlights not matching the model. You just hire the car. And although it has been questioned in the past, the daily rental companies can sell the cars after a period of time, normally 3 months or 5,000 miles, whichever comes first, as a second-hand car – as seen. So if the buyer is happy with the upholstery and lack of spotlights they will simply buy the car.

I don’t doubt for one minute that the wholesaler ‘forgot’ to tell the car supermarkets that items were missing. They would have simply thought they bought new GL’s and sold them as pre-registered cars to customers. At this point, I stopped providing the finance as I wasn’t comfortable as this was a very dubious operation even though I heard that the manufacturers were aware of what was going on and turned a blind eye.

Now given the fact that the car supermarkets were selling new cars at less than the dealers could buy the cars from the manufacturer for it led to car dealers setting up their own daily rental operations which they used to buy heavily discounted cars registered in the name of the daily rental operation. This came about after the Supply Of New Car Order 2000 prevented dealers from pre-registering cars and selling them for less than they would sell a normal new car for.

So why should this concern you? The fact is that these cars can easily be switched into the contract hire supply chain. The leasing company doesn’t see the cars beforehand and neither does the driver who probably doesn’t think of inspecting the car to see if any of the spec. is missing. In one instance one manufacturer had more diesel engines than they needed to keep in stock having changed the engines to a more efficient one. They also had a new body design but fitted a batch of new cars with old model engines – offering brokers an extra £2,500 discount per car.

As a result, I was aware of this and leased two cars after splitting the discount between myself and the customers who were fully aware that the new shape cars had old style engines fitted. But there were plenty of ‘brokers’ who were arranging leases on the cars as though they were heavily discounted fully spec’d ‘new model’ cars.

So again – a low rate could be hiding a sub spec. car.

Know who you are dealing with and what you are getting. We will only supply genuine cars from reputable dealers. By Graham Hill

In order to reduce rates, those providing PCH must find ways of buying cars more cheaply. There is a process called ‘Pre-Registration’. It simply means that cars are registered to the dealer first, in order to capture some extra discounts being given away by the manufacturer, that may be limited to a number of vehicles or vehicles registered by a certain date.

This often happens when the current model is facelifted or replaced. If it’s a facelift it’s probably only cosmetic so light clusters may change, the grill design may alter and there may be some tweeks to the interior. The wheels will probably change and you may find a few options now standard. If there is a model change the whole design will change and whilst the car may keep the model name it will look markedly different to the outgoing model.

So why should this affect you? The chances are that you will check out the car you’re interested in online or even visit a main dealer. In each case, you will probably be looking at the very latest model, not the last model. Those who simply want to advertise a cheap rate will advertise the car but won’t explain that the car has been pre-registered. You won’t know because you don’t see the registration document (V5C).

At the time of writing the current registration is ‘68’ and it is November. So if a car arrived on a ‘68’ plate you could assume that it had just been registered if you hadn’t been told otherwise but it could easily have been registered on the 1^st September and be the old model. Of course, it could still be the current model just registered two months earlier to capture the extra discount and enable the broker to offer the car more cheaply.

The effect could be twofold. Firstly the car may be the previous model leading to disappointment when you believed the car was the latest model that you ordered. We often promote cars that have been ‘pre-registered’ but we always tell the customer not only that the car was pre-registered but also the month in which it was pre-registered. You may feel that you are entitled to refuse delivery but you’ll find all sorts of excuses and charges tucked away in their terms and conditions.

The month is important, especially if you take out PCH without maintenance, as the service clock starts ticking from the moment the car is registered. When you take a new unregistered car it will normally be registered the day before or even the day of delivery. So there is a chance that when you take out a 3 year PCH that you may just be able to avoid the last service, depending on annual mileage. But if the car was pre-registered you are pretty much guaranteed to need a service before the car is returned, adding to the overall cost.

Know what you are getting and know the risks when you opt for a cheaper rate. By Graham Hill

Following the warnings from the BVRLA and myself, it is important to carry out a check to see if the company you are dealing with is properly authorised. If the company isn’t authorised the onus falls on your shoulders should fraud have been committed.

You cannot make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) against a company that isn’t on the FCA register as authorised.

That is scary because it means if you’ve been scammed by an unauthorised firm – you’re stuffed!

You can check the FCA Register by clicking on the following link and inserting the company name. Try using ‘GHA Finance’ as an example.

https://register.fca.org.uk/

Here is an extract from the FCA website:

If you deal with an unauthorised firm you will not be covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service(link is external) or Financial Services Compensation Scheme(link is external) (FSCS) if things go wrong.

Unfortunately there are firms that operate without our authorisation and some knowingly run scams like share fraud and other investment scams.

If a firm does not appear on the Register but claims it does, search for it in the list below and contact our Consumer Helpline on 0800 111 6768.

Beware of fraudsters pretending to be from a firm authorised by us, as it could be what we call a ‘clone firm‘. If you are cold-called by a financial services firm always ring them back on the switchboard number given on the Register.

We add firms to this list as soon as possible but it is not exhaustive. Do not assume a firm is legitimate just because it does not appear in this list – these firms frequently change their name and it may not have been reported to us yet.

You should take further steps to protect yourself from unauthorised firms and check our list of warnings from foreign regulators(link is external). You can also find out about share fraud and other investment scams.

Search for an unauthorised firm below or see the most recently added firms.

As you can see, not carrying out a quick check could leave you seriously out of pocket with no-one to turn to for help.

Warnings have been issued by the British Vehicle Rental & Leasing Association (BVRLA) regarding the increase in contract hire scams. Knowing who you are dealing with is much more important than simply searching for the cheapest deals.

The BVRLA has warned about scammers preying on those looking for the cheapest deal. In its simplest form, the ‘brokers’ advertise cheap deals that don’t exist and ask for a holding payment to secure the rates or a car. Or they wait till closer to the time they say they can deliver and ask for the 6 or 9 months advance rental, often thousands of pounds. Then disappear.

One of the very few benefits to taking out a PCP through a dealer is that you know where they are and who they are. They have a physical showroom and you can see the person you are dealing with. In the case of contract hire most contracts are agreed online with someone you will never meet so you really need to know who you are dealing with. Creating or cloning a very professional looking website is easy so you need to know that the people you are dealing with are as professional as the website looks.

And as warned by the BVRLA and I it is very easy to scam and it’s becoming more widespread than you think.

Following on from the warnings issued by the BVRLA I have another of my own. I’ve seen websites that have been cloned from an original legitimate site but changed all the contact details. Customers who check out the company that they think they are doing business with, find them to be legitimate – but they’re not.

The FCA suggest that whilst you are checking that the company is on their register you can also check the website contact details to ensure that the email address and telephone numbers agree. Even then it isn’t 100% as a legitimate company could have an 0800 number on the website but a landline number stored on the FCA register.

Also watch out for ‘cloaked’ email addresses. You may see something like graham@ghafinance.co.uk on the website but when you click on the link it takes you to something like graham@ghafinances.co.uk They will have an email account set up with the slightest of modifications like adding an ‘s’ at the end of ghafinance. By Graham Hill

One very important thing to remember is that a contract hire agreement:

IS NOT A LOAN AGREEMENT!

I have run training courses and seminars for leasing company employees and executives, dealership staff and consumer groups. In each, when I talk about contract hire agreements I tend to describe them as more like an insurance policy. The problem is that many consumers don’t bother reading the terms and conditions because they believe them to be similar to a loan agreement.

A loan agreement provides you with some key information regarding the finance, amount borrowed, loan term, interest rate, APR, monthly payments etc. This summary is followed by a dozen or so terms and conditions, pretty much falling in line with the Consumer Credit Act  1974, with most of the terms and conditions much the same between each lender, whether it is a bank or a supermarket.

The fact is that once you have the money you can buy a car following which everything is down to you, when, where and how you have the car serviced, the type of insurance you take out, the tyres you fit, when, where and for how long you take your car abroad and how you deal with warranty claims. It’s all under your control.

However, take a car on contract hire and you don’t own it. The leasing company owns it and wants you to take care of it whilst you have the use of it. Because they end up having to sell the car at the end of the agreement and want it to fetch as much as possible at auction. They also want to maximise their profit out of the deal and the profit comes from many places. However, in extreme ignorance, consumers and SME’s with decide upon a car based purely on the rate and totally ignore the contract they are about to sign.

I have pulled out of my files 7 recent contract hire agreements and each one is substantially different from the others and each contains terms that are incredibly vague and confusing. It’s frightening for someone with the knowledge and experience that I have let alone those who are not financially astute.

Here is an example from one of the contracts:

Except where the Customer deals as a Consumer (as such term is defined in the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1994) or if in Scotland this Agreement is a Consumer Contract (within the meaning of Sections 12 and 25 of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977) the Vehicles hired under this Agreement are hired without the benefit of those terms implied by Sections 8. 9 and 10 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 which terms are (except where the Customer deals as Consumer defined as before) expressly excluded.

Got it? I know what it means but most people would find that incredibly confusing and could leave a customer seriously out of pocket and without a car following a warranty claim. And that’s just one of a hundred terms. So even if you take time to read through the terms and conditions you may still be as knowledgeable as if you hadn’t read them in the first place. It’s a scam.

The fact is that none of the contract hire companies are registered charities and they all need to return profits so think of the monthly rate as just one part of an equation aimed at relieving you of money. Oh, and part of their equation is cost so some employ school leavers on minimum wage to take calls from customers with little training so you can’t expect a high level of customer support if any at all. And raise a problem with a bucket shop broker and you’ll be given short shrift with the response – sort it out with the leasing company! By Graham Hill

According to car warranty providers Warranty Direct mobile phone and speeding offences are decreasing. They have found out that using a mobile phone whilst driving offences have dropped by 44% and speeding offences have dropped by 8.5%. They came to this conclusion after analysing data from the Ministry of Justice over the last 5 years.

They put this drop down to increases in fines and penalties introduced in March last year. Really?? Their analysis showed that each time penalties or fines have been increased this has been followed by a drop in prosecutions. Last March not only saw fines increase, the penalty points awarded if you were caught using a mobile phone behind the wheel also increased from 3 points to 6 points.

The CEO of Warranty Direct, Simon Ackers, said to What Car, ‘It’s great to see these updated driving laws have had a significant, positive impact on driving behaviour in such a short space of time’. ‘I don’t believe it’s just the increased financial penalties, either; motoring authorities have increased their efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of unsafe driving’.

According to road safety website, Think, you’re 4 times more likely to be in a crash if you’re using a mobile phone whilst driving. OK, I don’t have a problem with the above but could some of the drop in prosecutions possibly be down to the drop in the numbers of police out and about able to catch those breaking the law?

In Sussex, where I live, you can go days without seeing a police car and I don’t think they have a local plod. Speed cameras were switched off years ago and even little hidey holes that mobile speed detectors used to hide away in to catch you speeding are no longer used. So it’s great that offences are down but is it because fewer people are breaking the law. I personally don’t think so. By Graham Hill

The EU’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) says the number of fake parts fitted to cars on British roads is on the increase. They have estimated that over £2 billion of fake tyres and batteries alone are fitted to cars across Europe. In the UK investigations have revealed that the most common fakes fitted to cars are filters and lights but the fakes that can put lives in jeopardy are brake pads and airbags.

The IPO has explained the huge increase in fakes is mainly due to problems identifying the fakes from the originals. In order to sort the problem out the IPO has joined forces with manufacturers BMW and Audi, selling platforms Amazon and eBay as well as numerous part suppliers. They have come together to issue guidance on how to spot fake car parts.

One of the recommendations was to have dealers or garages source parts for you and fit them rather than source parts yourself and then ask a dealer to fit them. You might save money by sourcing parts yourself but if the dealer sources the parts then he is responsible for the job from start to finish including the parts he provides. They can’t guarantee a part that you provided yourself.

Audi pointed out how difficult it was to identify the fakers from their websites that are looking more and more professional and as genuine as the websites of genuine providers. Their ‘Brand Protection Team’ finds it more and more difficult identifying the crooks from their website. The first indicator is the price that is ‘too good to be true’. The next is spelling. Often there is the slightest of spelling mistakes that alert them and should alert you. That applies not only to the website but also the packaging.

I remember years ago a friend that owned an electrical shop ordered in some Sharp calculators that were at giveaway prices. They looked exactly the same as the original, the logo looked exactly the same but when you looked closely Sharp was spelt Shrap. He asked everyone who came into the shop to tell him what was wrong with the calculator. Hardly anyone saw it as the logo looked so genuine.

The quality of the packaging can also be a giveaway. Some manufacturers also put small marks on the packaging to make it easier to detect fakes. What Car suggests that you take your car to a recognised garage, one that is signed up to the Motor Industry Code Of Practice for Service and Repair.

I feel that a central database of all fakes found by Trading Standards, Customs and Excise and other regulatory bodies be posted on a ‘Fakes’ website to alert consumers about the fakes and how to identify them. By Graham Hill

As an avid reader of my regular newsletters and blogs, you will know that you need to run your diesel engine at over 50mph for a minimum of 20 minutes at least once a month in order to clear out the catalytic converter (the same applies to some petrol engine cars).

This exercise doesn’t spew the particulates (soot) out of the exhaust, it creates a chemical reaction that destroys the particulates without destroying the environment. However, for some drivers, it isn’t possible to do this on a regular monthly basis so a company called Cataclean has come up with a solution – literally, that you add to your fuel.

They claim that by adding it to the fuel it will react within the catalytic converter to not only clean the filters but also all the surfaces within the converter making it not only more fuel efficient but also more efficient at removing NOx and Carbon Monoxide from the exhaust gasses.

In fact, Halfords ran a recent promotion saying that if your car failed its MOT test on emissions after using Cataclean they would refund your money (for the Cataclean that is). They claim that the additive causes the fuel to combust more evenly and efficiently whilst not affecting the fuel in any way.

You can buy it currently in Halfords for both petrol and diesel engines for £15.99 for 450ml. Users have given it a 5 star rating. If you want to know more about the product and how it works go to  https://www.cataclean.com/products.htm

By Graham Hill