The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

It’s turned out to be a pretty busy week following the launch of my new book, Graham Hill’s Simple Guide To Car Finance which I hope will get everyone driving a great car. Preparing for finance is vitally important at the moment as there is little money about to lend. So that tempting low APR or monthly lease rate, that gets you sending off your finance application, may lead to a decline if you are not totally Read more »

Another amazing piece of news is that my blog is number one! When I was much younger I had aspirations to become a singer and maybe top the charts, make a fortune and have lots of screaming teenagers throwing themselves at me whilst I disappeared off down the road in my E Type Jag. OK, with a voice like mine it was never going to happen and I’ve dated a few nice ladies over the years and of course driven some Read more »

One of the last meetings I attended at which we discussed the state of the motor finance industry, we were told by one of the leading accountancy practices in the UK along with a couple of large leasing operations that the biggest problem faced by the industry was lack of liquidity or in other words lack of money to lend to you and me. This has been confirmed by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Read more »

According to Experian, the credit reference agency, automotive fraud increased by 35% during the first half of 2010. 34 in every 10,000 applications were considered potentially criminal. The majority were recorded in the second quarter showing an upward trend. First party fraud overtook third party identity fraud during April to June as the most common type of attempted fraud. First party fraud is typically where individuals attempt to hide adverse credit history or misrepresent their employment status to try and secure credit and other Read more »

On the 14^th September I attended a meeting of the good and great in the vehicle finance industry at the London offices of Grant Thornton. The purpose was to debate the challenges of the industry which would be reported in the journal of the industry, Motor Finance. There were many conflicting views but the bottom line is that we are still in for a tough time. Clearly there is a lack of liquidity in the vehicle finance Read more »

There are new accounting rules being worked on by the International Accountancy Standards Board in order to standardise the way that leases are accounted for. Years ago we made a big issue about the fact that contract hire type leases were ‘off balance sheet’ and simply recorded as a revenue expense. This was quite important for large corporates but for smaller companies it didn’t actually carry a lot of Read more »

If you are driving behind a car and it seems to be wandering across the road as though the driver had been drinking, it may not be the driver it may just be the car that’s a little worse for wear! Researchers at Edinburgh Napier University have developed a biofuel from whisky by-products. Called biobutanol it’s 30% more powerful than ethanol and is created out of two waste products: ‘pot ale’ from copper stills and Read more »

The car and car finance industry is full of opinionated people who haven’t a clue as to what they are talking about. So called experts guess and make assumptions without any real knowledge on the subject. About now you will see national newspapers, radio and TV reporters telling you to shop around for finance before the launch of the new 60 registration, ignore dealer HP and find yourself a cheap personal loan, Read more »

As the economy bumps along showing minimal signs of recovery the CVO Survey shows that large companies continue to actively use contract hire as its main method of financing its company cars whilst SME’s continue to blindly use cash, loans and overdrafts. Why should this be? I would suggest out of ignorance. Far too little is understood about leasing for SME’s to make a considered choice so they end up Read more »

If you’re an avid reader of my newsletter and blog you will have read that you no longer need to have your car serviced by a main dealer in order to maintain your warranty. The rules that were relaxed several years ago that prevented you from having your car serviced wherever you wanted are known as the EU Block Exemption Rules. These rules have just been reviewed again and the rules pretty much left as they Read more »