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Some people think that having an MOT test proves that a car is in good condition and without faults. This of course isn’t true so if you are buying a used car you should have a full inspection carried out on the car rather than just an MOT. Also if you have an MOT coming up and you want to know the likely ‘damage’ you should ask for a pre-MOT check rather than having an actual MOT carried out.

The reason for mentioning this is that if you have a car MOT tested and it fails this is recorded on the DVSA register as a failure. Scrapcarcomparison.co.uk has warned that some drivers have had their cars MOT tested long before the MOT is due, failed the test but believed that it is still OK to drive the car till the old MOT has run out. This isn’t true and not only is it dangerous it is also illegal.

Driving a car that isn’t roadworthy is not only dangerous and illegal it can also invalidate your insurance and if the police pick it up via their ANPR cameras it can lead to a fine of £2,500, a driving ban as well as 3 points on the licence. Last year 36.8% of cars failed their MOT tests on the first attempt with over 2.4 million cars requiring fixes before passing. So remember, if your car fails an MOT test at any time you can only continue to drive the car if it is on the way to be repaired (proof required) or to a pre-arranged MOT test appointment. By Graham Hill

As we all know speed cameras are only there to help to save lives not raise revenue – yer right!! I actually don’t mind speed cameras if they are genuinely saving lives, in towns, near schools and old people’s homes or where there are likely hazards on a stretch of road such as horses or a particularly bad bend where people have had accidents. But what about the variable speed cameras on motorways?

The overhead speed signs that change with road conditions. Now gradually slowing cars down whilst you approach a traffic jam is fine but when you’ve passed the broken down car on the opposite side of the motorway, that all in front slowed down to have a look at, rubbernecking, and the road is clear in front but the speed limit lights are still showing 30mph is it right to cop drivers on camera anxious to get a move on?

Well it seems that these variable speed cameras are earning a fortune with cameras between junction 19 and 20 on the M4 in Bristol raising a massive £4,032,000 since they were installed in July/August 2014. Confused.com have revealed the top 5 money making variable speed camera stretches of motorway in the UK with the Bristol stretch of the M$ responsible for issuing 40,320 penalty notices.

The findings revealed that 210,000 motorists have been caught out by sudden speed changes raising at least £21 million in fines – staggering. The standard fine for speeding is £100 with 3 points on your licence but penalties can increase to £2,500 with a ban if you are excessively over the limit.

Want to know the other speed camera ‘black spots’? Next on the list was on the M5 at Almondsbury  – Easter Compton J16-17, since June 2014 variable speed cameras have raised £2,739.800, Luton in Beds. J10-11 on the M1 has raised £2,175,100 since September 2013. Next comes the M25 in Surrey, J9-16 that has raised £1,919,400 since 2014 and finally, again on the M25 near J27 in Epping, Sussex since January 2013 they have raised £1,888,800. So there you have it, you have been warned! By Graham Hill

According to the RAC pothole related breakdowns were up by 63% over the last year. Between January and March this year breakdown patrols helped 6,500 drivers who were in trouble due to poor road conditions. The problems ranged from punctures and broken suspension through to distorted wheels.

So I was interested to read that researchers at Delft University in the Netherlands may have the answer. They have come up with a self-repairing Asphalt. Normal Asphalt is made to be porous in order to reduce road noise, but the pores allow cracks to build up and eventually turn into a potholes. In order to overcome this the clever people at Delft have come up with the idea of mixing in steel wool into the asphalt.

The steel wool makes the mix conductive to electricity. So if a crack appears a magnetic induction machine is rolled over the surface to heat the mixture that will close the cracks before they become potholes. This system has been under test since 2010 on 12 Dutch roads with none of them requiring any more repairs. The Asphalt mix costs around 25% more but they say the new mix could double the life cycle of roads saving money in the long run.

Personally I have yet to be convinced as firstly they have to identify the cracked roads very early on, then they need to tow to the site a special induction machine on wheels that then sends a current through the wool to heat up the Asphalt. And once a pothole appears you are back to a man with a shovel and a heavy boot to repair it. Let’s face it if we had the ‘crack warning’ early enough and the resources we could dispatch the man with his shovel to fix it just as quick and more cheaply. But what do I know? By Graham Hill

If you have taken delivery of a new car recently have you checked the spare tyre situation? Many people are still driving around in the belief that they have a full sized spare sitting in the boot but if you lift the carpet mat you may be shocked to find that you only have a skinny spare, about the width of a pound coin or worse, as manufacturers try to save another gram of CO2, a can of spray tyre inflator and rubber weld in the hole that once contained a spare wheel.

Even worse if you have a BMW because you may open the boot carpet to reveal – nothing! No skinny wheel or can of tyre repair gunk. Just – nothing! Because most BMW’s are now fitted with run flat tyres, which is good because if you get a puncture the tyre will feel spongy and an alert will tell you that there has been a sudden drop in tyre pressure but you can keep going for a further 50 miles at 50 miles per hour.

The bad news is that whilst there are repair kits available to the trade few tyre repairers are happy to carry out a repair as it can be difficult to assess the ancillary damage caused to the structure of the tyre by driving it without air. So generally speaking you are into the cost of a new tyre following a puncture with the additional pain that run flats are more expensive than a normal tyre.

Incidentally, I have had clients call following the delivery of a car with a repair kit in the boot in place of a spare wheel believing this to be illegal. It isn’t. In order to reduce weight, CO2 output and fuel consumption many manufacturers are turning to the spray can so if you’re not sure check it out.

And with the RAC advising that punctures are the most common call out alongside engines that won’t start it might be wise to check the boot. You will at least be prepared and if you prefer at least a skinny spare you can normally get one from a dealer as an after fit. By Graham Hill

As I get older I’ve stopped doing many of the things I did as a young driver, mainly revolving around road rage. If someone pulls out in front of me on a roundabout now I no longer lean on the horn whilst screaming blue murder over the thumping sound of  Will I Am’s latest dance release, sticking two fingers up at the driver then spending the next 10 minutes trying to cut the dopey old 90 year old up at every opportunity to ‘teach her a lesson’!

These days I’m as likely to even slow down and let the driver pull out in front of me on the roundabout, only the one of course, my benevolence doesn’t stretch to being courteous to more than one driver at a time – behave! But there is still one thing that still causes me to see red and that is to be driving behind a car and the driver or the passenger in the car in front dispose of the remains of a Chicken McBucket meal for 4 out of the driver’s window.

Of course there are a few with a social conscience who either get the passenger to throw the rubbish out of the passenger window so that it doesn’t end up on the screen of the car behind, or if there are no passengers in the car open the passenger window and lob the rubbish out from the driver’s side contributing to the 700,000 bin bags of rubbish collected annually from the roadside.

Either way it causes me to get angry because it’s one of those things that I can honestly say I’ve never done. It’s despicable to mess up the roadside with rubbish. It’s no big effort to keep the rubbish in the car till you get home, to work or fill up at the garage – isn’t it? But having said that I don’t go knocking on car doors armed with a tyre lever to point out the error of their ways for two reasons.

Firstly cars no longer come with a tyre lever and to walk up to a car window armed with a can of Holts Tyreweld would be more than mildly silly. Secondly I heard of an old lady who became incensed when she saw the passenger of a parked car happily dropping the packaging and remains of their lunch on to the road from their window, asked politely to pick up their litter before they left, and ended up in traction for her efforts.

I’m not that brave over an empty crisp packet but I’m please to say that the law is tightening up on litter louts. From later this month local authorities in London have the power to issue £100 fines to those caught dropping litter out of cars and can be caught using CCTV cameras.

Caroline Spelman, Environmental Secretary is also considering rolling this out across the country with an increased fine of £200 and making the owner of a car responsible for the fine even though the rubbish may have been ejected by a passenger whilst the car was being driven by someone other than the owner.

The fact is that dropping litter is a criminal offence and you can be fined by a magistrate up to £2,500 so it is already serious but a fixed penalty of £200 may work better. Something else that makes me see red is seeing a driver either texting or driving with a mobile phone lodged under their chin – no that isn’t hands free! Oh and then there are the times when you let someone pass cars on their side of the road and they don’t even raise a finger in gratitude oh and then ……………… By Graham Hill

I felt certain that I had mentioned this before but having checked back over recent postings I can’t find any reference to this important piece of information. So here goes. Did you know that as a consumer you can sometimes lease cars at much less that some of the biggest fleet users in the country.

Thanks to Stephen Byers, back in 2000 he created the Supply Of New Cars Order which pretty much levelled the playing field as far as new car prices were concerned. The order meant that the prices paid by consumers should be no more than those paid by the biggest fleets in the country subject to certain negotiating advantages.

This was done to stop new car buyers from jumping on the ferry to Belgium or France in order to buy their new cars from a foreign dealer and pocket savings of several thousands of pounds rather than buy overpriced new cars in the UK. The knock on effect was to equalise contract hire rates so you will often find that the rates offered to businesses are the same as those to the consumers on a PCH, simply add on the VAT.

But this is where it gets interesting because there is a little wiggle room and often a window of opportunity to do a better deal than a large company. Let me explain. Let’s say a large fleet operator negotiates with Ford and in those negotiations commits to taking say 200 Ford Mondeos over the next 12 months. They agree a  rate of say £225 + VAT per month.

The deliveries would be spread throughout the year and the rate will remain unchanged for the next 12 months. That helps the customer and the supplier to budget accurately over the next year. At some stage during the same 12 months you might consider leasing the same model of Mondeo but most of the time you are quoted say £260 + VAT on a PCH from an independent contract hire provider or Ford (I’m just using them as an example).

However, at some stage through the year Ford finds that they have stocks of Mondeos in their various storage pounds with a new model due to arrive at their dealers in 3 months’ time. In order to move them they offer them to the independent leasing companies at a huge discount resulting in PCH and business contract hire rates of say £195 + VAT so for that short window of time consumers and SME’s are able to lease cars at less than some of the largest fleet users in the UK.

This is an area that I specialise in. I find the deals on cars with extra support applied (that’s discount and bonuses to you and I) for a wide variety of reasons. Could be as mentioned a facelift or totally new model coming out, it could be to fill up the new order book to make sure that production lines continue running (this has often been the case with VW) and some even spend a chunk of their marketing budget to discount new cars going on lease as the best form of car marketing is to actually see them on the road. By Graham Hill

As Easter is nearly upon us I thought I would share something I read with you in the event you are travelling abroad and may be renting a car. I read that a chap was in France and needed to rent a car. He was handed the keys of a diesel and whilst they can sound a bit rough when diesel cars initially start up, they generally settle down and, after a while, sound from the outside as well as the inside, no different to a petrol car.

However, in this case, as the engine warmed up it got progressively noisier and as the driver knew a thing or two about cars he identified, quite quickly, that the car had been miss-fuelled. He took the car back to the rental company and swapped it for another car but it was what he was told by the major rental company rep. that was a little worrying.

He explained that as most rental companies have mixed fleets of diesels and petrols it was quite easy for a non French speaking client to top the car up with the wrong fuel whilst rushing to get to hand the car back before catching their plane home. But it was suggested that some unscrupulous rental companies were handing over cars that they knew to be miss-fuelled.

Then when you returned with the car arguing that the client must have miss-fuelled the car and charging their credit card with the cost of repair as it ‘wasn’t covered by the insurance’. The suggestion was that they wouldn’t repair the car, simply keep it to one side waiting for the next sucker.

So if this is the case make sure you use recognised, well established, rental companies with plenty of on-line recommendations. Make sure that the insurance policy covers miss-fuelling, run the engine for a short while and if the noise on startup gets worse within 5 minutes reject the car and ask for a replacement. Oh and of course, whichever country you are visiting, get to know the words for petrol and diesel. By Graham Hill

Just recently I have had a few enquiries for cars where customers have asked for a fairly low spec. car then added a pile of extras on it increasing the monthly repayments dramatically. In one instance a client had a problem with static from the seats so wanted leather seats but in terms of creature comforts that was all he wanted over and above a fairly standard car.

We priced up the increased cost of leather when added to the rentals on the standard car then, out of interest, I priced up the car that was two spec. levels above the standard car which had, amongst other things, leather as standard. Even though it had much more kit as standard it still worked out cheaper than the standard car with leather added.

And this is the case on many occasions when I have compared a low spec. car with extras added with a higher spec. car with all the extras as standard. The reason for this is several fold. On average a new car, on average mileage, drops to around 40% of its original list price after 3 years. However, added options will rarely return 40% after 3 years, except metallic or pearlescent paint.

In many cases the added options add nothing to the resale value of the car, at best it may make the car a little easier to sell on a dealer’s forecourt. And when the cars go through auction at the rate of one every 3 minutes traders probably wouldn’t even notice that the air con has been upgraded to climate control or the Sat Nav screen has been changed from a 5” screen to a 7” screen.

In some extreme cases extras can reduce the resale value of the car, for example a tow bar. On the other hand the car with the higher spec. only increases the cost of the car by a fraction compared to the increase if extras were added individually. But the resale value will still be around 40% of the purchase price. In addition higher spec. cars are produced in lower volumes but the used car buyers want as much ‘bang for their buck’ so the demand for higher spec. cars is higher than standard cars, even if the standard cars are fitted with a few customised extras.

So in summary it needs a change of mindset. Don’t think as a car buyer when leasing a car. Whilst the standard car with a few extras on may still be cheaper to buy than the next model up with the extras as standard (along with other features) the difference in resale value could be substantial making it as cheap if not cheaper to lease the higher spec. standard car. Talking to an expert can help. That’ll be me then! By Graham Hill

I have mentioned in the past the great asset a credit card can be when dealing with consumer rights issues such as faulty goods. Provided the goods cost between £101 and £30,000 and you pay even a token amount on a credit card you are covered for the full value of the goods.

In addition the dealer (supplier) and the credit card company are jointly liable under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. So let’s take as an example a car that costs £15,000 for which you either have cash or you have taken out a personal loan. Either way when you buy the car it is seen as a cash purchase. However, when you saw the car at the dealership, whilst you arranged for the cash to be available you made a nominal payment of £50 on your credit card in order to hold the car.

That is sufficient for you to be covered up to the total value of the car of £15,000. I have read of instances whereby a dealer, in a bad way, has taken holding deposits from customers on credit cards. The dealer has then received the balance in cash but before the car is delivered he goes bust. On the face of it the customer has lost his cash but by making the deposit payment on a credit card he can now claim back the full amount paid of £15,000.

When this has been explained to people both myself and lawyers get asked similar questions, here are a few with answers:

If you buy several things on a credit card coming to over £100 are you covered by section 75? No, you are only covered for individual items costing over £100 each. Buy 4 tickets to a show costing £50 each in one transaction that don’t arrive – you aren’t covered.

If an item costs from £100 to £30,000 I’m covered by section 75. No, the goods must cost OVER £100, exactly £100 is not covered.

Will you still be covered by section 75 even if you pay the amount of the deposit or the cost of the item off? Yes

If you exceed your credit card limit in order to pay the deposit or the cost of the goods are you still covered? Yes you are.

Do you have to wait till the seller or dealer refuses to give you a refund before approaching the credit card company? No, both are liable so you can approach both for a refund.

When making a claim to the credit card provider are you limited to the amount paid on the credit card? As mentioned above, no, if the dealer/supplier can be proven to be at fault both parties are liable for the total cost.

This is a common one which causes confusion as it goes to the definition of a consumer. If a self employed person uses a credit card to buy a vehicle for business use they won’t be covered by section 75. This is false because whilst the Consumer Rights Act would not see a self employed person as a consumer the self employed person would be considered to be a ‘consumer’ within the Sale of Goods Act which is still in force.

Many businesses offer the ability to pay by credit card or through Paypal. If you pay by credit card through Paypal are you still covered by section 75? This is true. But Paypal offers its own protection which can occasionally work better than section 75 but you no longer have access to the FOS.

If you pay a deposit on a credit card with the balance on HP will you still be covered by section 75? Many people would believe that you are covered and you still have access to the FOS but the fact is that you aren’t covered by section 75 as the HP agreement supersedes the credit card payment. It will only cover a 3 party arrangement, in this case there are 4.

Items costing more than £30,000 are not covered by section 75. This isn’t strictly true as there is a section 75A which imposes a secondary liability on the creditor increasing the limit to £62,620 but the joint responsibility no longer applies.

Hope all that helps.  By Graham Hill

For years I have been advising customers, SME’s and consumers in general about their rights regarding the purchase and finance of vehicles and what to do when things go wrong. You buy a vehicle and finance it on HP. In these circumstances there has always been an obligation on both the supplier (the dealer) and the provider of the finance as the transaction is regarded to be a ‘linked transaction’.

This made both parties jointly liable if a car that you bought subsequently displayed a fault that could be proven to have existed when the car was sold to you. This doesn’t just apply to cars, it applies to any other goods that you buy this way. However, had you ignored the dealer and complained to the lender in the first instance he would normally direct you, quite incorrectly, back to the dealer ‘as he supplied the car so is liable’.

I’ve even had rows with very senior members of staff at HP companies pointing out that the rights of the customer are exactly the same whether dealing with the finance provider or the dealer who supplied the goods. In fact as we now learn from the Financial Ombudsman it is the finance company who should put matters right. More of that in a moment.

But for most people this is where it starts to get strange because let’s say that the car was advertised as having 6 forward gears and when you bought the car the spec. of the car showed 6 forward gears and even the salesman explained that the car had 6 forward gears but when the car was delivered you find that it only has 5.

The car can be rejected as ‘not as described’ but the HP company is as liable as the dealer even though he was not party to the negotiations. Strange but true – but this isn’t the end. According to one law firm some of the confusion has now been clarified – or has it? According to them there is a very clear process. The car is inspected and agreed upon by the consumer prior to the purchase. In turn he agrees to take out HP or PCP and the car is invoiced to the lender.

The lender now owns the car and the transaction between the lender and the dealer is a commercial transaction and doesn’t fall within the rules of the new Consumer Rights Act. As a consumer your rights within the Act are now between you and the lender. If the goods are faulty, not fit for purpose or not as described you have a case – only against the lender. So if you take up the case against the lender don’t be pushed back to the supplying dealer. That is the lender’s problem – not yours.

As most lenders are very keen to get the case off their desk they are unwinding the finance and taking back the car then forcing the dealer to take the car back from them and refund to them the price paid under threat of withdrawing their credit facilities. The firm of lawyers is suggesting that the dealers start to fight back, no doubt earning the firm of solicitors fees. This won’t affect you as you have already returned the car, had the finance unwound and had your money refunded.

They are also suggesting to dealers to prevent the situation from happening in the first place by explaining to the customer something along the lines of, ‘We think highly of our customers and our cars so if you have any problems within the first 6 months of having the car please let us know and we will do our best to resolve the situation to everyone’s satisfaction’. Not strictly the law but can avoid losing heavily by having to take the car back from a sympathetic lender. Know your legal rights and don’t be afraid to exercise them.

A couple of final points from the Financial Ombudsman Service from their website:

Where the dealer offers you a ‘Fixed Sum Loan’ that is linked to your car purchase this is covered by section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act making the dealer and the lender jointly and severally liable:

For fixed-sum loans, it is because the transaction is covered by section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

However, if you take out a loan separately from a bank or building society you are not covered by section 75. It has to be a transaction linked to the car at the point of sale.

Surprising to many, a Hire Purchase agreement does not fall inside section 75, here is what the FOS says:

Hire purchase agreements are consumer credit contracts that give the consumer the right – but not the obligation – to buy the goods at the end of the hire purchase term. Section 75 does not apply to hire purchase.

However, with so much confusion, the FOS will consider all claims from consumers for faulty goods, not fit for purpose or not as described. From my experiences the FOS will go to great lengths to lend a sympathetic ear to consumers and they don’t cost you anything. At the end of the process you can still sue the company concerned, especially if you feel that severe damages should be awarded. The FOS is restricted as to how much compensation it can award. By Graham Hill