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One of my biggest gripes in life is the misinformation that is readily available on the Internet with the owners of the websites, on which the information appears, taking no responsibility whatsoever. Top of the list is Google along with other search engines who rank search results by their economic contribution to their coffers rather than accuracy or even the chronological sequence of posting.

People are relying on the accuracy of the results to make decisions and could end up heavily out of pocket because the advice is either inaccurate or out of date.Other sites such as themoneysavingexpert.com allow anyone to comment on their blog, something that has filled their blog with data and links, enabling its owner, Martin Lewis, to  sell the company for £87 million but taking no responsibility for the accuracy of the information imparted, often by people with as much legal knowledge as my sister’s Old English sheepdog, called Izzie by the way and as daft as a doughnut!

A question raised by a firm of lawyers who advise dealers on their legal rights, when in a dispute against a customer, caused me to raise the issue again because a member of their client base asked what would happen if the dealer bought a car having checked that the car wasn’t on finance on HPI. He sold the car and checked HPI again, each time the report showed that it was clear of credit.

3 months later the dealer received a demand from the solicitors of a finance company that claim to have outstanding finance on the car to the tune of £20,000. Having checked HPI, which showed that the car was clear of finance, the dealer claims that title has passed and certainly, as an ‘innocent buyer’ title has passed to the buyer of the car from the dealer. But thanks to a ruling by the House of Lords in 1975 (Moorgate Mercantile Company Limited vs Twitchings) as there is no legal obligation on the part of the finance company to record finance details on HPI, the fact that the finance company forgot to record the car on HPI is irrelevant.

But here’s the twist. Whilst the finance company can apply to the dealer to get his money back, what if they are unaware of the dealer’s involvement? Some will buy to order so let’s say you are looking for a Ford Focus in a particular colour etc. and your local dealer says he’ll look out for a car for you. He finds one privately for sale, buys it, has a service on it, valets it then has a new MOT on it then sells it to you for a nice little profit, he may well not let the DVLA know that he had ownership of the car.

Or supposing the dealership went bust in the meantime, either way the solicitor is directed to you and you receive a demand for the outstanding finance or hand the car back. That is in fact illegal as long as you were told by the seller that the car was free of finance you are now the legal owner. However, I have seen numerous posts on various blogs blaming the innocent buyer and suggesting that he should hand the car over and pursue the person he bought the car from.

This is wrong and I recall reading about an Audi A4 owner who handed his car over to the finance company, having followed the advice on one of the blogs by a complete donkey, or it could have been Izzie. Trouble is if you voluntarily hand over the keys you are highly unlikely to get the car back. Never ever hand over the keys to your car to anyone calling at your door, tell them to put their demands in writing.

In the case illustrated above I have total sympathy with the dealer, what’s he supposed to do, contact every lender in the land and ask if they have finance on the car? And if you are an innocent buyer you shouldn’t be misled by posts on blogs accusing you of being an idiot if you bought a car that was still on finance.

It’s about time that the Government stepped in and forced every lender to record their financial interest in a car via the DVLA – it wouldn’t be rocket science. By Graham Hill

Each year since 2014 Cox Automotive have pulled together 27 leading motoring journalists to decide upon their choice of best cars in the current year, in this case it’s 2018. Their car of the year is the somewhat understated XC60. The car only just pipped the number two car, the Skoda Kodiaq by a single point with the 5 Series BMW coming in 3^rd. Alongside the Car of the Year award the XC60 also won Best Medium Crossover award.

The award is not before time. For years the Volvo range has led the field when it comes to safety equipment but they are now shaking off the ‘old person’s’ image and bringing them up to date with some of the best equipment fitted as standard. Well done Volvo. The other winners were:

• Best Supermini – SEAT Ibiza
• Best Small Hatch – VW Golf
• Best Family – Peugeot 3008
• Best Executive – BMW 5 Series
• Best Luxury – Rolls-Royce Phantom
• Best Estate – BMW 5 Series
• Best Small Crossover – Citroen C3 Aircross
• Best Medium Crossover – Volvo XC60
• Best Large Crossover – Skoda Kodiaq
• Best Coupe – Lexus LC
• Best Cabriolet – Mazda MX-5 RF
• Best Hot Hatch – Hyundai i30 N
• Best Performance – Kia Stinger

So there you have it with several cars on our latest list of deals and offers. By Graham Hill

Did you know that the police can issue a ‘marker’ on the cars registered to drivers who have previously been disqualified for drink driving? No, I didn’t either but they can and in some counties they do. But it depends upon the force.

The idea is to flag up drivers wh have offended once and keep an eye on them. Research has shown that 12% of those banned for drink driving re-offend, rising to 30% of high-risk offenders caught at more than twice the legal limit. I would caveat that by saying that those % figures apply to those who are caught, with so few traffic cops on the road now I would suggest that the figure is probably higher.

This process doesn’t just apply to drink driving, it can apply to any offender suspected of possible re-offending. The police attache a ‘digital marker’ to the offender’s vehicles. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (APNR) cameras can then alert police to the driver’s status to help them better target known offenders.

However, Auto Express found out that only a handful of police forces take advantage of this facility and digitally mark vehicles. Cheshire police have 1,041 active markers which create an intelligence slide for every disqualified motorist containing personal details and any vehicle registered to them at the time of disqualification.

In Cheshire, between 2010 and 2016 57% of all banned drivers lost their licence as a result of drink driving. Merseyside police has a policy that markers will be attached once a driver is convicted and/or disqualified from driving. At the other extreme, the Met and City of London Police are two of the forces that admit to not using intelligence markers.

The Met subsequently clarified, when asked, that they would do so if there was ‘credible evidence’ that someone was driving while disqualified. West Yorkshire, in the meantime, said that they felt the attachment of intelligent markers to all drink drivers was neither ‘justified or proportionate.’ Although they admitted to having 80 live Markers.

Well, you learn something every day! Hope I provided that something for you today. By Graham Hill

I read loads of motor magazines and just about every week, in at least one, I read complaints from drivers who have had a warranty claim turned down. The motor magazines try to help out, usually by contacting the dealer, manufacturer or warranty provider. Some warranty providers, realising that they are acting illegally, offer to settle the claim ‘as a gesture of goodwill’, which normally infuriates me because it isn’t a gesture of goodwill it’s a legal obligation.

That aside the advice from the dealer goes nowhere near far enough. Once they have challenged the warranty provider, and in the latest case I’ve seen, that is the RAC, and they refuse to settle the claim it seems to be game over. In the latest story, the buyer of a Mini took out a warranty on his 2010 Cooper D bought from an RAC approved dealer. 10 months later the timing chain snapped and caused serious damage to the engine.

The cost of a replacement engine varied between £4,000 and £7,000 which the driver assumed would be covered by his RAC Platinum Warranty but they rejected the claim arguing that the timing chain had reached the end of its ‘normal working life’. As a result of Auto Express’s intervention RAC warranties sent out an RAC engineer to inspect the car.

Unsurprisingly the engineer claimed that the driver should have noticed the problems with the chain prior to it snapping due to a ‘rattling type noise from the timing chain area of the engine’. The report also argued that ‘reasonable steps have not been taken to mitigate the loss’. The driver argued that he hadn’t heard any rattle or noise from the engine prior to the chain failure. The driver also explained that the car had been serviced twice since he bought the car so it had been properly maintained.

Despite the intervention of Auto Express the claim was still thrown out causing me to get very angry! First of all one has to ask if RAC warranties are worth having in the first place? Secondly, why did they not pursue a claim through the Financial Ombudsman Service as the warranty claim was not fit for purpose and the report, that should really have been independent, confused the issue.

The RAC refused the claim because the timing chain had ‘reached the end of its working life’. So why report that the driver should have heard the noise from the timing area of the engine, are they now saying that had he heard it and made a claim he would have been successful?

Then to confuse matters further they say that ‘reasonable steps have not been taken to mitigate the loss’. So are they saying that they would have paid out for a new timing chain but would not pay out for the engine because the driver should have stopped the car as soon as he was aware of a problem as a result of the noisy engine?

There was a very strong case to take to the Financial Ombudsman as well as a complaint to Trading Standards for breach of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. As the car had been recently serviced the engineer would have been the one to identify the noise from the engine, not the driver sitting in the soundproofed cabin.

To be honest I would also have made a claim to the EU Consumer Centre under the EU 2 year guarantee scheme. That normally sends anyone against whom the claim is made into a tailspin!

I applaud the efforts made by all the motor magazines but they really ought to be more aware of the remedies available. By Graham Hill

I know you love a quirky, but serious, story. You may or not be aware that hitting a number of animals whilst driving must be reported to the police. However, the list doesn’t include cats which has upset a few cat owners according to a survey carried out by Carbuyer magazine.

As the law stands if you his a number of animals, including dogs, horses, cattle and sheep you must report the incident to the police but cats aren’t included. The Carbuyer study found that 59% of motorists were in favour of a law requiring you to report ‘cat incidents’ to the police.

The Labour Party have gone one step further in their calls for reform in domestic pet rules by making microchipping mandatory for cats and a new ruling that would require ‘motorists to report accidents where an animal has been injured’.

Animal rights campaigner, Mandy Lowe, sadly said that if the driver makes no attempt to locate the owner, or take the cat to a vet to be scanned for a microchip, the local authority’s waste disposal team will collect it and dispose of it. I’m not an animal person but that would make me sad if someone’s pet was killed and they didn’t know.

Figures from Highways England show that 320 dead cats were found on motorways and A roads over a 2 year period. More Pussy Power and fairness to cat owners is what I say! Can I say that? Hmmm better move on. By Graham Hill

Increased penalties imposed on those still talking and texting on handheld phones is meant to act as a deterrent in order to prevent drivers from being distracted. We all saw the harrowing scenes on the news when a lorry driver, whilst texting on his phone, careered into the back of a car in a traffic jam.

So it mystified me when car manufacturers started to change their sat nav and in-car controls from a twiddler on the steering wheel, or in the centre console, to touchscreen. In my opinion even more distracting than texting on your mobile.

Years ago all we had to look down at was the speedo and anything that flashed red, warning you to stop. Or if you were a bit of a boy or girl racer the rev. counter warning you before you sent your engine into the next county.

With this in mind, I was shocked to see South Korean tech firm Harman, now owned by Samsung, bring out something close to a cinema screen fitted into the dashboard of a Maserati in order to showcase their latest tech.

Within the screen, that stretched the length of the dashboard was a 12.3” digital instrument screen, a 12.4” curved portrait layout display at the bottom of the centre console, and a widescreen 28” QLED screen that can operate in ‘ultra-slim’ mode or extend upwards to show maps or – wait for it – streaming video!

Are they nuts? Whilst I can understand that they are showcasing what they are capable of doing this is hardly the way forward until we get to autonomous cars that will need something distracting to take away the boredom of not driving. But this tech was fitted into a standard(ish) car.

Harman explained that the Tech could be available for fitting into cars within 18 – 24 months ‘depending on the car maker’s needs.’ They also showcased a similar setup intended for city cars in a Mini. I’m all for building in latest tech for drivers and passengers but I feel they are going one step too far with this latest development. By Graham Hill

Back in 2012 around a quarter of all new car registrations were autos. In 2017 that grew to 1,016,516, around 50%, so clearly there is a strong move towards autos. The reason could possibly be because we spend so long in traffic jams and nothing irritates quite so much as having to put the car in and out of gear every couple of minutes.

Spend half an hour in a traffic jam and the clutch pedal that always seemed light as a feather is now as heavy as a ton weight. Whatever the reason, the demand is increasing but the manufacturers seemed to have missed it. Whenever we have limited stock deals they tend to be mainly manuals unless the cars are executive cars, then they tend only to be autos.

This week we saw a typical example when we had a limited stock deal from VW on Tiguan petrol cars. Half were manual and half auto. That in itself was unusual because most cars of that size on special offer tend to be manuals. Within 48 hours all the autos had gone but we still had plenty of manuals (unfortunately all gone now). Crazy but proves my point.

So come on manufactures lets have access to more autos. They used to be around £30 + VAT more per month but with stronger resale values that difference has dropped to a more realistic £10 + VAT. Personally, I have driven autos for years and certainly wouldn’t go back to a manual. By Graham Hill

I’ve just been looking at the latest design proposed for the Nissan autonomous car. I’m not picking on Nissan because every time I open a motoring magazine I see the latest designs being proposed, by another manufacturer, for their autonomous car and frankly they all look very similar.

Have you seen them? They look ugly and ridiculous on the outside and even more dopey on the inside. Why? They are turning into functional, minimalist pods. Just because the cars will eventually drive themselves doesn’t mean that they have to look boring and ugly. The good news is that we are many years away from the fully autonomous cars but in the meantime we will have electric cars.

They have to be driven so they will have to have instruments and means to drive them so let’s not move the designs too far away from the cars we have at the moment for Hybrids, petrol and diesel engine cars. Retain some style and good looks rather than move into something that is without flair and simply as functional as an electric plug. By Graham Hill

When I read the latest changes to the way that leases would be accounted for in the books of large companies, being introduced by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), I started to get Deja Vu! You see when I first came across leasing (contract hire) I was General Manager in a PLC with over 700 vehicles in the fleet that we owned outright.

One of the departments that I was responsible for was Transport and the fleet of vehicles. They were costing us a fortune but more than that they were shown as assets on our balance sheet but the outstanding HP finance was shown as a liability. The net effect was negative. OK, technical bit over.

At the time, contract hire was only advantageous to large companies with cars that were covering big mileages. For most businesses, the off-balance sheet recording of contract hire has been an advantage because without the assets and liabilities being recorded it presents a stronger picture. It is also easier to simply record a monthly rental cost than applying the writing down process to owned assets.

Here’s where it gets interesting. After absolutely donkey’s years of negotiating the IASB has ruled that contract hired vehicles should, in future, be recorded ‘on balance-sheet’. BUT this rule will only apply to companies reporting under IASB rules, mainly those companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

All other companies operate under the UK Generally Accepted Principles (GAAP) which remains as is so the vast majority of firms will remain unaffected. However, as this situation could affect some of the biggest fleets in the country running thousands of vehicles the daily rental market has pricked its ears up.

Whilst January 2019 will see the new IASB rules on leasing come into force another standard, IAS 16 will come into force relating to rental vehicles where the rental period is up to a year. These will remain off-balance sheet for all companies.

As a result, the daily rental companies have got themselves excited because they receive massive discounts from manufacturers – up to 50% off the recommended On The Road price. Despite this discount, the reason why their rates are not lower than contract hire rates is utilisation – which can be as low as 40%.

This means that cars are sitting around costing money for longer periods than they are actually being hired. This pushes up rentals massively. However, if the cars are rented out on 12-month contracts the utilisation is 100% so they could reduce the monthly cost substantially from their daily rate bringing them closer to contract hire rates.

Clearly, if the rental companies brought out such a product specifically for the large fleets, as happened with contract hire, could we see a new product offered, not only to smaller businesses but also to consumers.

Plenty of discussion going on in the industry, both for and against, but with the uncertainty of Brexit a 12-month contract, priced sensibly, has some merit.  By Graham Hill