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New rules came into force in May with the most controversial being the visual test applied to diesel cars. I mentioned in earlier posts that the examiner now has to look at the tailpipe of any diesel to see if there is smoke, of any colour, emitting from the exhaust. If there is it’s an immediate fail.

The other visual check is for any tampering of the particulate filter. Any signs of tampering is also an immediate fail. Following the new tests the Prestige Motor Warehouse carried out a survey amongst 50 MOT stations across the UK and found that in the first 3 months following the rule changes the number of cars failing their MOT testa has increased by 24%.

With other rules either tightened or introduced there was also a 12% increase in petrol engine failures. Other new checks included under-inflated tyres, contaminated brake fluid, and fluid leaks, these being responsible for several of the failures. There is certainly no reason to fail on tyre pressure, a quick visit to a garage before going for the test should sort that out. By Graham Hill

Highways England has produced a report showing that tailgating kills or seriously injures 100 people on the road every year and causes one in eight road casualties. Highways England is the Government-owned company responsible for the UK’s 4,300 miles of motorways and major trunk roads – they produced the statistics from their own research.

They found that 90% of drivers surveyed reported that they had been tailgated or witnessed another driver being tailgated. As a result, they have launched a campaign called ‘Don’t be a space invader’ to help dissuade motorists from the practice. No I don’t get it either. They also found that tailgating was the single largest concern drivers have about other road users.

Ex F1 champion, Nigel Mansell is backing the campaign. He branded tailgating as ‘A driving habit I utterly deplore’, then said that driving too close to the car ahead is, ‘aggressive and intimidating’ and ‘Can lead to a crash with a tragic outcome’. Matthew Avery of Thatcham research agreed and explained, tailgating can lead to a ‘ripple effect’ of sharp braking from other drivers which can cause ‘Phantom’, traffic jams.

Richard Leonard, head of road safety at Highways England, says tailgating is dangerous, not only because it gives the perpetrator no thinking, braking or reacting time. But also it is ‘Intimidating and frightening if you’re on the receiving end’. This mix of circumstances can lead to mistakes being made with serious consequences.

In addition to the possibility of an accident, tailgating can lead to you receiving a fine of £100 and 3 points on your driving licence for dangerous driving. The official advice is to allow 2 seconds between you and the car in front and increase that to 4 seconds in the wet. Drive safely and think of others. By Graham Hill

When I first started driving, a few more years ago than I would care to contemplate, we had a pretty wide choice of power source to drive our cars. We had ummm – petrol or ummm petrol. Trucks had diesel engines but in those days they had to have a diesel pump in the operators depot because you couldn’t buy diesel at a garage.

I think my first experience of a diesel car was when a neighbour had a diesel Peugeot 505 which you could hear turn into our road – a good half mile away. It sounded like a bag of bolts! Of course, things changed but whilst many drivers chose diesel cars because they were economical and with better sound insulation you couldn’t hear the engine in the car it meant we were stuck with a simple choice – diesel or petrol.

Then along came LPG. It was great for chuggers like the Land Rovers that might squeeze 10mpg from their diesel engine with the wind behind them, driving down a one in one hill with all the seats removed. Suddenly driving a Land Rover other than across a ploughed field made sense once you added LPG. But with so much space being taken up by the fuel tank it never really challenged petrol or diesel, especially in a family saloon.

Of course these days, whilst you can still buy LPG at some garages you now have even more sources of fuel to propel you down the road. Petrol, diesel, petrol hybrid, diesel hybrid, plug-in hybrid, electric vehicles and the hydrogen cell that was pretty much wiped out by the introduction of electric.

However, it would seem that hydrogen isn’t dead. Manufacturers are now designing and developing hydrogen/electric hybrids. The first out of the blocks is the Hyundai Nexo which uses the hydrogen cell to drive a motor to create electricity. They suggest that the car will have a range of 414 miles, top speed of 111mph and a 0-62 in 9.2 seconds. Sounds great but the price tag of £60,000 might put a few people off!

It’s a nice looking SUV that is similar in size and looks to an Audi Q5. Would certainly solve the range and re-fuelling constraints of electric cars. Will this idea catch on – adding even more choice to an already confusing range of power plants? Haven’t got a clue just like I haven’t got a clue as to whether we will be in or out of Europe next year! Time will tell. By Graham Hill

The Press Association has carried out an investigation into vehicle thefts and found that between March 2017 and March 2018 theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle in England and Wales was 106,334, the highest since 2009/10. But even more worrying was the fact that 81,778 of these cases were concluded as ‘Investigation complete, no suspect identified’.

This means that 77% of all thefts resulted in no suspects being identified or arrested. That is frankly shocking. In the West Midlands it was even worse with 91% of car theft cases being closed with no suspect being identified. London’s Metropolitan police was a little lower at 85% of cases being closed for the same reasons.

All but 5 of the 44 forces analysed closed at least half of car theft cases with no suspects identified. When taken up with the Home Office a spokesman said, ‘We recognise that crime is changing and police demand is becoming increasingly complex, (no I don’t know what that means either). That’s why we have provided a strong and comprehensive £13 billion funding settlement to ensure the police have the resources they need to carry out their vital work.’

Well I’ve news for you sunshine, they ‘aint spending it on catching bloody car thieves! By Graham Hill

I have to say that when I’m stuck in traffic on the M25, a far too frequent occurrence, I have a little chuckle to myself, as I’m sure you do, (just me then eh?) when I see a number plate that looks a little cheeky or risque. Often I’m sure that I’m the only one who has spotted it but it brightens up my day.

But that may be coming to an end as the DVLA in this politically correct world that we live in has decided that it needs to tighten up a little on plates that may cause offence or upset. For goodness sake! But have they gone a little too far? I mean you really have to look at the plates to see what the letter and number combo have been interpreted as. Let’s give it a try to see what you think?

The first to get banned amongst the new 68 plates was NO68 EAD along with OR68 ASM. Now, most people probably wouldn’t even notice but these miserable BU68 GER’s are destroying hours of motorway fun by trying not to offend most people who wouldn’t even realise.

Apparently, they sift through the number plates every March and September to remove offensive, political and criminal leaning number plates. BU68 GER was banned as were AL68 HOL and BA68 TRD – really? Oh and I can see all sorts of problems if they hadn’t banned EU68 BAD and MU68 GER.

If we really have come down to this sort of silliness (swear words and serious crime connotations accepted) I dread to think of the cost of sifting through the 69 plates next September – nudge, nudge, wink, wink! Better start recruiting plate checker now DVLA! By Graham Hill

These days most of us are of the opinion that new cars, whatever their make, are all pretty reliable. After all, it’s in the manufacturer and dealer’s interest to make sure that you don’t suffer breakdowns in the first 30 days and end up handing the car back for a full refund.

This resulting in the dealer suffering the massive depreciation that happens the moment the tyres hit the road when the car turns from being new to second hand. Beyond the first 30 days with strong warranties and consumer rights one would think that the manufacturers have been doing everything to ensure that the vehicles are fault free. But What Car has found this not to be the case.

Which is disappointing for those buying new cars as opposed to used because often the decision to buy a new car is based on the perceived greater reliability of a new car over a used car. Of course, What Car must justify its spend on these sorts of surveys so one would expect a degree of exaggeration but it doesn’t hide the fact that 30% of their survey respondents, driving cars that were 4 years old or less, said that they had suffered a fault within the last 12 months.

Some cars come with a 3-year warranty whilst others cover up to 7 years but even so only 52% of those with faults had them repaired under warranty. 22% had to pay bills of £101-£200 whilst 6% had bills in excess of £1,500. Their report goes into great detail and covers 159 models over 31 brands.

I have to say that some of the findings were surprising and certainly didn’t agree with the feelings of some of my customers but if you are thinking of buying or leasing a car the report  may be of interest. The October edition of What Car is still available on the newsagent’s shelves.

In answer to the question – which is the most reliable? Up top 4 years old it is Suzuki followed by Lexus. Over 4 years old Lexus followed by Dacia. Bottom of the pile, 20% lower than the next up was Tesla at 57.3% reliability with Land Rover second from bottom at 76.5%. By Graham Hill

I reported last week that three constabularies, Thames Valley, Hampshire and West Midlands were instructing officers to randomly stop drivers and carry out a number plate reading test whereby the driver is expected to read a number plate 20 metres away.

If the driver is unable to read the number plate he or she will automatically have their licence revoked and stopped from continuing their journey. Whilst road safety group BRAKE supported the police in this initiative, questions have been asked as to whether this is fair to police as well as drivers.

Is it right to give police the same powers as judge and jury by giving them the responsibility of taking away a driver’s licence on the spot? There is also the question as to who they should test. Whilst Brake believes that it’s a great way to make roads safer, because of the randomness of the tests it is unlikely to make roads much safer.

It would be better for all drivers to have an eye test every 5 years till they get to say 40 when it should be mandatory to have an eye test annually. The police are struggling to catch crooks and remove dangerous joy riders without licences and insurance from our roads so to load them with even more responsibility by forcing them to randomly stop drivers to carry out a sight test, when it could be handled differently, is just plain daft.

Of course, I don’t agree that anyone who has illegal eyesight to be allowed to drive on our roads but unlike a drunk driver who knows he is doing something illegal we could treat them with a little more sensitivity and make sure that they either correct the situation or let their doctor or optician explain why they can no longer drive.

Annual eye tests – that’s what we need! By Graham Hill

I have just been looking at artists’ impressions of electric cars of the future. They look amazing, like mini caravans with plenty of room to relax have a chat, have a drink, watch TV and even stretch out and have a snooze. It all looks fantastic, a great way to travel but read other reports and they say we will never get to a situation where a car will completely drive itself.

According to safety reports, you won’t be able to go out, have a skinful, fall into your electric car, announce to Siri that you want to go home and let the car take over whilst you throw up into a bag for life. In fact, you will still have to be in a driver’s seat and still capable of taking over the controls in the event of an emergency or the systems failing. So which is right? What are we to believe?

The same applies to Diesel vs Petrol. There is constant confusion over the emissions. Old diesels are, without doubt, not good for the environment. The high levels of NOx are not good for people’s health and particulates (soot) are bad for health and bad for buildings causing deterioration. Compare that with the damage to the ozone layer caused by high CO2 emissions from petrol cars – the next environmental panic.

So should we drive diesel cars or petrol cars if we can’t afford the premium prices or lease rates of hybrids or electrics? Latest test results show that there are virtually no particulate emissions from the latest diesel engines and whilst NOx from diesels is still slightly higher than petrol, CO2 emissions are still higher from petrol compared to diesel so in truth there is little to choose between the two.

That is until the newly developed Bosch system gets added to diesel cars. The estimate is that NOX emissions from diesel cars will drop to about 10% of the new levels that will come into force in 2020. In the meantime what should drivers do? We need less confusion and a consistent message. By Graham Hill

Range Rover Evoque 2.0eD4 2WD SE & SE Tech 5Dr Manual Metallic Paint

If you read the reports in the press it’s easy to believe that we currently only do business with Europe and once we extract ourselves from the EU we will suddenly be free to trade with the rest of the world. This is a nonsense, we’ve been buying cars from and selling cars to the US for as long as I can remember.

Currently, we buy cars from the US and we pay customs duty for the privilege. This isn’t something that has been organised through the EU, we simply trade with the US. We are invoiced for cars, we pay 10% duty, add that to the cost of the car, add on shipping costs and add VAT to the lot (no duty payable on the shipping costs). And that’s what happens at the moment. So nothing will change after Brexit.

In the short term there is little advantage, however, in the long term we will be free to negotiate a free trade agreement with the US and save 10% on imports whilst US businesses will be able to import UK built cars for 10% less. However, that could take a long time as all imports and exports would need to be reviewed with less chance under the latest Trump protectionist policy.

Outside the EU we will lose the negotiated free trade agreements that already exist such as South Korea. We import a lot of Kias and Hyundais to the benefit of UK drivers but until we can re-negotiate a deal, just for the UK, we will end up paying 10% more in duty. On the other hand the EU exports goods to South Korea and other countries with whom they have free trade agreements. However, the free trade agreement only works if over 55% of the items exported are made (or have added value) in the EU.

But as we are leaving the EU if our component manufacturers and service providers such as designers contribute towards the overall cost of the products being exported on Free Trade Agreements they will no longer be part of the EU content and could give rise to either UK manufacturers moving to Europe or the EU exporters sourcing components and services from inside the EU. It really is more complex than was originally thought. By Graham Hill