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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

Shock horror, could Judge Rinder have got it wrong? As often happens, when anyone I know sees anything on TV that is mildly motor finance related they alert me to it so on Monday when the camp Judge Rinder, with an even stranger sense of humour than me, presided over the sale of a van, I forced myself to watch whilst he patronised those who were ushered into his ‘court’.

I was about to turn it off when John and Frank appeared. It seems that Frank has a building company and runs a fleet of vans. His old friend John, who is a painter and decorator, needed a van and agreed to buy an ex company van personally from Frank’s company for £1,000. The van was what’s known as a Combo so it had rear seats, the sort of vehicle that can be used for business and as private transport.

Everything said so far indicated a private purchase. All good so far but within 4-5 weeks John experienced some major problems with the van. Firstly he had problems with the windscreen wipers, then the diesel pump failed followed by a very dangerous fault with the steering. Clearly for the vehicle to go faulty so soon after buying it suggests that the faults pre-existed.

Frank’s case wasn’t helped when he explained that the van only had 3 months MOT left on the vehicle and it had no service history. Judge Rinder suggested that as the van still had 3 months MOT on it that this proved that the vehicle was roadworthy –  what planet does this twat live on? And the vehicle was sold without any service history but Frank gave John assurances that the van was sound (a northern word – means working OK – I can be just as patronising).

Anyway, moving on, John gave back the van to Frank who had the van repaired but charged John the £400 it cost to repair – I’ll deal with this in a moment but Judge Dopeynuts then asked John if the van was now driving OK? He said he didn’t want to drive it as it no longer felt safe to drive and lights had appeared on the dashboard, to which the ‘Judge’ responded by asking why he wasn’t driving the van as it was now repaired.

Had he arranged for an independent inspection that resulted in John being told not to drive it? No was the answer but whilst asking the question they showed a picture of the dashboard which displayed two warning lights. One was orange and the other red. Now if the Judge knew the slightest thing about cars and vans he would know that if an orange light comes on it is a warning, washer fluid is low – that sort of thing, but if a red light comes on you stop the car immediately and don’t drive it till the fault has been investigated so John was right not to drive the car – Judge Twat!

Our good friend Judge Rinder then makes a complete arse of himself by challenging John about whose responsibility it was that the vehicle was faulty. I agree that the John could have been more careful and the fact that the van only had 3 months MOT on it and no service history should have caused him to at least have the vehicle inspected but that isn’t required in law.

Rinder (notice how I’m now referring to him as Rinder – total disdain) pointed out a piece of law called in Latin, Caveat Emptor which means buyer beware. This applies to a purchase from another private individual, NOT to a purchase from a Limited Company. Now I should add at this point that he kept referring to John buying the van from Frank but at the start of this item Frank went to lengths to explain that this was one of a fleet of white vans that he runs in the business. So one can assume this was sold to John by the company.

This being the case under European Law, the Sale Of Goods Act and the Consumer Rights Act the same protection is provided to a consumer as if he had bought the vehicle from a car dealer. Rinder went on to point out that Frank wasn’t a specialist in vehicle sales and he even went on to say that the documents were in order to prove that the vehicle was safe. How ridiculous, there was no service history and a 9 month old MOT.

John was relying upon the word of his friend and therefore the company from whom he bought the vehicle. Clearly Rinder has no knowledge of the European 2 year unconditional guarantee that everyone must provide, unless the seller is a private individual, on all new and second hand goods. Over and above that our own Consumer Rights Act gives you similar rights.

Even if the van was sold as a private sale the seller is not allowed to misrepresent the goods. Frank told John that the van was in good condition even though he wasn’t qualified to make that statement but the fact that the van was sold as faultless under the Misrepresentations Act 1967 John would have a claim against the seller as a result of false or fraudulent claims.

But that is if the vehicle was sold privately, which it wasn’t. When summing up Rinder pointed out, quite incorrectly, that as John had bought the van from a friend who wasn’t a specialist seller of vans, he bought the van as seen. That my friend is simply not the law! If your local estate agent managed to buy a batch of TV sets and sold them through his shop and the TV set you bought proved to be faulty would you expect to have no consumer rights against the seller as he was not a specialist TV seller?

Ridiculous. John not only paid £1,000 for the van but also a further £400 for repairs to be left with an undriveable van! To add to the pain the so called Judge found against John who should now be seeking a solution through a proper court. Good grief! 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

After a spate of adverts on the TV in which various lenders suggest that they can carry out a search to see if you are eligible for a loan, without leaving what is known as a ‘footprint’ on your credit file, many questions have been asked by customers and those on my blog regarding theses searches and their own credit files. In general they want to know how this can be done, are our searches recorded and what is the purpose of having searches registered on your credit file if some lenders are apparently ignoring the rules?

OK let me explain. First of all the rules are very clear, if you make an application to a lender for credit, which will cause a lender to access the information held on your credit file, they will register the search with the agency. More on this later. However, the rate you are charged for finance is often based on your credit status so to help the industry and avoid you suffering as a result of ‘shopping around’ a new search was introduced known as a ‘quotation search’.

This is different to a credit application search, known simply as a Credit Search. All Credit Searches are available to anyone who has access to your file after you have given them permission. But only you can see the ‘quotation searches’, none of these searches are available to lenders or anyone else accessing your credit information such as potential employers, association membership applications etc. Each of the three UK credit reference agencies, Equifax, Experian and Call Credit will list all ‘credit searches’ on your credit file once you have made an application for credit.

However, this encouragement to ‘shop around’ is promoted in the knowledge that whilst attempting to get to the best rate through lenders or brokers, your credit score won’t be penalised. That seems reasonable. However, lenders and credit card companies are using this loophole to drum up business. Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m not actually opposed to some form of pre qualification as it can save a lot of pain. If you are pre-qualified on the finance you will know, before you get excited over the new car you’ve chosen, if you will be offered the finance to acquire the car and the car salesman won’t waste time showing you cars that you can’t finance.

But it’s the abuse of the system that I, and many others, object to. There are some lenders and search agents that will offer to carry out a free credit search for you to see how your credit stacks up and your likelihood of receiving the loan you are thinking of applying for. But having carried out the search you are then inundated with offers of  ‘Pre-approved’ loans and credit cards. Not, in my opinion, in the spirit of the FCA regulations to treat customers fairly etc.

Anyway, let’s get back to the recorded searches and their affect on your credit. Different lenders have different attitudes towards the searches. If you have a number of credit searches on your file within a very short period of time, i.e. several over a few days they will approach your application with caution as it could be that you are applying for credit to many funders at the same time that could take you out of your affordability range.

Of course several searches could be the result of several applications being made around the same time. As the approval doesn’t get registered on your file, only the loan when you draw down the amount borrowed or, in the case of HP, when you take delivery of the car, the only way that lenders are aware of each other is via the searches. So whilst imperfect they can act as a warning.

For example, let’s say you have had agreed 5 different loans from different lenders, you could arrange draw down on the same day and only after that would each lender be aware of the other, so that’s why searches are important. To avoid the lender believing that you could be doing this make sure that if you are ‘playing the field’, when you ask for a quote the lender is only carrying out a quotation search. You should also be aware that when searches are registered they are only registered with the agency that the lender uses. In other words there is no sharing of information between credit reference agencies, so if the lender searches Experian the search will only be registered with them, not with Equifax or Call Credit.

Of course some of the larger lenders will search all three platforms, especially if the loan amount is substantial. When checking your own files, there are new agencies such as CheckMyFile who purport to check all the platforms for information on you but I’m unsure about the accuracy but in the meantime, because of the way the systems work you may find information on one platform about you that doesn’t appear on another. This is what one of the agencies said to me:

However, please know that the information held by xxxxxxxxx is dependent on what is shared with us by lenders. Not all lenders share account information with all credit referencing agencies, and so it’s possible that we may not hold any information at all about a particular account. This is why we recommend that you check your credit report with all three major credit referencing agencies, in order that you can get a complete view of the information held on you.

So much for the adverts on TV enticing you to check your credit score with them. If you are just going to check one it might be useful to know that 76% of lenders use Experian, 54% use Equifax and 30% use Call Credit. Why doesn’t this add up to 100%? Because some lenders search 2 or all three platforms. The Moneysavingexpert has helped out by listing the various lenders and which credit reference agencies they use. So if you are applying for say a credit card with the Co-op you will see that they only check Experian so that’s the one you need to check out. Here’s the link:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/credit-reference

There are no legal obligations applied to searches and the amount of time they should remain on your file but for information credit searches remain on your Experian and Eqifax files for 12 months whilst they remain on Call Credit for 2 years.

Oh and as a couple of final thoughts, firstly if you are looking to take out a loan, thanks to the EU Consumer Credit Directive of 2010 those advertising representative APR’S must be seen to provide 51% of all customers with the rate advertised. This changed from 66% under our own UK legislation so the EU has provided banks and other lenders a licence to print money. And to prove my point, in an advert on Barclay’s Bank website they advertise a personal loan of between £7,500 and £15,000 at an APR of 4.9% Representative over 2 – 5 years. It also says rates may differ with a tiny 3 attached to it. This is what tiny 3 says right at the bottom of the page:

3. The rate you’re offered may differ from the representative APR shown – and will be based on your personal circumstances, the loan amount and the repayment term. The Barclayloan advertised here is available over terms of between 2 to 5 years, with a maximum APR of 26.9%.

Wow, bit of a difference eh! And as they only need to provide the 4.9% APR rate to just 51% of the customers how many of the other 49% do you think are having to pay closer to 26.9% than the 4.9%? Hmmm!!

Secondly, and finally, there is confusion over your ability to obtain finance and your credit score. Having many credit searches on your file will, in many cases, drop your credit score slightly. So your score may drop from say 99 out of 100 to say 95. In some cases I’m told that your credit score won’t be affected at all but this doesn’t mean you can finance a new Ferrari on a take home pay of £2,000 per month.

And this is where the more important score comes into play, the underwriters ‘Score Card’. This score takes into account many other things such as where you live, what company you work for and the industry you’re in, how long you’ve been in your current job, number of dependents and of course your income along with many other factors, put together by each individual lender.

It is this scorecard that determines whether you will be advanced the money or not, not your credit score which is just part of the equation. By all means make sure that you look after your credit and maintain a high credit score but remember that a high credit score doesn’t mean auto accept on anything you want to finance.

Absolutely finally if you find that you have applied for credit at several dealerships over a few days then changed your mind, or applied online, not for a ‘quote’ but actually for the finance to several lenders, leaving a string of Credit Searches on your credit files, make sure that you explain what happened on each of the 3 credit agency files by posting a ‘Notice of Correction’.

Explain that you have been test driving cars and each time was talked into checking if you could be cleared on finance by their lender or if you have been applying for finance online and again not realised that search footprints, left behind, might affect your credit score, post a note to this affect. If you do this it forces an underwriter to check your file rather than rely upon the autoscore to either accept or reject your final application.

In fact the same applies if you have some negative activity on your file (defaults, arrears) as a result of say a marriage breakup or redundancy, you have 200 words to explain what happened and that you are now on top of things (if you are). It could certainly help your application if the problems took place some time ago, Just thought I would mention!

By Graham Hill

In an earlier blog I talked about speeding and the crackdown on those considered to be a serious speeder with the imposition of increased fines. Well not only are we seeing a crackdown on speeding offences but also distractions, in particular mobile phones.

In an exercise that involved 36 police forces last November they stopped 10,012 cars and detected 8,000 mobile phone offences. 7,800 fixed penalty notices were issued along with several  hundred verbal warnings and 68 court summons. In an earlier campaign in May 2016, 2,418 cars were stopped with 2,323 mobile phone offences detected.

When asked about the increase the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) explained that 6 more forces took part in the November campaign with more resources being dedicated to carrying out the roadside operation, especially by the Metropolitan Police. A further week long campaign was started in January 2017 the results of which are as yet unknown.

The exercise is a difficult one for the police as it is difficult for officers to differentiate between someone using a mobile rather than scratching an ear or nose or just raising a hand. But even so they managed to detect a frighteningly large number of offenders, many of whom weren’t aware of the increased fine and points as of 1^st March 2017 (£200 spot fine and 6 points).

The NPCC said that outside these purges they are managing to detect more offenders as a result of new tactics and innovation employed, along with intelligence provided by the public, with particular success in catching repeat offenders. It would seem that this is something that the police will be doing on a regular basis following demands made by the public.

Whilst other distractions were detected such as eating crisps and chocolate and drinking from a bottle whilst driving they only amounted to 1.4% of the sample. So the police will continue to concentrate on mobile phone users whilst driving. You have been warned. By Graham Hill

Failing to disclose an active medical condition can not only result in a serious accident but also a prison sentence. This happened recently when a woman fell asleep at the wheel as a result of suffering from obstructive sleep apnoea, a condition that isn’t uncommon.

Having fallen asleep her car crossed to the other side of the road and hit an oncoming car head on causing the death of the other driver. After pleading guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and the court finding out that she had been diagnosed the condition 2 years earlier she was clearly heading for prison.

As soon as she had been diagnosed with the condition that could affect her driving she should have immediately informed the DVLA but of course this has raised the issue of when should the DVLA be advised and by whom. Whilst there may be a list of conditions that you must report if you have them I certainly don’t know them other than eyesight.

So should it be the responsibility of the GP already under pressure to treat lots of sick people in his waiting room? And even if a driver is diagnosed with a condition that should result in immediate confiscation of their driving licence there is an obvious incentive not to advise the DVLA knowing that they would have to submit their licence.

But the risks to their lives, the lives of passengers and other road users are too great to ignore this situation. The current procedures are a mess. Once a driver has been diagnosed with or believes they have a condition that could prevent them from driving they must apply for an independent assessment from a doctor in order to obtain the doctor’s approval.

But the DVLA doesn’t require evidence of this and the driver is allowed to continue driving pending the assessment. Road safety charity Brake have been assessing some of the safety issues and have so far come up with a recommendation for drivers to have an eye test before taking their driving test and a minimum of every 10 years thereafter.

It’s a start but far too weak in my opinion. In the meantime, having been the victim of a driver falling asleep in a car approaching and drifting across the road in front of me, I can tell you that it’s a scary experience. I mounted a dirt bank and avoided an accident with miraculously not even any damage to my car, but it could all have ended much much worse!

Be vigilant, you never know when you will need to take avoiding action. And if you are suffering a dangerous condition get checked out, it could save several lives. By Graham Hill

Under new laws that come into force from 24^th April 2017 most serious speeding offenders will be fined 50% more. The Sentencing Council has issued new guidelines to be implemented in all magistrates’ courts in England and Wales.

At the moment the most serious speeding offenders face fines that have a starting point of 100% of their weekly salary, this will go up to 150% of weekly salary (no I didn’t either). The upper limit doesn’t change though which clearly favours the better off amongst us.

The upper limit remains at £1,000 or £2,500 for those caught on a motorway. Again, in my opinion, arse about face. Speeding in a built up area should carry a bigger fine than on a motorway. As 10 times more people die on country roads (60% of total) it doesn’t make sense to penalise motorway speeders more than non motorway speeders.

A speeding offence is considered to be serious if you are caught driving at 51 miles per hour in a 30mph zone, 66mph in a 40mph zone,  or 101mph on a motorway etc. Some experts are calling for 3 month bans applied to those driving at speeds that drop them into the serious speeding zone.

I believe that would have a greater affect on those who speed but is it the answer – I really don’t know. For information the average fine in 2015 was just £188 with 166,695 offenders being sentenced. By Graham Hill

MOT tests do not prove that a car has no faults. On many occasions I have written about this issue and explained how buyers have been handed a brand new MOT certificate with their used car as proof that the car is faultless. Most safety items are checked along with emissions but it won’t reveal that a car has an oil leak or any other mechanical fault unless it falls within the scope of the test.

A full mechanical check on the car should confirm if the car has a faulty gearbox or engine or any other potentially expensive faults. Having said that the scope of the MOT test is extending annually to include new technology which also means that examiners are expected to take an annual, online, test. However, it has been revealed that just 35% of MOT testers have taken their test with just up to the end of March to pass.

Following which the testers will put their licence in jeopardy. The question is does this put drivers at risk if the MOT tester isn’t up to speed with the latest requirements? The Driver and Vehicle Standards Authority (DVSA) thinks not as they have announced that the examiners will be treated leniently this year, as this is the first year of change and the online examinations, but a tougher approach will be taken in future if examiners don’t conform to the new rules. Concerns have been raised regarding driverless cars.

Development in this sector is gaining traction but concerns have been expressed by various bodies regarding the preparation, or rather the lack of it, when it comes to the safety testing and MOT test criteria in relation to autonomous cars fitted with extra sensors and complex electronics. The Department for Transport simply says that work in this area is ‘under review’. Finally on the subject of MOT testing the Department for Transport has finally launched its proposals to extend the first MOT test from 3 years to 4 years.

The consultation paper recommends that the initial MOT test for cars and motorcycles be extended to 4 years from 2018 saving motorists more than £100 million annually. Transport Minister Andrew Jones (no I haven’t heard of him either) suggested that our roads are some of the safest in the world and vehicles are much safer than they were 50 years ago when the MOT test was set at 3 years.

Personally I would suggest that we need to see how many cars fail their first MOT at 3 years before deciding if we can extend to 4 years. Strange that wasn’t mentioned. By Graham Hill

As most of us know you can give the same set of statistics to two different people and they will each read something completely different into them. Let’s take the way you will finance your next car, assuming it’s a new car. Statistically around 87% of new cars financed by consumers were financed on a Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) with around 6% financed on Personal Contract Hire (PCH).

So you may draw from the statistics that by far the best product is PCP as 87% of the market can’t be wrong. Let me explain that PCP is the most popular amongst car dealers, that’s why it is the most popular amongst consumers – they’ve been sold to! And, as has been reported widely recently, there is a grave lack of education amongst consumers when it comes to financing one of their biggest financial commitments – their car.

PCP has replaced HP as the most popular way to finance your new car, let me explain why – it makes the lender and the dealer more money even when the most toxic measurement ever created, the APR, is exactly the same on the same car. At this point you may be aghast.

Let me give you a quick example, you see a car that costs £22,000, you put down a deposit of £2,000 and look to finance the car over 3 years with the intention of owning the car after 3 years and, if it is still OK, running it for maybe another 2 years. But currently the cash flow is a little tight so you need to look at the figures. Let’s look at HP based on 36 payments with you owning the car after 3 years. And to keep it simple we’ll work on an APR of 10% assuming also that there are no additional fees and charges.

The monthly figure calculates out to be £645 x 36 payments = £23,220. OK, now let’s look at a PCP with the loan amount being the same, £20,000, APR the same at 10% and a final payment of £10,000 to own the car, the monthly figure calculates out to £406 per month. Wow a monthly saving of nearly £240! But if you then pay the final figure and own the car in the same way that you owned the car at the end of the HP agreement you pay 36 x £406 = £14,616 + final payment of £10,000 = £24,616, a whopping £1,396 more in interest charges.

You can answer the question yourself – which product do you think the lenders and more importantly the dealers want to push you into? You may be paying substantially less per month and the same APR but the extra interest represents an extra 7% on the amount financed. But now let’s look at a headline, ‘Personal Contract Hire (PCH) is the fastest growing method used by consumers to finance new cars.’ Sub heading: ‘The take up of PCH has more than doubled over the last 18 months’.

Yes it has, 18 months ago it only accounted for 2.5% of the finance used by consumers to finance new cars it is now at 6% and growing so you could conclude from the headlines that PCH is the way to go. But you are unlikely to  see these headlines as dealers don’t like PCH as they have to sell their cars at rock bottom prices with some leasing companies restricting their finance commission to just £200 per car.

So you won’t see dealers falling over themselves to sell you a PCH on a car, even though it may be substantially cheaper than a PCP, but rather selling you into the idea that you could own the car at the end of a PCP, something you are not legally entitled to do at the end of a PCH (although some leasing companies will sell you a car at the end of a PCH at trade value if asked).

In truth only 20% of those who take a PCP actually buy the car at the end of the agreement with most of those using the car as a part exchange as there is some equity in it so the idea of owning the car at the end of the agreement as important is in fact a nonsense – the stats prove it! Finally, in an even more favourable twist in favour of consumers, many fleet operators are complaining that consumers are sometimes being provided with better deals than they are.

That is because the manufacturer and dealer can give away up to 45% in combined discount and bonuses on stock that needs to move to make way for new models, to keep production lines moving, or as a PR exercise to get more brand awareness out there. The problem with this is that when the cars go or they hit their target the deal disappears with monthly rates increasing by as much as £200 + VAT per month.

On the other hand fleets don’t want huge fluctuations in rates, it throws their budgets out. A fleet may have negotiated a deal on Golfs at £200 + VAT per month only to see a batch being offered at £169 + VAT to consumers. However, after the promotion, it wouldn’t be unusual for the consumer rate to jump to £269 + VAT but whilst the deal lasts the consumer has had a bloody good deal! By Graham Hill

Following on from my note explaining that Mayor Khan is trying to reduce the number of diesels driving into central London, the London Assembly is calling on Mayor Khan to do more about the daily gridlock. It is suggesting that they need to replace the daily congestion charge with a road pricing scheme.

It currently costs £11.50 per day to drive around the congestion zone area which would be replaced by charges relating to the amount of time spent in the restricted area. Subject to consultations this new scheme could be introduced as soon as 2018.

According to the Assembly traffic delays costs London’s economy £5.5 billion in 2015/16 which represents an increase of 30% compared to 2012/13. Can’t for the life of me see how they arrive at such a figure. The Assembly pointed to a similar scheme operated in Stockholm whereby you pay between £1-£3 each time you cross in or out of a central zone, with the charges increasing at peak times.

The result was a drop in traffic by 22%. The proposal is that they consider a similar scheme but also include an allowance for emissions and adjust the rates accordingly. Before you start writing into Mayor Khan there are discounts and exemptions which the Assembly intends to keep but with no plans to extend further.

If you’re a Londoner I guess you must hope that Mayor Khan doesn’t have another Trump moment and apply the new rules by the end of February! By Graham Hill