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One of the great things about new cars is the quietness of them. Improved car design reduces wind resistance and wind noise. Drive a diesel car and you could be mistaken into believing that diesel engines no longer rattle, they do, but because the soundproofing is of such a high standard now, you can hardly hear the engine from inside the car.

Tyre compounds and new suspension systems reduce road noise dramatically and of course hybrids and full electric vehicles are as quiet as a mouse when operating in electric mode. The problem is that many of the changes have come about very quickly so when a driver moves from a 3 year old car to a new car the noise level drops so significantly that he or she loses all perception of speed.

The main indicators such as engine noise, road and wind noise have been all but eliminated in some cars so the fear of many safety experts is that we will see a significant increase in accidents and/or speeding tickets as a result of speeding. Having read about the latest Tesla challenging Faraday Future FF91 capable of developing over 1000 bhp out of its electric engine taking it from 0 – 60 in 2.39 seconds without making a noise, I’m very worried.

Even petrol and diesel engine’d cars pose a threat to safety. So if I or anyone else has convinced you to ditch your 5 year old car for a brand new model make sure that you acclimatise yourself to the noise levels before you start ‘opening her up’ on an A road or motorway. You don’t want to be writing your new car and/or you off in the first few weeks of taking delivery! By Graham Hill

Over the near 30 years that I have been in this industry I have seen and done many things, seen some of the most crooked activities carried out by dealers, brokers and car supermarkets, amongst others, as well as fraudulent attempts to acquire cars by crooked customers.

For many years I was an expert witness for the Crown Prosecution Service in cases of vehicle and asset finance fraud so I’ve seen most things crooked that go on in the automotive industry, some of them revolving around so called pre-registered cars and ex demonstrators.

Whilst I won’t bore you with all the fraudulent things I’ve witnessed, you’ll have to buy my upcoming book for that, I’ll share a couple of things with you as I’ve had a couple of potential clients who have recently avoided contract hiring a new car in favour of a so called pre-registered car or an ex demonstrator on HP or PCP.

First of all I should point out that it is possible to get a good deal on an ex demonstrator but it’s the luck of the draw and I’ll explain why. But let’s start with ‘pre-registered’ cars. First of all let’s be quite clear, there is no such thing as a pre-registered car in the way that it is advertised by dealers. Even the head of CAP HPI refers to pre-registered cars when referring to cars that are registered then sold when they include huge discounts. The pre-registering of highly discounted cars is an illegal act made illegal by Stephen Byers when he was Labour Trade Secretary in 2000.

He was concerned that the practice carried out by manufacturers who forced their franchised dealers to buy cars, albeit at heavily discounted prices, was skewing the new car registration figures. So as part of his Supply of New Cars Order 2000 it was made illegal to pre-register cars, here is the excerpt:

This order was made under the monopoly provisions of the Fair Trading Act 1973. It prevents new car suppliers from:

• discriminating on price between dealers and fleet buyers
• providing bonuses and discounts to dealers on pre-registered cars
• imposing on dealers restrictions on price advertising

Now let me be clear, dealers can pre-register cars but not as a result of increased incentives applied by the manufacturer on individual cars. However, some dealers and manufacturers have found a way around this. As an incentive and across the board, a dealer will be set a sales target for the month/quarter/year and he will be paid a Volume Related Bonus (VRB) by the manufacturer if he can achieve the target.

This money is paid retrospectively on all cars sold during the month, quarter or year. As the bonus is not specifically on the ‘pre-registered’ cars they kind of get around the regulations. As an example let’s say the dealer is offered a VRB of £2,000 per car provided he hits his target of 100 cars for the month. With a few days to go he has sold 90 cars and he is aware that if he doesn’t sell the 100 he will lose £200,000 VRB.

So in order to hit his target he pre-registers the 10 cars in the name of the dealership and pays his normal purchase price for the cars – keeps him onside with the Supply of New Car Order. He now factors in the £2,000 per car that he will receive as additional discount then adds in the normal discount that he would include in the deal making the car a cheap car.

I’ve heard of some dealers preregistering cars and selling them through auction just to recover a reasonable proportion of the money spent out rather than have the cars sitting on their forecourt. Whilst the above may sound like pre-registered cars are a great idea there are other, far more shady, methods used to heavily discount cars and sell as new cars even though they have already been registered. Some, not all, car supermarkets have been known to use this method as well as some dealers.

The cars are diverted from where they were intended – daily rental companies, driving schools or insurance company/bodyshop courtesy cars. When supplying cars to these companies the manufacturer uses part of his marketing budget to heavily discount cars that either get them seen on the road more or are driven by potential buyers. In my experience a daily rental company can buy cars at up to 45% off the list price with 20 – 25% being very common.

In order to get around the Supply of New Car Order dealers started to set up their own daily rental companies and bought their ‘pre-registered’ cars through the new operation at huge discounts then sell them on to buyers, having never put them out on hire, with just delivery miles on the clock, on big discounts as ‘pre-registered’. Nothing wrong with that. Of course the extra name in the log book will affect the resale value of the car – but only marginally. But this is where the 3 month rule comes in.

If you have ever bought a pre-reg. car you will sometimes be told that you won’t receive the V5 log book until after 3 months. This is because in order for a daily rental company to qualify for the extra discount they (normally) have to keep the car for a minimum of 3 months or say 5,000 miles, whichever comes first. Now if the manufacturer wants to carry out an audit the dealer needs to be able to show the auditor that he still has the car.

Whilst he may argue that the car is out on hire, so can’t be inspected, he can produce the copy of the V5, supposedly proving that he still has the car, and everyone is happy. Again, whilst this is shady, is this something that a buyer should worry about? There are also some dealers who will keep the cars in stock for 3 months to avoid this situation. But here’s the crunch. Remember that I said these cars were intended for daily rental companies and they are then supposed to be sold as used cars after 3 months?

Well, many years ago I became involved in this process. Before realising exactly what was going on, I had been arranging stocking finance for wholesalers who would arrange to buy batches of brand new cars from daily rental companies and sell on to car supermarkets for a small profit, similar procedure to the operation following the Stephen Byers order.

This allowed the car supermarkets to sell new cars at less than main dealers could buy them for. The daily rental company would order say 100 cars that would be funded by the wholesaler. The cars would be diverted, at the time of delivery, to the wholesaler who would pay the daily rental company £100 per car for their trouble – they never actually saw the cars.

However, as the cars were intended for daily rental I had calls from dealers, and one comes to mind, who would say that the manufacturer had produced a batch of cars using up old stock of parts, for sale to daily rental companies. In this particular case the interior trim was lower grade, items were missing in the car such as cup holders and front fog lights were missing, all part of the standard spec. of the model badge on the back of the car.

In return the dealer knocked off £250 per car. The wholesaler agreed but do you think he explained this to the supermarkets who were selling these cars as brand new but pre-registered cars? Of course not! It would be fine to sell the cars in their sub spec. condition to the daily rental company who were supposed to rent them out.

A customer is hardly likely to refuse a rental car because the interior trim didn’t match the manufacturer’s brochure for the model he was hiring. And of course they were to be sold as used cars at the end of the 3 months or when they had covered 5,000 miles so the buyer would be buying not a new car but a used car as seen.

There is another way that you can achieve a big discount on a ‘pre-registered’ car. When there is a new model coming out or a facelift on the current model the dealers need to make way for the new model and get rid of the old model cars so he practically sells them at cost but they don’t always tell you about the new model.

I’ve also heard of cars turning up at the customer’s house only to find that he has bought or leased an old model car when he thought he was buying the new model. So check the spec. very carefully if you are going to buy a pre-registered car – it may not turn out to be what you thought you were buying. Oh and some of the cheap lease deals are cars as illustrated above so make sure that you check the spec. meticulously.

You sometimes get what you pay for. Moving on to ex-demonstrators. There are two points to be made here. First is the discount. Demonstrators are taken by dealers not just to demonstrate the basic car. They will often have a mass of options fitted, clearly so that they can be demonstrated to potential customers.

So when they tell you that they will knock 8 grand off the list price of the car that’s the list price including the options that may still make this used car, having had multiple drivers, more expensive than the brand new car with the standard spec. which is what you were originally looking for.

Their trick is to compare the cost of the demo with the full list price of the new standard car – but you’d not have paid full list on the new car in the first place. Balance up the desire of the options and the fact that the car is used against a new car without the options and with a discount. Secondly we have perception.

When you call into a dealership and take a demonstrator out with a nice salesman beside you, toodling along at 30 mph you believe that this is the way that all ex-demonstrators have been treated. Well, let me correct that perception. Many years ago in industry as general manager in one of the UK’s most successful PLC’s, I had a fleet department report into me, responsible for around 700 vehicles.

With a fleet that size we were signed into the manufacturers’ demonstrator programmes which meant that every day transporters of brand new cars would turn up, with virtually every make of car on board, that we would have on loan for anything up to 3 months, often 2-4 weeks. I would allow our sales and service staff to use these cars. As they weren’t their own company car they would proceed to ‘burn rubber’ out of our depot and treat the cars like rallycross cars till they were returned.

As we didn’t own the cars I wasn’t worried but at that point I thought to myself I will never ever buy an ex demonstrator as I know how many of them are treated. Oh and often dealer sales staff get to use the demonstrators for personal use and I’ve seen the way they drive them away from the dealership so I strongly recommend that you give ex-demonstrators a very wide berth or you may end up spending more time waiting for repairs to be carried out than actually driving the car! By Graham Hill

Technology is advancing at an amazing rate in cars to the point where many new and used car drivers are quite oblivious to some of the latest features fitted to their cars. It is bad enough getting to find out what is fitted to your car when it is new but when you buy a used car from a used car lot the chances are that the dealer hasn’t a clue so you’ve no chance.

However, as always Hill is here to help so here is a breakdown of some of the latest features and what they do: 360 Degree Cameras: Rear parking cameras have been with us for about 15 years but the low cost of cameras and new technology enables you to have an all round view of the car and in some cases an image of your car from a position above. This technology can help with parking, especially into car park bays with cars either side.

However, what we need is continual surveillance and a voice that tells anyone, in no uncertain terms to F*** Off if they are about to key the side of your car and inform them that they have been photographed – something I could have done with a year ago. Bastards!

Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB): This uses sensors to check to see if you are getting too close to an obstacle when driving. If, given your speed, you are getting too close a visual and audible warning is given. Get too close, where the system senses an accident is about to happen, and the brakes are applied with sufficient force to enable you to stop before impact. Euro NCAP safety tests favour cars with this feature fitted as it is believed to prevent 38% of rear end crashes.

Lane Departure Warning: Does what it says, if it feels that the driver is drifting across the lane markings the system will alert the driver with either an audible and/or visual alert and in some cars a vibrating steering wheel (leave it). This feature is already standard on many new cars.

Traffic Jam Assistance: This uses AEB technology along with lane departure technology to keep you in the lane in slow moving traffic with little intervention by the driver.

Blind Spot Warning: this detects cars approaching either side of the car from behind using radar technology to detect cars approaching in your blind spot. It doesn’t do this every time a car is about to overtake or a bike undertake – that would be silly!  Only when it senses that you are attempting a lane change and senses an approaching vehicle will it sound an alarm or lights appear around the door mirror on the side that the vehicle is approaching. Automatic Main Beam: You can switch this on continuously but will only automatically activate when the light dictates. The system senses when you are approaching a car in front or a car is approaching you from the opposite direction and automatically dips the main beam. It can even detect cyclists approaching and also drops to dip beam in lit up areas. Some new LED units can now give the driver as much light in front even though the headlights are no longer dazzling approaching drivers. Clever!

Rear Collision Warnings: This clever system senses a fast approaching car from behind and immediately switches on the hazard warning lights to alert the driver of both vehicles. If the car continues to close fast the seatbelt pre-tensioners are applied and the brakes are also applied to reduce whiplash injury and attempt to stop the concertina effect.

Evasive Steering Assist: This system senses an approaching vehicle on a single carriageway and prevents the car from veering into its path. Some systems can sense a pedestrian walking into the path of the car and allows the car to gently swerve to miss the person then return to the normal driving line.

Rear Cross Traffic Alert: This is activated when reversing out of a parking space and can sense anyone else approaching, possibly also in reverse, and stops the car in order to prevent a collision. Some can also sense cyclists and pedestrians.

Speed Limit Detection: This picks up the speed limit from speed limit signs and adjusts the cruise control speed automatically. It can also place the speed limit on the screen if you are exceeding it and it will gradually adjust the adaptive cruise control speed down to within 5mph of the limit. So there you have it, some of the latest advances in technology, most of which is either available as an optional extra or fitted as standard on new cars. By Graham Hill

I’ve talked about this subject before but recent statistics has caused me to mention it again. It seems that nearly six million drivers are caught out by auto renewals of their insurance, losing on average almost £120 per annum. I have to say when I changed my insurer at my last renewal I saved nearly £400 per annum so I know how important it is to shop around every year.

The research was carried out by comparethemarket.com and revealed that the average saving by shopping around is £119.39, up from £106 at the start of the year. Younger motorists suffer most when auto renewing with premiums being up to 30% more than could be achieved by shopping around.

And don’t just go onto the comparison sites, don’t forget that some of the cheapest insurers such as Direct Line are not on the comparison websites. So make sure you try them as well. Although I would strongly advise against Zurich who tried every way they could to avoid paying out on a damaged laptop of mine.

The Financial Ombudsman Service told them on 3 occasions to pay out but it wasn’t till the Ombudsman made a final ruling, two and a half years later, that they were told that they were wrong not to payout. They are crooks – don’t use them! Also don’t overlook insurance brokers, they certainly come into their own in the event of an accident and dealing with the paperwork. By Graham Hill

The reason to install a dash cam in your car was originally to avoid arguments over insurance claims following cash for crash claims. These claims come about following an incident whereby a driver swerves in front of you, brakes hard, giving you virtually no time to stop causing you to run into the back of their car.

The driver and the passengers of the car in front all claim for whiplash injuries whilst you lose all your no claims bonus. With dash cam evidence the police can carry out an investigation and often prosecute the driver of the car in front on a variety of charges.

However, whilst dash cams are one of the biggest selling gadgets right now and Citroen have started fitting them as standard in their latest C3 to combat cash for crash crime, there are other reasons why you should install dash cams. They are invaluable for general claims as insurance companies become increasingly lazy.

In a recent case I read about a young driver who was sitting stationery in a backed up queue on a roundabout, when another impatient driver decided to take a quick route then cut in modifying the front end of her car. She was clearly not at fault so she claimed through her insurer for the repairs only to find that the other driver had made a claim against her insurance company, not only for repairs but also, guess what? Yep, whiplash.

The advice from her insurance company was to accept liability as in court a judge would be unlikely to find in favour of a newly qualified driver having an accident on a roundabout. That is a disgrace. However, had the young driver, whose premium was already ridiculously high and set to go higher, had a dash cam fitted the case would have been open and shut.

So isn’t it about time that manufacturers followed Citroen’s lead and started to install cameras as standard into the back of the rear view mirrors to help drivers to keep on the road and minimise claims times and costs as well as help police investigating accidents? After market dash cams are unsightly with wires dangling which puts drivers off installing them but maybe if the insurance industry and car manufacturers got their heads together we could see an end to cash for crash, quicker claims turnarounds, a decrease in insurance premiums, less time spent by police investigating accidents and more prosecutions. GH climbs down off soapbox for a sit down and cup of tea! By Graham Hill

I’ve warned in the past about selling your car that has hands free Bluetooth fitted and the need to delete your stored telephone numbers, especially if you have stored sensitive numbers that you wouldn’t want others to know. Well the situation is getting worse now that ‘connected’ cars are now being sold on or part exchanged.

Some cars built over the last couple of years are capable of connection to mobile devices via apps which is great for the owner of the new car but it can lead to all sorts of problems when these connected cars are bought by used car buyers down the line.

Tim Church from Weston-Super-Mare found this out when he sold his Land Rover Discovery Sport only to find that sometime later he was still able to access the car’s InControl App via the app on his phone. From his app he could still see the location of the new owner as well as whether the car was locked or not.

The latest connected facilities can include pre-warming or cooling the car from your app, remotely unlocking the car, downloading music as well as knowing where the car has been and is currently located. When questioned by Auto Express Land Rover said that it was the responsibility of the previous owner to remove the vehicle from their account when they sell it. I’m sure this will be of great comfort to new owners of Land Rovers! By Graham Hill

One of my customers, Zamir Hussain, has rather bizarrely found himself in court following an accident that wasn’t his fault. He was provided with a like for like replacement car (not cheap considering he has a Range Rover) but after the other driver’s insurance company disagreed with the amount claimed for the hire car he now has to go to court.

He could end up having to pay all or part of the bill which is several thousands of pounds and serves as a stark warning to anyone involved in an accident. The situation requires a little unravelling so please bear with me. You’ve had an accident that wasn’t your fault and your car is booked in for repair. There is no dispute that the other party is at fault.

You now have one of two choices, you can claim through your insurance company which means that you lose your no claims discount or you can make the claim yourself against the other party. However, and this is the first point to note, you must advise your insurance company that you have been involved in an accident. Failure to do so could cause your insurer to refuse to insure you in future. You should send a letter to your insurance company making it perfectly clear that you are not making a claim, simply advising them.

So you have advised your insurance company and you are now faced with another choice. The bodyshop repairing your car may offer you a courtesy car. This is exactly what it is, a courtesy provided by the repairer, which tends to be a small engine’d modest car to keep you mobile. On the other hand your insurer may suggest that you take a like for like car and recommend a credit hire company who will provide you with a car, either the same as the one you drive or a similar grade. By taking this route you don’t lose your no-claims bonus but the car rental is in your name.

The agreement between you and the credit hire company includes payment terms. They will seek to recover the cost from the other party’s insurance company but, and this is a big but, if the other insurance company refuses to accept liability for the accident or for any other reason refuses to pay, you are liable as the agreement is in your name.  Whilst you may feel you have a right to expect a like for like replacement there is an overriding obligation on you to mitigate the costs to the other party (and his insurer) in the event of an accident.

For example if you have an accident that wasn’t your fault and you feel your car is driveable, then instead of having the car checked by an engineer you continue to drive it, you could cause additional damage. If subsequently it is found that you have caused irreparable damage to the engine the other person’s insurance company would most certainly challenge a claim for a replacement engine – and probably win.

It seems that some insurance companies are challenging hire costs, not because they are too high for the car but that a direct replacement shouldn’t have been provided in the first place using the mitigation of cost argument for the challenge. They will also challenge a rental charge for a replacement car if you keep the hire car after your car has been repaired. You may stand a better chance of your claim succeeding if you lease your car. You should point out that you are still paying for the lease of your car whilst it is being repaired so you should be entitled to claim for a like for like replacement.

Some Credit Hire companies also provide a total risk agreement whereby, unless you have deliberately tried to defraud them, they will cover the cost in the event that they end up in court and lose the case. You need to check beforehand. It now starts to get a little messy. If you end up in court you may be asked if a courtesy car was offered and why you didn’t accept it. The advice is that you should tell the credit hire company if you are offered a courtesy car (you may be asked in court why it was essential to have a like for like car as opposed to a small courtesy car).

If you are not able to use the hire car during the period that your car is being repaired, for example if you are on holiday or you are unable to drive through injury or illness then the claim for that period could be thrown out. Here is another strange twist. Credit hire is known to be the most expensive way to finance a rental car. If you walked into a daily rental company and rented the same car it could cost up to £200 less per day but to do this you would be expected to pay in advance for the rental.

So as the accident wasn’t your fault why would you take this route, surely it must be down to the other party’s insurance company to pay the rental costs direct? Wrong. If it can be shown in court that that you had the resources to pay for the replacement car at the lower rate the court could find in favour of the insurance company for the difference. And it gets worse, supposing the car was a write off. How long would you be entitled to a Credit Hire car for? Most would assume from the time you had the accident to the time you receive the payout.

Some might argue, but not be successfully, that you need the hire car to drive around to inspect potential replacement cars. However, again, rather bizarrely, if it can be shown that you could have afforded to pay for a replacement you may not be entitled to claim for more than say a ‘reasonable’ 2 weeks. The expression used by the courts is ‘impecunious’ when you don’t have the funds to pay for a replacement in the case of a write off or pay for cheaper daily rental if your car is being repaired. So beware if you have a few quid in the bank.

Finally, there is the ‘upsell’. Only ever consider an upsell if the Credit Hire company doesn’t have a direct replacement and won’t charge a higher rate for the better car. Let’s say your car is a 3 Series BMW but because the Credit Hire company has no 3 Series available they suggest they provide a 5 Series. Check that they will still charge the 3 Series rate and don’t fall for the supplier saying that you don’t have to worry if the rate is higher as the other party’s insurance company will be paying.

They probably won’t. In summary only take a Credit Hire car if you are absolutely confident that it won’t result in you paying all or part of the bill. For your information you can check Nationwide Credit Hire Rates by clicking here. Incidentally to put this into perspective Zamir’s Credit Hire charge was over £6,000!!! By Graham Hill

All discussions about cars at the moment seem to revolve around either connected cars, driverless cars or both. But as I mentioned in an earlier blog I hope that in the rush to get this new technology out into the market place they don’t compromise security.

Problems already exist with hackers able to clone your remote keycode and access your car with a laptop, made even easier with keyless entry allowing the crooks to start the car once inside by pushing a button. Dealers are also being warned about open access to the Internet via their free WiFi in their showrooms.

Customers who access the Internet, whilst waiting for their car to be serviced, could have their data held on their laptop compromised by a hacker sitting inside or just outside the showroom. Not only that hackers have been known to set up dummy hotspots that you connect to again giving access to the contents of your computer.

However, worst of all are the hackers who hack into the records of the dealership providing free Internet access. They can then extract personal details including credit card information from the dealers data base. This can also apply to anywhere else you can pick up free and unprotected WiFi such as shops, hotels, restaurants etc.

Moving on to the driverless cars, there have been industry warnings that insurance for driverless cars needs to be very carefully considered with so much depending upon computerised systems making hacking potentially the biggest threat. In a report by AXA Insurance they warn about potential claims where vehicles have been broken into and the car or items stolen remotely.

Researchers have already shown how a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV could be hacked and stolen using a laptop. I have read of cases in America and similar warnings have been issued here about situations where cars’ computer systems have been hacked then drivers held to ‘ransom’ only releasing the car once a sum of money has been paid. According to AXA these and others are whole new risks associated with highly computerised and autonomous cars that need to be considered and assessed as a matter of urgency. By Graham Hill

Years ago Ford had a reputation for announcing new models long before they were in a position to launch. As a result pressure was on them to get the car into the marketplace whilst interest was at its highest. Subsequently, anyone who bought the brand new model with lots of new features became Ford’s own testers.

My ex wife became one of them when they brought out a brand new shape Fiesta. It looked great and the Ghia had loads of brand new features. Unfortunately the car spent more time in the local dealers during its first 6 months than in the hands of my ex.

But as newer cars rolled off the production line all of the faults were fixed and eventually my ex ended up with a car without rattles, windows that worked, no oil leaks and a rear window that didn’t drip water onto her shopping every time she operated the rear wash/wipe. Whilst it was irritating there were no health and safety or security issues just minor irritation that got sorted. Scoot forward a few years and you find Apple uses the same principle whenever they have a new iPhone to launch.

Remember the bendy big phone and the phone with the aerial built around the phone that lost the signal if you held it? So it should come as no surprise that when the recent head of steam started to build up around the desirability to have ‘Connected Cars’ that stuff would be released before being fully considered and fully tested. What us cost accountants would refer to as the ‘what if’ considerations. Many manufacturers have rushed to release apps that can be downloaded onto your phone that will remotely connect to your car.

The app will remotely monitor and control the car, locate it and even lock and unlock it. Yes I did just say that. The trouble is that not enough ‘what if’s’ were considered before the products launched leaving the new owner and the car vulnerable when sold. Fleet operator Ogilvie found that they still had access via their apps to a Tesla, BMW i3 and a Nissan Leaf after the cars had been sold although they pointed out that the Nissan could not be stopped or started via the app.

As more manufacturers join Jaguar Land Rover with their inControl, Tesla with MyTesla, Volvo OnCall, Vauxhall’s OnStar and Nissan Connect less attention could be given to security if it meant that the technology could be launched in no time flat. Some manufactures say they will delete the old account once the car is sold and one amazingly said that if they are called by the customer or fleet manager they can disable the App. Really? That sounds pretty secure – not! Tesla said that it is up to the old owner or new owner (or thief) to advise the change of ownership.

To prove the point Fleet News reported one ex Tesla owner able to access his MyTesla account a year after the car was sold. It is only now that leasing companies are discussing the end of lease procedures and a resolution that would see the disabling of apps. As part of the handover process. But what about private owners? Who will instruct those with Connected cars how to protect their privacy and new owners make sure that the previous owner no longer has access to their car. What a mess! By Graham Hill