The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

Every year traffic wardens, now known as civil enforcement officers, issue close to £1 billion of parking tickets. The Freight Transport Association (FTA) claim that additional administration charges add a further £100 million. However, Neil Herron, founder of parkingticketsappeals.co.uk, says that before local authorities issue parking tickets they should get their own house in order. But far too Read more »

The old question of which car to choose has risen its head again as diesel has now been roughly on par with the cost of petrol for months now compared to a year ago when the difference was 13pence per litre. Whether petrol has increased to meet the cost of diesel or vice versa we’re not sure but with better fuel consumption one would assume that diesel would be more popular, however, petrol engines have been vastly Read more »

A couple of weeks ago I told you which manufacturers and which cars were the most reliable. This week it’s the turn of the dealerships. The survey was carried out amongst 34 of the UK’s top leasing companies with 27 voting for the dealers in the top slot. Whilst Lexus often takes top honours amongst retail voters only 2 lessors put Lexus in the top 5 dropping them just off the top 10 dealers. The Germans seemed to Read more »

Brokers don’t work for the leasing companies, they actually work for their clients, in the same way as an accountant or a solicitor does but without the need for a qualification, just a Consumer Credit Licence, which can be obtained fairly easily if the program about loan sharks aired by BBC’s Panorama is anything to go by. When I started as a broker, many years ago, the situation was the same, we worked for our Read more »

The first ever UK parking summit has recently been held to discuss the growing problems faced by motorists whose cars have been clamped by cowboy clampers operating on private land. The summit was attended by parking firms, minsters and motoring groups. The AA called for tougher laws to be introduced. Edmund King, president of the AA, said that it cannot be just for there to be no independent appeal against a Read more »

Under the new EU Block Exemption rules you can now have your car serviced at any recognised service garage provided the quality of service matches that laid down by the manufacturer. I still recommend that original manufacturer parts are used but this isn’t necessary provided they meet original spec. However, a problem exists with the service lights that warn you when a car is due for service. Some Read more »

I recently warned about the dangers of not having your car serviced on time from the point of view of safety. We have now had further warnings from manufacturers and leasing companies about the importance of having your car serviced on time. The manufacturers are referring to the potential loss of warranty cover if the car is not serviced ‘as per manufacturers’ recommendations’. The chances of an engine Read more »

As cars become more efficient and manufacturers strive to avoid huge fines that will be imposed upon them by the EU if they don’t hit the CO2 reduction targets set, VW announces its first car to achieve zero VED status (that’s zero car tax to you and me). The new model which is based on the Golf 1.6TDi S 105bhp has the Blue Motion features and includes stop/start system, regenerative braking, longer gear ratios, low Read more »

Trade journal Fleet News has carried out a survey into reliability of cars by contacting the top 50 leasing companies and asking which manufacturer and which individual cars have proven to be most reliable over the last 12 months. BMW just pipped Honda to the post as the most reliable manufacturer with Audi coming in third, jumping from 7^th place last year. Audi was highest rated dealership network for Read more »

I reported recently that the Committee for Climate Change had submitted a report suggesting that there should be wide scale introduction of road charging in order to reduce car usage and emissions. However, quite unexpectedly the Government has stated that it would ‘not be proceeding with a national road user charging scheme in the next Parliament’. Not that I’m complaining but its yet another instance of asking experts for their opinion then totally ignoring them. By Graham Hill