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Now here is an interesting story for those that like the idea of taking a standard car and ‘blinging’ the car up with a pile of electronic gadgets. Hanne Lambley of Cheltenham bought a Ford B-MAX but wasn’t happy with the standard spec. so ordered a pile of optional factory fit extras to be added.

The dealer, Bristol Street Motors, described the car as a Christmas tree and wasn’t particularly surprised when the car’s battery started to go flat very quickly after just a few months. The dealer added that because the driver was only covering a few miles the journeys were insufficient to fully recharge the battery.

But none of this was explained to the customer who was obviously very dissatisfied. Whilst Ford stepped in and replaced the battery to a heavy duty model, free of charge, it begs the question as to why this wasn’t taken into account when the car was spec’d. Some software should have alerted the dealer to the fact that the battery would not be fit for purpose when so many battery draining extras were added.

So if you are ordering a new car with a pile of extras on check to see if there is a battery upgrade or get in writing from the dealer that the standard battery would be able to handle all the electronic gadgetry. Also I should mention that I have heard of, and reported on, many situations where CO2 saving stop/start systems have been fitted that seriously drain batteries requiring a heavy duty battery to be fitted.

But when drivers have taken the car to a battery centre for a replacement they have fitted an inadequate battery, as it was cheaper, only to find that it rapidly discharges. Make sure that if it is a first time battery replacement that the correct capacity battery is fitted and replace like with like. If a heavy duty battery has been fitted from new it has probably been done for a reason. By Graham Hill

If you are thinking of driving around Europe this summer, especially if you are driving through France, you will need to carry a breathalyser, especially as not only in the UK, but also in Europe, they have woken up to the benefits of breathalysing motorists in the morning rather than at night.

It is far more difficult to assess whether you are over the limit in the morning, after a skin full the night before, than at night when you have just had a couple of drinks. And with barbeques coming into season in the UK, which I’m told leads to more morning after convictions than over the Christmas period, you need to take precautions to safeguard your licence.

If you agree you may think it is wise to invest in a fairly expensive but accurate breathalyser being sold by Alcosense called the Ultra. It costs a whopping £249.99 but is considered to be one of the most accurate consumer devices. It can be set to the regulations of the country you are in at the time, including France and the US, both of which calculate readings differently.

Once your breath has been detected and analysed by the software algorithm the device will give a reading. It tells you what percentage of alcohol has been detected in your breath then also flashes green, amber or red that indicates whether you are over the limit, under it or completely in the clear.

It also indicates how long it will be before you are fully sober again. So if you are the sort of person who drinks into the wee hours then wonders in the morning if you are safe to drive this could be a valuable investment. By Graham Hill

Sat. Nav’s are great, I wouldn’t be without mine having thrown out my AA map book many years ago but there are times when you wish you had your old map book in the car instead of the bloody sat nav, especially when you are just about to join the end of a queue of stationary traffic.

They are a little better these days, especially if my system has found a major delay on say the M25 (now run by NCP I believe) it will announce that due to heavy congestion it has created another route. Which is fine but the problem arises when you can see the orange cars on the screen, a few miles ahead, turn red, just as you reach a turning that should take you away from the congestion.

So off you toodle expecting the system to recalculate an alternative route. Oh no – that would be too much to ask. For the next 20 miles it constantly tries to get you back to where you turned off the original route. It will even try to fool you by not telling you to do a U turn but sends you off down a single track B road.

At this point you need to zoom out cos I’ll guarantee that it is about to send you completely round the houses to where you left the original route an hour ago! There are now parts of London that I know better than most black cab drivers!

So manufacturers who are designing undesirable things into new cars such as hair dryers and heated gear knobs please turn your attention back to Sat Nav’s because if that bloody woman keeps trying to get me back to where I’ve purposely driven away from I’m filing for a divorce! PS. Second thoughts don’t ditch the hair dryer! By Graham Hill

Have you ever appealed against a parking fine? Obviously I’ve appealed every time I ever received one, even if I was parked on a traffic warden’s foot which was on a set of double yellow lines whilst he was leaning on a post that says ‘No Parking’, because that’s me.

I see it as my civic duty, however not everyone is prepared to go through an appeals procedure that can take up to 3 months, even if it gives you enough time to arrange a Quick Quid loan to pay for it when they finally tell you to grow up! But I have good news, the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT) has launched a new portal.

The purpose is to speed up the appeals process when appealing against a parking fine. The pilot scheme, which I’m pleased to say will be rolled out in Brighton & Hove, is a great move as that is normally where I get ‘done’, along with Croydon! I remember on one occasion I received a ticket in Croydon, South London, the day after they changed the time rules for parking on single yellows from between 6.00pm to 6.00am to 11.00pm to 6.00am and yes I got a ticket from a warden at 10.50pm. Ridiculous!

I digress, so this new service has been set up with consumer complaints company – Resolver (good name). Following a successful pilot the portal will be rolled out to every council in England and Wales by the end of this year. If you receive a Penalty Charge Notice for parking or bus lane contraventions in England or Wales, other than London which is controlled by TfL, you can appeal online as opposed to the current procedure whereby you have to appeal in writing.

You can appeal using your smartphone, tablet, laptop or PC – that is great! According to TPT 0.5% of people issued with fines appeal and of those 50% have their fines overturned. The system will expand and will already include Dartford Crossing fines and Durham congestion charge. Excellent news, just got to find the app now! By Graham Hill

Nearly 10% of car breakdowns are the result of drivers ignoring vital dashboard warning lights according to breakdown service provider, Green Flag. Their research revealed that drivers took an average of 71 hours to react to a light on the dashboard indicating a potentially serious problem.

One in ten continue to drive with a potential engine fault for nearly a week whilst ABS problems took 76 hours, on average, to address. A small percentage took over a month to take action to sort out a problem and 3% admitted that they had damaged their vehicle further by not reacting to a problem identified by a warning light.

As Green Flag pointed out the biggest problem is that drivers don’t know what the lights mean or even the difference between red, orange or yellow, green and blue lights. And many of the symbols are not fully understood. Nearly a quarter failed to recognise low tyre pressure warnings and 1 in 5 didn’t recognise an engine warning light.

Strangely, those aged 18 to 34 were the worst offenders. Nick Reid, the head of rescue at Green Flag pointed out that, ‘The majority of breakdowns across the UK each year are avoidable, so take time to check your car, ensure everything is working and pay attention to any warning lights on your dashboard.’

Dash warning lights can be anything from advisory, i.e. put on your seatbelt, to warnings that could cause serious damage to your car if ignored, such as low oil levels. You may also fully or partially invalidate your warranty as you may have moved from a cheap repair to an engine replacement through your lack of action. So if you don’t understand the warnings it would be wise that you check them out and remember the red warnings are urgent!! By Graham Hill

We all like to save money on insurance and many of us make sure that we move companies annually in order to keep our premiums down but there are still many drivers who simply can’t be arsed and allow themselves to be ripped off. In a chat to an insurance ‘insider’ recently he explained that your existing insurer will generally auto renew your policy the first time with a very modest 5% – 10% increase in premium.

This teaser leads you by the nose into a false sense of security. You think they are a fair and honest company looking after their existing customers. In fact the next time your insurance is up for renewal is when they will load the premium because experience shows that you won’t check the rate so carefully on the second renewal and just accept the increase.

My premium jumped from £400 per annum to over £700 in exactly these circumstances. However, I searched the marketplace and ended up with a much better policy for less than £300 per annum. Case proven. Other revelations from my insider was don’t go direct to the insurer, go via a comparison site as the insurance companies will offer a better deal when they are in competition with others.

I have often suggested that you put a parent, husband, wife, partner or friend onto your policy as a named driver if they have a clean licence as in many cases your premium will reduce as a result. I have only suggested that you add just one name to your policy, even though they may never drive your car, but my insider suggested several named drivers to reduce your premium even further.

It is also annoying when you see that you could obtain a lower rate as a new customer than what you are being quoted as an existing customer by the same insurance company. He suggested that you could wait till midnight when your current policy expires then a few minutes later, rather than renew, you apply for a new policy through the old insurance company claiming the new customer discount.

Another piece of advice was not to simply apply for third party cover thinking you can save money on the premium as it is now becoming common knowledge that an insurer will quote a cheaper rate for fully comp than third party, fire and theft insurance.

When questioned he explained that rather than this being a rip-off there is a solid reason. It would seem that most people taking out fully comp insurance will tend to be older, safer, experienced drivers whereas those taking out 3^rd party insurance tend to be younger, inexperienced, less safe drivers. Hence the higher premium.

Finally, and this is one of my suggestions, if you park your car in the street at night as opposed to in your garage, don’t lie about it as the premium can often be lower if your car is parked in a well lit street as opposed to your garage in which a thief could take his time to steal your car once he has broken into the garage. As with many things in the motor trade they are often not as they seem! By Graham Hill

There is no industry that I know that surrounds itself more with mystery and ‘smoke and mirrors’ than the motor and associated finance industry. Emissions, fuel consumption, APR, PCP, warranty the list goes on. These are all provided by manufacturers, dealers and funders in ways to totally mislead you.

We are now being fed a pile rubbish as we see the growth in plug in hybrid cars. We are told that they are great for the environment and you get a zillion miles to the gallon, as a result the Government gives you a chunk of money off the new car cost as they ‘apparently’ create less carbon dioxides than diesel and petrol engine cars.

We are told that the Government applies a grant of £2,500 if the electric part of the drive unit can achieve a range of up to 70 miles. More than 70 miles and you can have a grant of £4,500 but you have to bear in mind that the hybrid car is much more expensive than its petrol or diesel equivalent in the first place, certainly much more than the grant provided as an incentive.

Plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) look very impressive, low fuel cost and tax incentives are grabbing the attention of fleets as well as consumers but the problem is that not all drivers are driving these cars as they should be. The most common omission is the recharging of the car on a regular basis. This in itself can increase the whole life cost by 15% according to Wayne Millward, Fleet Consultant at contract hire company Arval.

For fleets the low benefit in kind tax is very attractive to employees but equally the employees aren’t that interested in efficiency. Even more so if fuel is provided as part of their employment package so they don’t ever plug in their cars to an electric charger. There are of course others who don’t have regular access to charging points, either at home or in the street where they park, making it virtually impossible to charge the batteries using the plug in option.

Either way, when the car moves over from the electric motor to the petrol engine, fuel efficiency plummets and CO2 emissions increase. So unless you or your company drivers use the cars as intended you could be vastly out of pocket. From a running cost point of view if a PHEV is not used as was intended the costs soar and the atmosphere suffers. You would be better off driving a normal diesel or petrol.

So why don’t the car manufacturers do anything to address this issue? I’ll tell you why, because the more hybrid cars they sell the lower the declared average CO2 emissions of all the cars they provide across Europe. In 2015 they had to get the average emissions down to 130g/km which most did.

However, this was based on the manufacturer’s claimed CO2 emissions for PHEV’s being included in the mix, assuming that the cars were regularly plugged into the mains. The fact is that very few were and is yet another con trick perpetrated by the car manufacturers as they know this is what happens! By Graham Hill

Now here is something really interesting that proves you can learn something new every day! And this piece of information could affect every single driver with his own insurance as well as companies running fleet cars. It all came about after I read a question regarding 3^rd party damage, following a car accident, when the damage is caused to local authority owned property.

For example if you were to hit a road sign or street light or maybe smash into a bollard or worse still damage barriers or even the road surface. I was shocked to read that a company running a fleet of vehicles was billed £46,000 for barrier repairs without realising the length of the replacement barriers.

The warning was raised by claims management company actually called Claims Management & Adjusting. They had found that in particular fleet operators were being targeted by local authorities for some obscene repair costs. As it turned out the claim mentioned was for a much shorter stretch of barrier as the authority had claimed in yards but the length was only a third as the measurement was actually in feet, not as stated in yards.

After pointing it out the claim was written off. The claims company also claimed a success when an invoice for £56,000 worth of re-surfacing work was challenged after obtaining information under the Freedom Of Information Act that showed a larger stretch of road had been repaired for £750.

It would seem that not only are there a few disproportionate claims for damage but Highways England has allowed certain contractors to decide upon charges and repairs without further reference as long as the claims were under a threshold, commonly £10,000. This caused me to look further into this situation and what a can of worms it turned out to be.

Most people are of the opinion that you only have to report an accident to the police and your insurance for the following reasons; if someone has been injured (report to police and insurance), there is a claim going to be made against you by another motorist (insurance only) or you are going to make a claim on your insurance for damage repairs to your own car or your contents/passengers (insurance only).

However, knock down a bollard and cause little or no damage to your car you may think that this is the responsibility of the local authority and simply drive off. In fact you have caused damage to a third party’s property so by driving off you could be committing a criminal offence. But then you may think that no-one saw you so where is the evidence but with CCTV cameras and people with mobile phones everywhere you may find that several weeks later you receive a bill for the damages.

But having not reported the accident to your insurance company within a certain period (see your policy) they may no longer be obliged to pay out. It seems  that it can take several months for a local authority to make a claim against a driver. Whilst I’m told that every car insurance policy will cover you for third party damage, that isn’t just someone else’s car or someone’s front wall, it also covers you for what is known as ‘street furniture’ which includes road signs, bollards, hoardings etc.

But if you fail to meet the terms and conditions of your insurance policy or they can prove contributory negligence you could be facing a hefty repair bill. In addition you are obliged to stop after an accident and pass your details to anyone involved or the owners of property that has been damaged. If there are no casualties you don’t have to involve the police.

However, if you have damaged privately or authority owned property you must report the accident to the police if the owner of the property is not available to take the details from you. So as you can see this is a bit of a minefield and what may have seemed like a minor accident could potentially leave you thousands of pounds out of pocket! By Graham Hill

Back in March of this year Ford made a fairly major announcement at the Geneva Motor Show that few newspapers or car journals picked up. They announced a new service scheme that would initially be rolled out to fleet customers but could finally be made available to all customers of Ford cars and vans both new and used.

As the manufacturers compete against large networks of independent service providers and small garages they have come up with a cheap and competitive option, mobile servicing. Specialist mobile service vans have been around for a few years to service commercial vehicles, that are often parked for hours on site or outside buildings, in which the drivers are working, saving the owners time and cost by having their vehicles serviced by a mobile unit during down time.

Initially Ford have successfully rolled out 8 mobile service units, as a pilot scheme, within the M25. They have now been operating for over a year. Ford’s chairman, Andy Barratt, announced that he plans to increase this number within the M25 to more than 100 operating out of Ford Stores and Transit centres. The scheme will be extended nationally if seen to be successful.

The first cars that will be included in the scheme will be the Ford premium brand, Vignales, sold through their 68 Ford Stores. It’s an interesting concept that other manufacturers will be looking at very carefully. By Graham Hill

The number of plug in car grants could reach the Government’s latest target much quicker than expected after 11,000 applications were made in February. The surge came about because the £5,000 Government grant was to be replaced by a new grant structure for Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEV) as of 1^st March.

The new structure, consisting of 3 tiers, is now in force. For cars with zero emissions and a range of more than 70 miles (category 1) there is a grant of £4,500 on offer from the Government. Vehicles with a lower zero emission range than 70 miles (category 2 & 3), such as plug in hybrids, with either a petrol or diesel engine there is a £2,500 grant.

There is also a price cap, so category 2 & 3 cars costing more than £60,000 will receive no grant although category 1 cars with a zero emission range of over 70 miles will attract the full £4,500 grant. According to the Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) a total of 16,000 low emission plug in vehicles were ordered in January and February compared to 14,500 for the whole of 2015.

So clearly zero and low emission cars are gaining acceptance helped along by some very attractive deals from the leasing companies. OLEV explained that the new grants are set to run till March 2017 or until 40,000 sales of category 1 vehicles and combined sales of 45,000 category 2 & 3 vehicles have been reached. To date a total of 67,000 grants have been provided and on current trends the Government targets could well be reached before the end of the year.

The Department for Transport would not confirm that due to the increased pace of hybrid and zero emission car sales they would review their targets but given their ultimate objective that all vehicles should have zero tailpipe emissions by 2050 it is highly likely that they will continue to encourage the sale of low emission vehicles with grants, albeit that they are likely to reduce in time.

On the other hand support is likely through improving lease rates as manufacturers aim to hit their lowering emission targets across their vehicle ranges. So if you are looking to help save the planet keep an eye out for my great hybrid deals as a preference to buying outright. There could be even greater savings than the grants offered by the Government. By Graham Hill