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Possibly not but it might be useful to know what you are likely to face in the future. I can help there because Auto Express has carried out a survey amongst 46,000 readers to come up with the best and worst dealers by manufacturer.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

I can’t reveal all but I can give you a rundown of some of the best and worst dealers. In the best category Lexus heads the list for the second year running. Suburu and Toyota come in at positions 2 and 3. Honda was 4^th and Jaguar 5^th. Porsche, Skoda, Mitsubishi, Renault and Kia finished off the top 10.

Strangely not many Germans achieved a top 10 position. But what abouth the bottom of the list, the last 10 places. At the bottom was Seat at position 31, Chevrolet was 30, Ford at 29, Fiat 28, Citroen 27, Peugeot 26. Next up the list were a few Germans, at 25 was VW, just above was BMW at 24, Audi 23 and Chrysler/Jeep at 22.

A few surprises there and very interesting. Probably won’t influence too many buying decisions but interesting to know all the same.

The RAC has brought itself up to date by fitting out their patrol vehicles with state of the art diagnostic technology in order to increase the number of roadside fixes it can carry out.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

The RAC has invested £6 million in Scan+ diagnostic software that will enable patrols to interact with a broken down vehicle’s own diagnostic system and on-board sensors to identify faults.

The technology will allow technicians to do a repair on parts that often need electronically adapting before they will operate – even battery replacements need computer ‘coding’ after replacing. No I didn’t know that either!

RAC Technical Director, David Bizley said, ’The RAC has always utilised the latest technological advances to ensure we offer the very best repair for motorists.

RAC Scan+ will give our patrols the very best information from the vehicle’s own diagnostic equipment to enable them to repair the car.’ Over to you the AA!

Bits&Pieces: I think most of my readers know my feelings about statistics, most of them leave me scratching my head thinking – so what? Someone, whoever decided to carry out the survey, needs to get a life.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

For example did you know that Seat drivers are most likely to make an ‘at fault’ insurance claim? Really??? Oh there’s more, Kia and Mini owners were next most likely to claim with Subaru, Smart and Fiat owners putting in the least claims.

Astonishing or what? So who carried out this totally pointless survey? Money Supermarket that’s who. Totally bloody pointless – Money Supermarket – get a life!

The AA has warned that fuel prices are set to rise by 5p per litre over the summer months. Apparently petrol stations have already started to pass on higher wholesale prices to customers at the pumps.

They said that costs had already increased by 1p per litre in July – not at my bloody Tesco, more like 3p!

Who do you use to insure your car? Think twice about Swinton as they were fined £7.4 million for miss-selling policies between April 2010 and April 2012. They were found guilty of using an ‘aggressive sales strategy’  over the phone and failed to tell customers that some of the add-ons were optional extras.

I can see that it won’t be long before we start to see congestion charges in all towns and cities. Cambridge, who dropped the proposal for a congestion charge 3 years ago, are now considering this as an option to reduce traffic gridlock. Before going ahead they will need to convince local businesses.

After the recent F1 disasters with their tyres exploding on a far too regular basis you would think that Pirelli would concentrate on making them safer.

Used Tires (Photo credit: www.ericcastro.biz)

Well in an effort to multitask it would seem that the designers have not only improved the reliability but they have brought out a new series of road tyres that they say reduces the road noise in a car by 50%.

Assuming that we won’t see a repeat of the F1 blowouts it’s worth noting that developments continue on road cars. The first cars to benefit from this new technology are the Audi RS6 Avant and RS7. They will be offered as optional extras (no I don’t know how much), but I guess they must be expensive if they are only offered as options on two of their top of the range cars.

In order to reduce the noise the tyres have a layer of noise cancelling sponge under the tread blocks. Pirelli says it reduces the amount of vibration and noise through the steering wheel.

Let’s hope the tyres don’t suffer the same problems faced by Hamilton & co.

Related articles

• Webber slams F1 tyres (sbs.com.au)

Call me old fashioned but I still find it amazing how easily individuals part with their personal details to companies they know nothing about. I write about this time and again and still people are dopey enough to part with every piece of information a crook needs to open a bank account in your name or take out a credit card.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

If I wanted details from a number of high net worth individuals I would offer a great car deal on say a BMW X5 or M3, either car for say £299 + VAT per month. Absolutely impossible to get to those figures. I would then set up a dummy web site and wait for the enquiries to flood in.

I would have a very believable person answering the phone explaining how the boss has committed to a number of cars in order to achieve the very low rates on offer, all we need to do is take a finance application from them and away we go.

I would ask for some proofs such as a copy of a driving licence and passport along with a few bills and for good measure a copy of the front and back of a credit card. Oh and by the way last 3 months bank statements wouldn’t go amiss when applying for credit!

It would be that simple as people are greedy, they want everything on the cheap and that is what the crooks rely upon. Oh and by the way the scenario I described isn’t far fetched, it actually happened!

This leads me to the latest figures released by fraud prevention service, CIFAS. In the first 5 months of this year nearly 60,000 people were victims of identity fraud. There were more than 46,000 cases of impersonation over the period where fraudsters used individual identities to open new accounts.

They also showed that more than 13,500 were victims of ‘takeover’ when an existing account is broken into and hijacked. Around 96,000 confirmed frauds were reported to CIFAS in the first 5 months of this year.

By the way the identity theft I referred to earlier was on BMW X5’s, the same company carried out the same fraud when advertising Vauxhall Astras at well under the market rate, so you don’t have to be a high net worth individual.

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• European Study Reveals ID Fraud To Be Rife In UK (misco.co.uk)

Rear-facing infant car seat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I sometimes agree with rules that come out from the EU as an imposition upon our legal system. I have to say not often but today is one of those very rare days. Being a dad myself and having spent a fortune on car seats over the early years of my kids lives and still feeling that the seats were not adequate I welcome the new rules to be known as i-Size.

The current rules called ECE R44/04 mean children that weigh over 9kg can be put in a forward facing seat. But by basing the decision on the weight of the child could mean that some parents put children in front facing seats to early, as young as 9 months old.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

This could lead to some serious neck and back injuries in the event of an accident. The new rules will make it mandatory to keep children in rear facing seats until the age of 15 months which will make it easier for parents to select the right seat.

The new regulations will also require the seats to be tested more rigorously and will now also include a side impact test to provide more protection for the baby’s head in the event of an accident.

Whilst the new rules will gradually be phased in the old seats built to the current regulations can be used till 2018 when the current rules will cease and be replaced by i-Size. Anything that makes our children and grand children safer in cars has my support.

Related articles

• Car Finance Experts Car Loan 4U comments on UK youngsters at risk with 50% of car seats improperly installed (prweb.com)
• Seat law to change (stuff.co.nz)

Peugeot (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If the financial problems weren’t enough it would seem that Citroen and Peugeot need to sort their cars out, or more importantly their electrics, according to a new report prepared by BBA Reman – a specialist in remanufacturing problematic electrical components (no I don’t know what that means either), based in Rochester, Kent.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

They say that they dealt with more Citroens than any other make of car among its 43,500 UK customers. The most common fault was within the ECU’s fitted mainly to C4’s and C5’s.

The same issue caused Peugeot to fall into 2^nd place with the same problem occurring in 206, 307 and 407. Whilst some would say that this isn’t surprising given the difficulties faced by the manufacturers, they may be surprised to learn that contrary to belief that Germans are the most reliable VW and Audi were 3^rd and 4^th respectively. Maybe a bit of a wakeup call there! By Graham Hill Car Finance

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• Peugeot: European car sales will continue to fall (inautonews.com)

English: No Parking Minster Yard Double Yellow Lines or a worn single. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Eric Pickles MP, Conservative Party Conference, 30 September 2008 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

That very cheery Conservative, Eric Pickles MP has a great idea – according to him. He is about to re-invigorate the high street and by doing so annoy the Lib Dem’s and win the next general election.

His proposal, not quite thought through yet, is to allow vehicles to legally park on certain double yellow lines from 5-15 minutes before they receive a fine, clamp or are towed away.

Now for those like Eric and I who are a little on the portly side, being able to nip out from the car and buy a diet Coke and low fat packet of crisps without a warden slapping a ticket on the windscreen would of course be a Godsend. Not least it would save the walk from the multi-story to the shop expending energy unnecessarily, who needs it?

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

But as much as it appeals I have to say Eric, I think it will be a disaster. Selecting the places where parking will be allowed will be a nightmare as will the policing of it. Assuming of course that the double yellows were put there for a reason in the first place, i.e. to keep traffic flowing, it could cause gridlock or be dangerous for pedestrians.

As for winning the election Eric, I can’t imagine queues at the ballot box waiting to stick their cross in the Tory  box in order to get double yellow line parking. Nice try though! By Graham Hill Car Finance

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• Drivers to be able to park on double yellow lines (itv.com)

Did you know that it’s illegal to drive a car if you have a cold or flu? The same applies to hay fever, in fact any condition that affects your driving makes it illegal to drive whilst suffering. According to the Central Motorway Police Group, ‘A heavy cold or flu causing sneezing and streaming eyes clearly affects fitness to drive and medicine that can Read more »

Image via CrunchBase

Researchers at the Polytechnic School in Montreal, Canada have developed a soft polymer based fibre that can be woven into fabrics to be virtually undetectable. So what I hear you ask in amazement? This means that it will be possible for say a car seat to become a touch pad. Touching the seat will enable you to move the seat or open and shut Read more »