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What makes a ‘green’ motorist? Some drivers give themselves a good old pat on the back when changing from a petrol driven car to a diesel. Excellent! Count me into that group and there’s a small degree of merit as diesel, once stripped of particulates, is a little better for the environment than petrol. Taking it one step further there are those that use old chip oil to power their aging diesel cars but whilst it’s a good Read more »

My Mercedes is being a bit of a pain. Since I got it a year ago the dealer has had two tries at sorting out two warning lights that came on unexpectedly, one related to the tyre pressures and the other the ESP system. I asked if I could drive the car safely and they pointed out that as the warning lights were orange and not red, as long as I checked my tyre pressures all should be ok till I could get the car in for repair a Read more »

According to the Auto Trader Compare survey BMW drivers are the worst on the road, however, if you look at the number of insurance claims compared to the number of cars insured a different picture emerges. It would seem that whilst BMW drivers are pretty adept at annoying other drivers they manage to avoid accidents, according to the survey results published by car insurer swiftcover.com. The Read more »

Auto Trader Compare, the insurance comparison site set up by Autotrader, the UK’s largest motoring website, carried out a survey to find out which drivers are considered to be the worst amongst motorists. The worst drivers, as voted by a massive 59% of respondents, are BMW drivers. They are accused of  various bad driving habits including – driving too fast (68%), overtaking in dangerous situations (66%), Read more »

There has been an upsurge in companies known as claims management companies who claim to rid you of credit card and loan debt by claiming that contracts are ‘unenforceable’. In an investigation the BBC found that some firms were claiming very high success rates as high as 93% but when pushed could not provide evidence of anything like that. They were also accused of using misleading statements by Read more »

It would seem that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is about to clean up the act of used car dealers (fat chance). It will be issuing new guidelines later this year when consultations are completed on 12^th March. The action has been taken as a result of used car complaints topping the list of complaints received over the past 3 years by Consumer Direct, the Government’s independent advice service. In 2008 Read more »

The Treasury Select Committee has questioned whether individuals should be charged for copies of their credit report. At the moment it costs £2 or you can obtain a copy for free but it requires you to apply online to one of the credit reference agencies, provide credit card details as though you were going to pay monthly for anytime access, then cancel as soon as you’ve downloaded your current report, Read more »

It’s quite amazing that whilst most of us are aware that we have to convert our TV over to digital by either buying a digital TV or buying a Freeview box that enables us to watch digital TV on our old sets, few actually understand that there is a similar problem looming with our radios. 2012 is the switchover to digital TV but we have just 5 years before the analogue radio signal is cut off in the UK so it’s shocking that Read more »

On the subject of the new EU Consumer Credit Directive there is a change to the 14 day cooling off period that is given to consumers when they sign the finance agreements off trade premises. Currently you can cancel an agreement if it is regulated under the Consumer Credit Act and signed away from the premises of the funder, the broker or the dealer. However, if you sign on trade premises you don’t have the 14 day Read more »

For those that like to own their vehicles and have a penchant for hire purchase there is some good news, you can now receive treatment for this condition, known as ‘bonkers’, on the NHS. OK serious stuff. I reported last year that the EU had issued a directive that meant that, amongst other things, the ability to voluntarily terminate your agreement once 50% of the full cost has been repaid would no longer apply to Read more »