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Things are not getting any easier for us brokers or our funders. I heard yesterday that a large part of the Audi range is now on Feb/Mar 2010 delivery for orders placed now. Most funders will price fix for 3 months from the date of order which means that the monthly rate will be held as long as the vehicle can be delivered within the 3 months. However, if delivery is beyond this, rates may be subject to review as a Read more »

Warnings about stone chips have been issued as we move into winter. With local authorities operating on reduced budgets more roads will remain unrepaired as frost causes pot holes to appear. So when the roads start to get gritted, causing the usual stone chips on windscreens, drivers have been warned to have the chip repaired rather than run the risk of hitting a pot hole which can often result in an instant crack. Don’t forget Read more »

Lex Autolease have carried out a study on 21,000 vehicles used for business with some startling results. Driver negligence has not only pushed up maintenance and repair bills but also resulted in fines for drivers and even loss of licences. The biggest cost burdens have been misfuelling, windscreen damage, illegal tyres and vehicle downtime. Average cost to replace a windscreen is Read more »

If you have had reason to have your driving licence updated because of a change of address or your licence has run out of date (don’t forget that the new photo licences only last for 10 years), you need to check it for any omissions. The DVLA have admitted that some licences have been returned with errors, in particular entitlements such as the entitlement to drive a motorcycle. One would think that the solution was simple Read more »

The importance of using a broker rather than a bucket shop for lease cars has been highlighted again this week following the consolidation of the leasing industry. Where your lease provider may have been merged or taken over by another provider you may find yourself subjected to end of lease charges that you may not have received by the original provider who may have been fairly relaxed about defleet recharges. Read more »

This month is Tyre Safety Month! I know I probably didn’t need to mention this as you probably knew already but what it has done is highlight the fact that 80% of cars have tyres that are incorrectly inflated. Incorrectly inflated tyres can affect the handling characteristics of cars and even more dangerously fully laden vans. Vans become far less stable when they carry heavy loads and tyres are incorrectly inflated. The recommendation is that Read more »

It has been estimated that there are in excess of 1 million businesses in the UK considered to be running ‘small fleets’ of company vehicles (25 or less). It would seem that the vast majority of these businesses don’t see themselves as running a ‘fleet’ of vehicles but they should be aware that the same rules and regulations regarding duty of care, health and safety and the Corporate Manslaughter Act along with Read more »

Will electric cars ever take off? It’s pretty difficult to say but the Government looks hell bent on supporting the new green technology even though you will only be able to travel about a mile on each overnight battery charge! OK I lied about that, the standard batteries will take you 100 miles on a charge and the upgraded and larger pack will take you Read more »

After King Mandelson announced that he would not, under any circumstances, extend the scrappage scheme, which was a bit of a relief to all of us hoping for some substantial bonuses from the manufacturers for the last quarter of the year, the one with the white hair and bushy black eyebrows stood up at the labour conference and announced that the scheme was being extended by Read more »

Clarion, manufacturers of portable satellite navigation systems, have been highly criticised by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) and safety organisation Brake over their new model, the MAP970 which displays text messages on the screen. The criticisms follow a report by the RAC that 39% of UK motorists have been seriously distracted by in car entertainment, sat navs and mobile phones Brake point out that reading text messages whilst driving is Read more »