The Best Car Finance Blog In The World

If you buy my book, An Insider Guide To Car Finance, you receive a free book on general hints, tips and safety. One of the things I cover is setting the headrest at the correct height. A very important piece of information as proven by recent research by Brake and Direct Line Car Insurance in which it was shown that 2 out of 3 drivers Read more »

We are hopefully seeing some green shoots of economic recovery in various parts of the world. In the UK we paid off more than we borrowed last month for the first time ever and house prices are starting to rise but company closures and redundancies are still running at a high level and will probably do so for some time as we bump along waiting for the sustained upsurge in the UK and world economy. This means that many more of the population will continue to Read more »

A warning to business users has been issued regarding proposed changes to the way that leases are accounted for. Currently if you lease a car the cost simply appears as an expense in the profit and loss account and notes regarding commitments in the accounts notes. However, new accounting proposals will see all leased assets appear on the balance sheet as Read more »

Sorry about this but it all seems like bad news this week. Manheim DeFleet, the defleeting arm of the major auction house, has reported that average end of lease refurbishment charges have increased from £265 a year ago to £290 this year. As they explain contract hire companies see damage recovery as a mainstream activity. A few years ago they would budget to collect around 35% of all charges whereas these days they look to collect around 70%. David Mercer of Manheim DeFleet Services said Read more »

As drivers continue to feel the pinch of recession insurance groups warn about the dangers of not telling the truth when taking out car insurance. Every claim is now being closely scrutinised as a result in the upsurge in fraudulent claims, as explained in my recent crash for cash fraud item. As a result lies or mistakes made at the time of proposal is causing claims to be rejected so great care needs to be taken when completing proposals or you may not only find a claim rejected but Read more »

In the current climate there is lots of talk about guarantees and indemnities. Let’s be clear, before a lender considers a guarantor he must be fairly certain that the borrower can repay his debts. You may be someone who has never had credit before or you have had a credit card that has hardly been used, so you have very little credit history on which to form an opinion. But everything about you looks good, home, job, bank etc and you certainly have no adverse information stored on your credit file but for that extra bit of comfort the lender may be happy to Read more »

Last week I attended Motor Finance Europe 2009, one of the most important events of the year with regard to identifying how the European motor industry and the finance sector in particular is coping with the downturn. So I packed a couple of bottles of Paracetamol in the briefcase along with a couple of razor blades as I was totally convinced that by lunchtime I would be feeling more than a little suicidal and Read more »

If you are a business you need to be aware of the tax changes coming into force in April. I have been through this before but as we are now nearly there let me refresh your memory: 

• Cars with CO2 emissions of more than 160g/km will be written down at 10% on a reducing balance basis. Read more »

Hopefully as we move into spring we will see some warmer weather but following one of the coldest winters for years many local authorities now have the job of sorting out the damaged roads left behind. The increase in potholes has resulted in an increase of 13% in pothole related axle and suspension damage. Insurer Warranty Direct suggested that the repairs may be slow to fix with some roads being left as there is Read more »

Even though every other advert on TV seems to be for a car insurance  comparison site it is believed that as many as 40% of motorists are paying more than they should be on their car insurance by some staggering margins. BBC 2’s Working Lunch held an advice day and one of the biggest areas of cost saving that could be shown to participants was house and car insurance with one gentleman having his Read more »