As posted elsewhere, we're getting close to buying a new car. Haven't finally sorted the finance, but thought we would get the figures from the dealer as well as from everywhere else.

The dealer is offering 'GAP' insurance. For a one-off payment of £4-500 (sorry exact figures not to hand), we are allegedly 'guaranteed' the difference between what we pay for it today, and what we get for it if it's a loss for any reason. Of course we haven't been given the T&C so I don't know all the situations which would be covered: certainly if it was nicked and not recovered, or written off.

Now since in 20+ years of motoring I've only had one write-off (someone else driving) and one non-recovered theft, I'm not 100% convinced by this. Anyone had any experience? Read more

I hope no-one will start trying to talk me out of an Agila, because it's taken us a while to get this far, and it does look to me like a very good VFM kind of car. The high seats and the easy loading boot appeal to me, and I've looked at the Car by Car Breakdown and searched the discussion forums without being put off.

So specifically, the local dealer is offering:

1. Pre-registered but basically new bottom of the range Agilas for £5395: 1.0 litre engine, radio only and not even a parcel shelf! I think they'd have a 54 plate. Failed to ask if they had ABS. They have them in dark blue or Postman Pat red: hmmmm, a hard choice ... They bought a load in at the end of the year to meet their quota and are now offloading them cheap, says the salesman.

2. A 52 plate 1.2 Enjoy, comes with roof bars fitted, radio/cassette, parcel shelf. 16,000 miles, silver, £5295. Again forgot to ask about the brakes.

3. An 02 plate 1.2 Enjoy, with roofbars, radio-cassette, parcel shelf. 33,000 miles, bright blue I think (it was dark when I saw it!), £4795. Brakes were completely out of my head at the time ...

Now I have never had a brand new car before, and I can't say I'm that keen to start now, think I would prefer a slightly higher spec. But please could someone advise whether it is worth spending that extra £500 for the car with much lower mileage?

And if we go for the cheapest option, is there anything scary we should know about an Agila that's done 33,000 miles?

And how far down should we try to go in any case? Haggling isn't our strong point, but I could offer NOT to insist on trading in our Saab, which they do NOT want to take!

We expect to do about 10,000 miles per year, mostly in and around town, usually no more than 2 of us in the car but occasionally need to squeeze 3 tall teenagers in the back ...

Thanks for any help, people. Read more

Last month , whilst driving the firm's lorry ,I had a low speed "coming together" with a car at some roadworks and the car was slightly damaged (door miror and trim). Details were exchanged and the insurance companies have been left to do their thing .Hopefully my company will deal with it all with no further input from me . However , do I have to mention this incident when renewing the insurance on my own car in the spring? (the "any accidents or claims" type of question), Any informed thoughts? DeeJay. Read more

just joined ebay so I'm a bit of a virgin (if that's possible)but am I being naive in thinking I can pick up a 10 year old luxury car for a couple of grand or are they just money pits. A BMW 740 with 100K on the clock for a £2k is surely worth a punt isn't it? Read more

This has appeared on news group uk.transport: and was nicked by me

Transport Committee session on road pricing, evidence from Highways Agency and Department of Transport Wednesday 2nd February.

Alistair Darling (DoT)
David Lamberti (DoT - Road Charging)
Frank Kelly (DoT - Scientific Adviser)
Gwyneth Dunwoody (Chair)

The Chair challenged the DoT team to explain why road tolling should not
be implemented with immediate effect, since the technology in the form
of microwave and GPS systems was already available.

David Lamberti answered that unfortunately trials have established that
satellite based systems cannot distinguish parallel roads with
sufficient accuracy to determine which pricing structure to apply.
Furthermore studies have also shown significant problems in obtaining
accurate distance run measurements using GPS systems.

Mr Lamberti concluded that satellite systems are profoundly unreliable
in this application.

The Chair then challenged the team to explain why road tolling was being
considered for lorries using similar technology. Mr Kelly and Mr Darling
responded by stating that the proposal for lorries will involve a system
primarily dependent upon tachograph records as well as GPS data. The
tachograph giving operators an independent source to confirm GPS data.
The final implementation will be a box which will take input from
microwave sensors, GPS and the tachograph and store this information to
be transmitted when the vehicle is turned off.


Sad thing is they'll probably try and implement it anyway even though they know about the parallel roads issue. There is some talk about microwave transmitters or somesuch going into lamposts to track vehicles. Seeing as there is uproar every time a mobile phone transmitter goes up I wouldn't fancy their chances of persuading the great british public to have these transmitters everywhere.

The implementation with german lorries has been a bit of a disaster but the IT company in charge seems to be the german equivalent of EDS...
teabelly Read more