May 2008
Has anyone brought together the data required to know exactly how much we can expect to pay in the future for car tax? I nearly bought a mint Mondeo 2.0 Ghia auto until I remembered that they could be subject to the latest stealth tax. I checked on Park~rs and sure enough massive rise over the next few years. I cannot carry a laptop everywhere so the is the perfect opportunity for a magazine or website to put together a downloadable list. Maybe I'm missing something! Read more
The heading says it all!
My company car needs some oil but I cant find which type in the handbook. Called VW Dealer who was useless. Advice needed please : o ) Read more
It MUST be atleast VW 505.01 spec and have it printed on the bottle, or VW 507.00 spec if its on variable servicing or got a DPF. Anything else WILL NOT do.
I received an email from the government today, in response to an online petition I signed a while ago on fuel duty..... Wonder if it has anything to do with the pasting they got last night?
The Government's policy is that fuel duty rates should rise each year at least in line with inflation. This supports the Government's effort to reduce polluting emissions and assists with the funding of public services. In the Chancellor's 2008 Budget fuel duty rates were announced for future years, through to 2010-11. These increases are expected to result in carbon savings of 0.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year by 2010-11.
However, in the 2008 Budget the Chancellor also announced that the planned duty increase would be deferred for six months until October. The Government believes that this decision shows that it be responsive to short-term economic conditions.
Even after these changes duty rates in 2009 will still be 11% lower, in real terms (i.e. by making an appropriate adjustment to discount for inflation), than they were in 1999 - equivalent to a 7 pence per litre real reduction - and at the time of the Budget the real cost of motoring was still 13% lower than in 1999.
It remains the case that the retail price of fuel at the pump is ultimately a matter for retailers and their suppliers, and fuel duty is just one of a range of factors which determine the price paid by the motorist.
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If you took the time .... you would actually be able to demonstrate to yourself that the figures are correct.
How true. But then you are assuming that people have the skills to do simple sums and then understand the concept of "real" prices. As you and I know, 95% of the people in the UK are poor at simple Arithmetic and the remaining 10% cannot be bothered to check figures given to them. [spot the deliberate mistake].
I have seen so called "economics" journalists on BBC calculate payback times for domestic wind turbines and heat pumps, and their complete lack of understanding of the concept of "discount rates" or "real rates of return" is shocking.
.. other than UK
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In Spain even the nerds struggle to work out the age precisely, as the first letter just changes when they've run out of the proceeding one. There doesn't seem to be the "number plate" industry here, but having said that my next door neighbour seems to be hanging on to her old style registration plate - LU 0000 OO.
Surely the UK obsession with things like number plates, and the price people will pay for them, is one of the reasons why the government looks on the car industry there as a "cash cow".
Hi there i have a ZX 1.9 TD1995 N reg with 89000miels and power steering.
The problem is when i move the steering wheel at all there is a creaking noise coming from the left hand side any ideas would be great .
Cheers James Read more
Cheers Peter
I will check all of these thanx for the help :o).
Regards James
I would like to buy the registration plate "A8 XBC" from the DVLA for £250. My initials are BC and I would like to display it as "A8X BC". I suspect that this is illegal, is that the case - is it a grey area, do the police know / care / turn a blind eye? I don't want to spend all the time worrying about it. I have no intention of having plates made up in non-regulation fonts or anything like that.
And please, not too many comments about what a waste of money it is / how insecure I must be etc!
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To the OP: Any reason not to just go for A8 XBC and not mis-space. Everyone else on the road won't know whether the plate is meant to mean anything, but you'll have the knowledge your initials are on there.
I put an R plate on what would have been a 51 plate Boxster to hide its age (though may make it look like one of the earliest) and add my initials. For the few hundred pounds it cost, I find the five-character plate does the job nicely. It was a bit of a convoluted purchase though, because far too many people have the same initials as me and the DVLA had no decent letters left.
The other thing I was considering was a plate without prefix or suffix but had an X amongst the second or third letter. It would completely hide the age, though not have my own initials on. Such a six character plate could be had for around £500 off eBay because it wouldn't be many people's initials, but there remains the possibility of selling it on for not too much less at a later date.
Personalised plates are very a personal thing, perhaps like jewellery. To me, much of the latter serves little purpose, valid exceptions being to indicate womens' unavailability or help tell the time. I don't personally see the benefit of wearing a shiny piece of metal, but have no objection to those who wish to do so.
When I bought my new car I passed my Escort on to my wife. We agreed she'd run it in and then we'd buy her a new one. Problem is, she forgot to keep the tax and MOT up to date and yesterday we were clamped for having an invalid tax disc. Which is fair enough.
Today, having paid the £80 fine and the £120 surety (held until I present a valid tax disc) I am told the car will be declamped. I will them drive it to my local garage to have it MOT'ed so I can buy the tax disc.
If, as I suspect, the car fails the MOT I will take it off the road and buy my wife the new car I promised her. In other words, I will not tax the car. But the DVLA have told me they will not refund my £120 surety unless I do actually tax it because they can only refund on presentation of a tax disc.
Does anybody have any experience of this ruling? Is it right? I am not sure the two people I spoke to at DVLA were masters of their subjects but I need something concrete to back me up if I'm going to make a fuss about this. It seems wrong to me that the surety is lost because I make a decision to take the car off the road.
Any advice or help would be much appreciated,
Gary Read more
He would make the drive if we let him, it's me who insists he shouldn't. Basically we want the authorities to officially declare him no longer fit to drive, at which point he agrees he will, reluctantly, give up his car.
If we try and do it any other way then I'm afraid he will continue to drive and be a danger to himself and others.
Has anyone purchased a car from these guys?
They seem to have quite an interesting model, effectively bringing fleet vehicles straight to Joe public
Price seem okay, and the website is slick, photos good extra
Anybody have any first hand experience?
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Hubby has been having problems with his Corsa cutting out and refusing to run properly for the last 6 months. Tried various things to sort it, and since the last time its done over 1000 miles without so much as a hiccup, until it broke down again this week with exactly the same symptoms. Seems like some sort of fuel starvation and this time he was on a busy road and had to have recovery to a local garage. The chap there suggested that the sender unit in the fuel tank could be the problem, but as a new one is silly money, we are going to try one from the local scrappy and fit it ourselves. He thinks it could be taking in air from the top of the tank when the diesel level gets low.
Borrowed a manual for a petrol version to see how to get the sender unit assembly out, and on the petrol tank, the assembly contains the fuel pump. The same plastic housing is in the diesel version, but we are just curious what is inside this as it doesn't contain a pump. Its a plastic cylindrical casing, a bit larger than a coke can - is it just an empty housing with a strainer at the bottom? Any advice appreciated.
Thanks Read more
Thanks for reply.
We have changed fuel filter during a previous attempt to solve this. Also checked fuel lines for leaks etc - nothing found. As for removing the cap, he's run the car for months with a temporary push-in filler cap with a hole in it and that didn't solve it either!
I've seen some aftermarket LED bulbs on a website that claim to last 50000 hrs, could i just pop these into my volvo ( direct replacement) without any messages coming up? Thanks. Read more
I can't remember the last time I had a conventional bulb go.
Thanks DD.
One wonders whether the next budget or three will see any revision of the future figures to take account of unexpected inflation...