We’ve heard loads of cases of Fords now infamous Ecoboost 1.0 motors going pop early doors and many a tale of woe regarding Renault/Nissan’s 1.2 TCe engines failing catastrophically. I’ve just had a friends 2015 Vauxhall Corsa 1.0 Turbo with 35,000 miles up suffer engine failure. The wee car has been neglected, she just looked confused when I asked when it was last serviced. But it looks like the car will be a write-off as a good used engine seems to be hard to find at sensible money.

Would I sink my money into one of these highly stressed tiny turbo motors? Nope, I’ll leave well alone, except maybe Toyota’s 1.2T. Again, when buying a used car, keep it simple. Had they opted for a basic old school 1.4 Corsa instead of the revvy wee 1.0 3cyl turbo it would more than likely still be running for many years to come despite the neglect. Read more

www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/french-re...b.

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I bought a new car through an online broker that had issues that were never fixed. I tried Section 75 to get my money back, but they have rejected it, stating the debtor-creditor-supplier chain was broken, making Section 75 protection invalid because I had bought the car through a car broker and not a dealership.

The credit card's argument is that I bought the car from the broker, but it was the dealership that supplied the car, so even though I paid the broker, he got the car from a dealership who in turn delivered the car to me. Because of this, they are refusing to pay up!

BE WARNED! Read more

Bought the hyundai used 3 years ago nearly I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars cannot find anything much about owners reviews so thought I would post this just to let people know what I think of it not much really. Its got a potential time bomb being a Gdi engine so I've read it cokes up easily and is an expensive fix terraclean are the only other place offering a clean without tearing the engine apart taking all the stuff off it to get at the engine to get the head off having that cleaned and put back together then in another 30.000 could need doing again. At 50.000 it burns a fair amount of oil so that's one of the warning signs hasn't dropped its fuel economy much yet and performance is good apart from chronic turbo lag and stop/start doesn't work 50 per cent of the time it's developed an annoying rattle/ buzz sounds a bit like pre-ignition. No garages are prepared to put a camera down the cylinder to have look but if it is pinking then thats could be another coking issue. It drives ok is still no body roll with turbo engaged it's nippy various electric sensors work or don't work depending if it's their day off. All in all not a great car but bought before prices went up in December 2020 I would get rid but as said everything is so expensive now means spending more money I'm just hoping I can get it to 100.000 without spending a lot although clutch probably won't last my distance. And suspension is squeeky. Read more

I suspect that the small rise is more likely due to pre-reg-change 'bargains' (relatively-speaking) and perhaps the variation in stocks of EVs like Teslas that appear to be shipped over in big batches every few months, followed by none.

I would note that the so-called 'high' demand for EVs will inevaitably taper off soon, as:

a) they are high priced (even with any remaining subsidies) and thus won't (yet) have mass appeal. I suspect this will affect second hand values once larger numbers of pre-2020 Teslas and Leafs come on the market as second hand buys.

b) even with the proposed lower 'cap' on electricity and gas prices, the cost of charging EVs will be near to or maybe even exceed that of refuelling ICE cars.

It remains to be seen that commercial EV charging point operators will get any government help subsidising the price to the consumer, and news in thus far says that it may be very limited in scope (who gets it) and only for 6 months.

c) general cost of living issues and a very likely big and long-lasting recession will inevitably shrink the pool of people who can afford to by cars that were already expensive.

As such, EVs may not be anywhere near as attractive a proposition than 2-3 years ago.

I think this will effect new and second hand sales and resale values significantly, whether or not the logistic problems caused by lockdowns or the long-term knock-on effects (including chip and labour shortages worldwide) offset them.

I predict that the next year to 18 months is going to be a very difficult one for the industry - for all of us, except the well-off and those retired on gold-plated pension schemes that are index-linked. Read more