A lot of people switch off when they read about electric cars. They’re all over in the USA, aren’t they? Or they’re just concept cars that turn up to make a manufacturer look good at a big motor show. We just can’t get straight electric cars over here in Australia at the moment, and those who are interested in sustainable motoring and alternative fuels have to make do with hybrid cars (and probably feel very grateful for their Toyota ......
Today more and more people are moving to minor ‘self-servicing’ of their vehicles due to the financial crunch hitting the world and everyone’s pockets. What is staggering is who is doing it?
There is an enormous growth in ‘back yard’ servicing today. 1 in 3 people have said that they carry out basic home servicing, changing oil and filters when it is required rather than taking it to their service centre.
Women are joining into this trend more than anyone, particularly Gen Y. They are ......
Protecting the re-sale value of your vehicle is not only prudent but necessary in attaining the right lease package for you. One of the major costs in owning a motor vehicle is depreciation. A car is a depreciating asset. It seems like an oxymoron ‘depreciating’ – ‘asset’. In fact it is quite straight forward. The car is the ‘asset’ and the aging process is ‘depreciating’ its value to the next buyer.
By simply thinking ahead and planning your purchase and taking ......
Sometimes, it’s not what you drive but how you drive that counts. The boffins have done all sorts of research into cutting fuel costs and driving more efficiently to find out just how you should drive to trim down the fuel costs. Sometimes it’s not as simple as looking for a little small-engined hatchback such as a Peugeot 207 or a Mazda 2 to replace a large gas-guzzler.
A lot of that research has been done with heavy trucks – ......
Car alarms might drive you nuts when they go off when someone isn’t trying to hijack your wheels thanks to the cat jumping on top of them hoping for a quiet nap (actually, that one could be quite funny to watch when the cat leaps up like… a startled cat), a heavy truck or an earthquake (if you’re in New Zealand) shakes the car a bit, or something going wrong with the wiring. I’m not making the wiring one up – a male ......
Over the past couple of months, we’ve undertaken the biggest car prices comparison survey ever published.
The clear and incontrovertible conclusion is that we pay far more for our new cars than can be justified.
Of course, we are not alone in this, as many products are more expensive in Australia, and we’ve heard numerous stories about how people have circumvented this by buying direct from overseas using the internet.
So why can’t you do this with a new car? Well, the Motor Vehicle Standards ......
Most modern cars have safety features that weren’t even thought of when this writer was a child. Back then, most cars had safety belts front and back – although a few didn’t have any in the back seat – and most of those seatbelts had adjustment features similar to bra straps, although the posh new ones had those automatically adjustable ones that seized up if you tried to pull them on in a hurry or if you tried to put them on while ......
