Car ownership

Clean Air Day 2019: how to reduce your emissions from driving

clean air day 2019

Thursday 20 June was the UK’s Clean Air Day 2019. Organised by charity Global Action Plan, Clean Air Day is the UK’s largest air pollution campaign. It’s been conceived to urge people in Britain to think about how they might reduce their emissions and help improve air quality.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), road transport accounts for up to 30 per cent of particulate emissions in Europe. Much of that comes from the exhaust pipes of internal combustion engine vehicles. Here we reveal how car drivers can reduce their emissions and make every day a Clean Air Day.

Plan your trip

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James Foxall 9 Comments

Do you play fuel station roulette? All about when the low fuel light is on

Low fuel light
50 miles left, 5 miles or completely empty? Fuel gauges vary (Picture iStock/Akchamczuk)

We’ve all driven around with the low fuel light on. Some people even play fuel station roulette on a regular basis, driving as far as they dare with the orange light on and their car running on the dregs of its fuel. But do you really know how many miles of range your car has when the low fuel light comes on?

What is your car’s fuel light range?

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James Foxall 4 Comments

Expert advice: how you know if your clutch is about to fail

clutch failure
The clutch looks simple but it’s a fundamental part of a car (Picture iStock/irman)

Clutch failure can leave you well and truly stranded The clutch is one of those parts of the car that many of us take for granted. That third pedal sitting to the left of the accelerator and brake is fundamental to how a manual transmission works.

That’s where a bit of self-diagnosis can pay dividends. If you know your clutch is on its way out, you can book your car into a garage before it leaves you high and dry. And you can shop around to get the best deal possible.

The good news is clutches frequently don’t just fail. There will be some tell-tale symptoms. Here’s what you should look out for.

What’s a slipping clutch?

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greenflagadmin 4 Comments

Motoring costs quiz: guess the prices of these car-related items

motoring costs

How good are you at knowing the cost of things? Motoring costs are crucial for most of us. And how much we pay to keep our cars on the road is one of the questions drivers will frequently ask. But do you know the prices of things associated with motoring? Our cunning quiz reveals the cost of 10 articles to do with car ownership.

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James Foxall 12 Comments

Driving on Britain’s motorways in 2019: how to stay safe

motorways
The M6 is one of the first motorways to have a ‘live’ hard shoulder with moving traffic (Picture iStock/Vision4ry-L4ngu4ge)

Our 2000 miles of motorway are changing to accommodate the predicted 60 per cent increase in traffic expected by 2040. And that’s posing drivers with a different challenge when it comes to staying safe.

‘Smart’ motorways don’t have a traditional hard shoulder. In 2017, official figures show there were 16 crashes involving stationary vehicles on our 400 miles of smart motorway. There were 29 crashes on the hard shoulder across the rest of England’s motorways.

The stats also show that there’s been an increase in crashes on unlit sections of motorway. Here we look at what drivers should do for improved road safety.

What is a smart motorway?

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James Foxall 32 Comments

Expert advice: is cheap supermarket fuel bad for my car’s engine?

cheap supermarket fuel
All major supermarkets such as Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons now sell fuel, frequently much cheaper than the big fuel brands (Picture iStock/jax10289)

We get a lot of queries from car owners about fuel quality. But the one that keeps on coming back is whether cheap supermarket fuel is as good as big-brand petrol and diesel. It’s an important question because there can be a significant difference in what it costs to fill up at a supermarket compared with at a fuel brand’s station.

We all want to save money where we can. Whether that’s with petrol or diesel that costs less, or apparently more expensive fuel that’s cheaper because it improves economy. But most importantly, we don’t want to do our cars any damage, so how good is supermarket fuel?

Cheap and cheerful?

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Nick Reid 19 Comments

Punctured tyre? We look at the best solutions

Punctured tyre
This doesn’t have to be you if you’ve had a puncture (Picture iStock/Bobex-73)

Had a punctured tyre recently? If so, how did you deal with it? Chances are you didn’t change the wheel at the roadside. Not because you couldn’t be bothered but because spare wheels are considered old tech by most car makers now.

More than 90 per cent of new cars are sold without a spare wheel as standard. Drivers can often specify one as an optional extra (they cost between about £100 and £300 depending on the car), so it’s worth checking whether that box has been ticked by a previous owner if buying a used car.

If it hasn’t, what are your choices and are they any good? We investigate three puncture solutions.

What is a run-flat tyre?

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James Foxall 13 Comments

Expert advice: cheap car checks to do before the Easter getaway this year

cheap car checks
You really don’t want your bank holiday to end up like this (Picture iStock/Jimdoberman)

This Easter bank holiday weekend thousands of drivers will take to the road for breaks with or to see family. At Green Flag we’ll be super busy attending breakdowns, many of which drivers can avoid by performing some simple checks before setting off.

I’ve compiled this list of routine maintenance because according to research by Select Car Leasing, fewer than a third of car owners (31 per cent) check their tyre pressures at least once a month. And in the 18-24 age group, more than a quarter (27 per cent) don’t know how to check their tyres. Read these simple car checks for safer – and cheaper – motoring this Easter.

Check your tyres

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greenflagadmin 1 Comment

‘Secret’ car tax increases hit drivers

car tax increases

Fed up with paying too much to go motoring? Here’s some bad news: amid all the furore of Brexit, the government has sneakily pushed through car tax increases. Revealed in the November budget, but not spoken about in the chancellor’s statement, the increases are in line with inflation.

The result is the cost of motoring will increase further from the beginning of April 2019. Read on to find out how much you’ll have to pay from now on.

How old is your car?

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James Foxall 7 Comments

Pothole update: decline in roads stemmed but not by enough report finds

Think of a pothole that you either hit or narrowly avoided. You probably won’t find it hard to recall because the state of our roads continues to worsen, despite increased government money aimed at tackling our crumbling carriageways.

But while local authorities do their best to patch up the nation’s roads, the annual independent report into their sorry state makes for depressing reading. Here’s what the 2019 ALARM survey found.

How many potholes are there nationwide?

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James Foxall 4 Comments