Car buying advice

New data reveals the UK’s most unreliable used cars

Unreliable cars

Buy an unreliable car and this could be you (Picture iStock/Webeye)

If you’re considering buying a new car, it’s always handy to know the most unreliable models around. Thanks to data from car guarantee firm Warranty Wise, we can now see which cars are most likely to conk out, which year are the most prone to problems, what the trouble is likely to be, and even how much the average cost of some repairs is.

Warranty Wise admits that the problems it specifies aren’t guaranteed to occur on these models. But the data is from genuine warranty claims so provides a good pointer to the kind of trouble that is more likely to afflict some cars than others. Read on to discover 2018’s 10 least reliable used cars and which specific models to be wary of.

10 most unreliable cars

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Is now the right time for drivers to switch to buying electric cars?

Buying electric cars

Is it time for more of us to head down electric avenue? (Picture © Nissan)

A new report reveals that the time could be right for drivers to start buying electric cars. Currently, sales of battery powered motors are tiny compared with conventionally fuelled vehicles. That will eventually change with the government demanding all new cars sold from 2040 are electric. But drivers who switch now could reap significant rewards immediately.

Why is now the time to go electric?

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Your car’s colour might make its value plunge

car's colour

You could well pay for choosing a wacky colour like this (Picture Volkswagen)

Experts say you should think carefully before choosing an outlandish shade for your car’s colour. That’s because your motor’s paintwork has a bigger influence on its value than you might think.

Recently, reality TV star Katie Price put her Barbie pink Range Rover up for sale. However, experts reckon that its colour alone could have knocked as much as £3000 off its estimated £22,900 value. If you’re buying a new or used car, what impact will its colour have on the price you pay and what you sell it for? Read on to find out.

Which car colours lose value?

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Does it mean air-con or stop-start? Car owners confused by tech symbols

In-car technology

Confused? You might well be by car tech symbols (Picture iStock/FYMStudio)

The best labels should explain instantly what something is or does. Yet with a lot of in-car technology, drivers don’t know what the dashboard symbols mean. And in some cases they think the buttons operate a different function altogether.

That was the outcome of research conducted by online car seller Buyacar.co.uk. It asked 1000 drivers to identify six common dashboard symbols. Much of this kit now features as standard, even on mid-range family cars such as the Ford Focus. And some of it is important for road safety. Yet many of the symbols chosen by car makers aren’t descriptive enough for drivers, leaving them flummoxed. Do you know what the following six symbols signify?

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Find out about new car tax rates that punish new diesel car buyers

Car tax rates

There’s every chance you aren’t aware that you may have to pay up to £520 more in car tax from this month. When Confused.com asked drivers, nine out of 10 (87 per cent) weren’t aware of the changes to car tax rates that hit new-car buyers from April 2018.

The latest Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) is levied on new diesels as the government attempts to deter drivers from buying them. Read on to find out if you’ll be affected.

What are the changes from this month?

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How they sit at the wheel gives 75 per cent of drivers back pain

Back pain

Back pain affects three quarters of drivers (Picture iStock/Chesiire Cat)

Three quarters of UK drivers suffer from back pain because of their car’s seating position. Researchers from car supermarket Motorpoint quizzed drivers about how they sit when behind the wheel. They discovered that many didn’t know what the proper seating angle was. And when shown different examples, a third thought the wrong seating position was correct. Read on to find out how to sit in your car.

How many drivers aren’t sitting comfortably

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Diesels less reliable than petrols and pricier to fix, report claims

Diesels less reliable

As if diesel didn’t have enough on its plate, now experts are saying that cars powered by the fuel are less reliable than petrol motors. The majority of complaints around diesel have been down to its environmental credentials. However, a new report shows that diesel cars could be three times more likely to break down than their petrol equivalent and up to 20 per cent more expensive to fix.

How unreliable are diesel cars?

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Why electric cars cost more to insure

Why electric cars cost more to insure

By 2040 the government expects all new cars on sale in Britain to be either electric or hybrid. But drivers who want to embrace these cars for their low emissions had better prepare themselves for an electric shock with a difference: high insurance bills.

A study of electric cars currently on sale has shown that drivers who want to ‘go green’ will have to pay 45 per cent more for insurance than the average motorist.

It means the rising number of drivers buying electric cars could see any potential savings, such as lower ‘fuel’ bills, wiped out by costly cover. So far this year, sales of electric vehicles (EVs) have risen by 37 per cent over 2016. Here’s what drivers need to know before switching to an electric car.

Electric cars: are they more expensive to insure? Continue reading

Buying a cheap car? Use this to avoid scams and choose with confidence

Buying a cheap car? Use this checklist to buy with confidence and avoid scams

Finding a cheap car isn’t difficult. There are more than 800,000 used cars for sale at any one time on websites such as Auto Trader, eBay, Exchange & Mart and Gumtree. And that’s in addition to other online sales sites both locally and nationally.

Buying a good one, however, calls for drivers to do their homework. We’ve created this checklist to help drivers buy the best motor for their budget and sort the good from the bad and the downright ugly.

Research the best cheap car for your needs

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Expert advice: water inside your car? How to find where the leak is

leak

Water can make its way into a car in all sorts of ways. Here’s how to find a leak

One of the most frustrating elements of car ownership is when you discover a leak. You might be alerted to it by a stale musty smell. Or perhaps the carpet feels damp. Or you may notice that the car steams up of its own accord when there’s no one in it.

All are depressing because cars are supposed to be like a home from home; something that will keep you dry and warm whatever the weather. Finding water on the inside of a car is as unsettling as having a leak in your home. But leaks in cars are trickier to find than those in a building. Cars have lots of hidden pipe work and virtually every wall is an outside one. But it is possible and here’s how.

Where is the water gathering?

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New insurance categories to make write-off cars easier for buyers to spy

insurance categories

It might not take that much damage for a car to be written off. But can it be put back on the road?

From October 2017 onwards, the insurance categories for damaged cars change. Where once these categorisations went neatly from A to D, they now go A, B, S, and N. The classes have been changed in a bid to ensure fewer dangerously crash-damaged cars end up being put back on the road. We look at what’s been done, what it means for drivers and whether it’ll make a difference.

What are insurance write-off categories?

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Smoking harms car resale value. How to spot a smoker’s motor

Smoking

Smoking isn’t just harmful to you and your passengers

We all know smoking is bad for us. But now there’s conclusive evidence that it’s harmful to our car’s health as well. Anyone who partakes in the evil weed will realise that smoking is an expensive hobby. But the impact on our pocket doesn’t stop with buying tobacco or cigarettes. It can keep on hurting us financially when we sell our cars too.

A new report by car valuation experts CAP HPI reveals that cars can lose as much as £2000 off their resale value if they’ve been smoked in.

Why does smoking in cars hit their value?

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Buying cars? People think it’s like snakes and ladders

Car buying

Up until a couple of seconds ago, he’d set his heart on the black Golf…

Buying cars is full of pitfalls with the vast majority of people expecting it to be hard work. And as they get further down the road, nearly two thirds of buyers give up through the sheer mental exhaustion of the process.

A major study, conducted by used car sales website Auto Trader  spoke to buyers during the car buying process to identify the pain points we all face.

How we buy cars

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Buying used cars: how to spot a bad one

Buying a used car: how to spot a bad one

British drivers like to make their money go a long way, which is why most of us buy used cars. Around 7.2 million are sold every year, compared with 2.6 million new models. And because a new car can’t have been crashed, clocked or cloned, this means the majority of car buyers are vulnerable to unscrupulous sellers trying to pass off a bad used car as a good one.

There are all sorts of tricks of the trade that can be employed to pull the wool over the eyes of a used car buyer. The Green Flag blog has covered some of the important checks that drivers should carry out before parting with their cash for a car. But here we’re looking at less obvious tips that can help drivers spot a bad car – also known as a dud, or lemon.

To make sure your next car doesn’t leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth, read on.  Continue reading

Why October is a great time for a used car bargain – and how to haggle with dealers

Used car bargain

What driver doesn’t love bagging a used car bargain? Saving thousands of pounds can give a warmer glow than spending two weeks on a sun lounger in the Med. And there are few better times of the year than October to buy a great car at a knockdown price.

Every March and September, the registration prefix changes for new cars. It’s a way for drivers and the motor trade to differentiate between the age of cars, and in a nation obsessed about keeping up with the Joneses, the effect is to create dramatic seasonal spikes in new car sales.

This is great news for the canny car buyer. The market is flooded with second-hand cars that have been traded in as a part-exchange, and when there’s more supply than demand, car dealers have to pull together some seriously competitive deals to help sell all that second-hand stock.

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How to get a better deal on car finance: follow these six simple steps

How to get a better deal on car finance - in five simple steps

The first six months of 2016 have seen a record number of drivers collect the keys to a shiny new car. Car finance has been driving this boom with more than 80 per cent of private buyers using credit to fund their purchase.

For buyers, using car finance is a simple way of enjoying a car they might not be able to own outright. For dealers and manufacturers, the explosion in the popularity of finance means increasing numbers of cars flowing out of showrooms.

However, many consumers don’t realise that it is possible to haggle over how much car finance costs. As we motor towards the September registration change, where around a fifth of the new cars sold this year are expected to leave dealerships, here are some simple steps car buyers can follow to get a better finance deal.

Do you want to end up owning the car?

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Which new car options are worth paying extra for?

Which new car options are worth paying extra for?

Not so long ago, choosing optional extras to be fitted to a new car was a guessing game. Unless a dealer had a similar car with fitted with similar options for customers to view, you’d place ticks on an order form and hope for the best. Today, the online car configurator means drivers can easily judge whether larger wheels look better, or if a panoramic sunroof and tan leather upholstery is a better bet than a regular sunroof with black leather trim.

Online configurators are big business. Car companies invest huge sums of money in making them as realistic as possible, because they can make huge sums of money from selling customers optional extras. And the list of those extras is as long as your arm.

Sometimes those options are a good choice. They’ll make driving safer or more comfortable for the owner of the car. But just as often, they’re a waste of money, costing hundreds or even thousands when ordered but worth precious little when the time comes to sell the car.

That’s the view of Rupert Pontin, the Director of Valuations at Glass’s Guide, the organisation that has been monitoring the values of used cars since 1933 – long before there were such things as optional extras.

Glass’s cautions buyers to think before they upgrade. It says that typically, the original cost of any option falls in value faster than the original cost of the car. It’s also better to invest in a higher trim level than to pick a basic car and pile on the options.

So which options are worth adding to a new car? Here are five wise buys.

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How to check a used car’s V5C logbook and MOT are genuine

How to check the V5C and MOT documents are genuine

It would be nice to imagine that when buying a used car, every vendor is as trustworthy as a girl guide and each handshake worth as much as a legally binding written contract. Sadly, there’s no shortage of unscrupulous, shady characters who make Tony Soprano seem positively saintly. And that’s why it’s important to check a used car’s V5C registration document and MOT.

The V5C is essentially the authorities’ record of who owns, or is responsible for a car. When someone selling a car produces it, a buyer can use the V5C to check that the vehicle is what it claims to be, and that the person selling it is the car’s owner and entitled to sell it.

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Used car essential checks: eight to do when buying a motor

Essential research when buying a used car

(Picture © PistonHeads)

Buying a used car involves a degree of luck. But to adapt a quote from famous film producer Samuel Goldwyn: “The harder you work, the luckier you’ll get.” The mantra is one which used car buyers should follow, as the more background checks and research that are carried out, the less chance there is of buying a dodgy motor or being the victim of fraud. These eight checks will help steer drivers towards the used cars that are least likely to let them down.  Continue reading