attention all car drivers!

[headdownarseup]

What with the recent mention of electric outboards and goings on with brexit, has anyone spared a thought about the vehicles we're still driving today?

Curious, as this has crept up on me all of a sudden. You'd think i would know a bit more about this being in the motor trade, but with a busy life like most of us it's one of those things that gets pushed to the back of your mind.
I'm talking about ROAD TAX. Annoyingly expensive at the best of times for us car/van drivers in the UK.
As of April 1st things are set to change for the worse i fear. (until today it's the first i'd heard of it to be honest)

I'm thinking about changing my vehicle from a diesel powered van to a petrol 4 wheel drive to tow my boat and trailer outfit. As luck would have it, a rather nice 1 owner from new 4x4 came into work yesterday as a part exchange and at a good price.
Currently my rather old diesel van with nearly 250,000 miles on it and still going strong costs me £230 for a year's road tax. Diesel (whether you're a fan of it or not) has come in for some pretty bad press of late, and from the sounds of things they will probably get much stricter in the next few years hence my decision to change my vehicle for something (potentially) less polluting.
This 4x4 i'm thinking about works out to nearly £300 for a year's tax going by the new tax ratings from April 1st (and NO it's definitely not an april fools joke either, this is serious)
Not that the price on the annual road tax has too much of an impact in my decision as i use a 50cc moped every day for work which basically runs on fresh air (well, not quite but it is ridiculously cheap by comparison)

Aside from rising insurance costs and what have you, i reckon this is gonna create one hell of a stink with the british motorists.
Is this the start of even more bad news for us motorists, not to mention all the other industries that rely on the road network for deliveries etc.

Here's a link that might help explain things a bit better

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/p ... 7-12809662 (sorry about the welsh accent )

Any thoughts guys
If nothing else it's an eye opener for things to come.

Jon

[tambikeboy]

That's what's know as getting HUMPED WITH THE BOILER SUIT ON.if you can afford the big car then you pay for it surley it's only fair

Which cars are most affected by the changes?

Make/modelFuel typeCost for tax for three years 2016/17Cost for tax for three years for 2017/18Lexus RC 300h 2.5 F-Sport 2dr CVT Auto (Coupe)Petrol Hybrid£40£1,030Mercedes-Benz C250d AMG Line Premium 2dr Auto (Coupe)Diesel£60£1,060Mercedes-Benz S300h L AMG Line 4dr Auto (Luxury)Petrol Hybrid£40£1,030Lexus RX 450h 3.5 SE 5dr CVT Auto (Large SUV)Petrol Hybrid£40£1,030Audi A6 3.0 TDI S Line 4dr S Tronic (Executive)Diesel£60£1,060Mercedes-Benz C250d AMG Line Premium Plus 4dr 9G-Tronic (Executive)Diesel£60£1,060Mercedes-Benz E200d AMG Line Premium 4dr 9G-Tronic (Executive)Diesel£60£1,060Lexus GS300h 2.5 F-Sport 4dr CVT (Executive)Petrol Hybrid£40£1,030Audi A5 2.0 TDI Sport 2dr S Tronic (Convertible)Diesel£60£1,060Mercedes- Benz C220d AMG Line 2dr (Convertible)Diesel£60£1,060

Six of 2017’s top 10 sellers are among the highest risers. Certain derivatives of the Vauxhall Astra, Ford Focus, Nissan Qashqai, Mercedes C-Class, Audi A3 and BMW 3-Series will command an extra tax bill of between £400 and £1,000 over three years.

ONLY THINKING OUT LOUD CHINA,S

[Keith.P]

The only part that has changed is if you buy new, trying to get more electric cars on the road, then once they get enough electric cars on the road, then they will have to start to taxing them.
4x4's have been more expensive on tax for some time now, plus most 4x4 are just a status symbol, most have never been used in four wheel drive, let alone ever being used off road, very much a symbol of the school run.
I did a run to Manchester and back, just to service some plant that was on a long term hire, I went in a land rover 90, I filled the tank three times on that run, just to do a service, an oil change and new spark plugs, about 350 mile round trip, makes no sense and I did that twice.

[Oyster 49]

My Golf TDI is £20 per year. I thought the increases are only for new cars registered after 1st April? I.e. The same model golf as I have but a new one registered after 1st April goes to £140, but my 4 year old model stays the same? Can't say I've looked at it.

The annoying thing is my bike which does a few thousand miles per year is £82!

[headdownarseup]

Interesting isn't it. The government have been banging on in recent years to go green. This is probably just the start of things to come.
The recent scrappage scheme a few years ago i think did very little except take a few old bangers off the road that should have been scrapped a long time before that.

Now though the shift seems to be leaning towards electric/hybrid types. Great, if you can afford to buy one in the first place, then they slap more tax onto it than previously just so that you can say your car is virtually non-polluting. It doesn't make sense to me. Smaller and more efficient cars is where all the action is right now. At work we've been inundated with trade-ins over the last couple of months. I'm seeing quite a big shift from average sized cars (focus,astra,golf etc.) to smaller city cars with tiny little engines.
We downsized our main car last year from a very tired big diesel estate to a petrol Suzuki S-CROSS. Much more sensible and more fuel efficient. Same things will apply with this car. Cheap tax to begin with, then a price hike but nowhere near as scary as some on the list.

Now the reason for me choosing a 4x4 is a fairly simple one. Mostly to tow my boat and for occasional weekend use in the country walking my dog, not that i manage to get out on the boat much but compared to my old front wheel drive diesel van i reckon a 4x4 is more up to the job. For every day to day travel i use a moped primarily because it's much cheaper to run (£5 a week typically over 70ish miles compared to £30 a fortnight typically for the same mileage) AND i can dart through the jams in next to no time at all.
Status symbol to some a 4x4 might be, but i'm certainly not a flash git or that vain. Far from it ... (i gave that up years ago )Plus this 4x4 is over 10 years old so on the face of it, it ain't flash at all. And besides, it's not like it's going to get much usage with me any way so please don't hate me for it.(i'll let you into a little secret, it's actually loads better on fuel than my old van) It was cheap to buy second hand (and i mean cheap through my work) otherwise i would have stuck with old faithful and struggled with wheel slippage on the slipways. There comes a time in every vehicle's life when enough is enough, and that time has come for my old van

BTW, £17 for my scooter for a years tax. Cheap at half the price


Jon

[Gannet]

Adrian,

I paid £235 last month for my Golf TDI. So you paying £20 seems very cheap. I wonder why the big difference? My TDI is a 2000 model, but in terms of planet saving CO2 emissions it returns a very frugal 60.2 mpg over the 264000 miles to date. I have suspicions that newer models have worse fuel consumption figures.
I suspect that the whole business of variable road tax is a farce, especially as we all know that the industry has fiddled the fuel consumption figures. Certainly electric cars are the exception to this.
I would suggest it ought to be based on the mass of each vehicle. That will certainly leave less opportunity to fiddle the figures.
Jeremy

[headdownarseup]

I hate to say it Jeremy, but VW along with some others in the German car manufacturers have somehow got away with "fudging" emissions specs for a while now. Think back to last year when there was a huge fuss over VW's "mistake" as it was being called. Now though they are VERY APOLOGETIC to their customers for obvious reasons and are honestly fixing things.
For a 2000 vehicle (from memory) the emissions levels were at EURO 3, and your tax level was set at the grams per kilometer of CO2 at that time with a slight increase year on year as the government saw fit. Now in 2017 we're at Euro 5 with a possible more stringent level to come in the near future, which means that for the vast majority of newer cars on the road that are generally less than 5 years old they pay less tax for the first few years.

I think what you're saying about the mass of the vehicle contributing to an overall so say pollution level is probably quite true. Light weight vehicles often return a very good mpg figure whereas the heavyweights return somewhat less. Stands to reason really.Smaller/lighter and lower powered engines are more frugal still. Your 60 odd mpg is very good for an older Golf such as yours, even with intergalactic mileage.

I picked up my SUV today, and despite what i've read about these in various reviews i think it's still a nice drive (a much firmer ride than my old van but with plenty more toys to play with) and to be fair to it, not too bad on fuel either.(I've driven Transit vans which are far worse.) If you know who to talk to, there's more than one way to improve an older cars fuel consumption so this isn't really a big concern to me right now. For a 12 year old car it drives absolutely spot on, mind you i know its previous owner who was meticulous with its maintenance so i know it's a
good 'un
The road tax on the other hand is a bit of a shocker at £310 compared to the £230 ish on my van. With these new changes i think it's a sneaky way for the government to entice a lot more drivers into newer greener vehicles for the first few years and then clobber us with a higher tax rate. Once you've bought the car and it's past the stipulations of lower tax KAPOW up goes the tax rate.That's how i understand it.

But despite this i'm now much happier with the decision to move back to a petrol powered vehicle rather than not knowing what the government will decide to do with diesel in the future. I'm already seeing the buses in Bristol changing over to stop/start technology with some of their new fleets. I don't think it will be long before there's a ban of some sort on diesels. It wouldn't surprise me. I read in the news that London has proposed that their black cabs MUST BE non-polluting by 2020. That will upset quite a few people i can tell you. What's next i wonder?
Don't get me wrong, i like diesels for their ruggedness and longevity and low down torque, but my van is becoming a bit of a money pit due to its age now, not to mention it's also an eyesore to the neighbours.
Its time has finally come so it's got to go to a new home.


Jon

[tambikeboy]

FLASH GIT says who what's hers is hers and what's mine is also hers if your thinking green i suggest start listening to WILLIE NELSON. ..

[headdownarseup]

Mine's the same colour (near enough) but Japanese.

Petrol or diesel Tam?

[tambikeboy]

Deisal Jon same as mydot and that big blue thing next to them

[headdownarseup]

Cool.

Had any problems with the DPF yet on the beemer?
We see a few of these at work with the same problems. Smokey start up from cold or hot, rear bumper covered in sooty black muck etc. etc.

They're a nice drive though, but expensive when they go wrong.

[tambikeboy]

No worries so far so good only issues have been brake caliper slightly sticking (on a good week it does 10miles) keeps the tax man away copper slip aplied behind pads seems to be working..