Car buying deals are there so shop around (intro)

As we face into the new 161 registration plate period, car buyers are looking towards bargains and new car deals. And there are plenty of them out there.

With car prices still competitive, the new car dealers are being supported by bonus offerings and free service deals that are clearly tempting many drivers into a new 161 registration car. In this special Focus Motoring supplement, we look at some of the new car deals and options. We give some useful advice on buying a used 4x4 for your farming needs and ask if the NCT is fit for purpose as Irish Farmers Journal readers tell us their horror stories. We also give some safety advice when towing trailers.

The message is clear – there are also plenty of used cars out there, with lots of value, but car buyers need to be aware of the pitfalls. Get a car history check before you invest, always view a car in daylight hours and the old adage remains true, if the value of the car is too good to be true, then it probably is not true and there’s a catch somewhere in there.

The car market is in lift-off mode as sales of new cars for this year are predicted to increase by more than 30% compared with 2014, to give an overall market that’s expected to top 120,000 new cars. The return to a more buoyant economy and the significant increase in the numbers of people back at work, have pushed up new car sales in almost every county in Ireland.

Rural counties such as Leitrim showed the strongest growth, with new car registrations up by 42% to the end of November, followed by Longford and Meath in terms of cars sales growth. That is well ahead of the national average. Wexford and Roscommon reported the lowest growth in new car registrations for the year to the end of November.

The Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) claims that the cost of motoring in general has decreased, with the price of a new car down by an average of 3%. And while petrol and diesel prices have both declined, the 26.7% increase in insurance costs to the end of September is the only negative in an otherwise confident new car market.

Car-buying confidence is reported to be at a nine-year high and credit conditions for motor finance are also improving. More new car buyers are moving to the Personal Contract Plan (PCP) system of finance and that too is reported to be boosting new car sales.

Industry experts are forecasting that new car sales in 2016 look set to grow by at least 20% on 2015. This would translate into total sales of at least 150,000 new cars.

Sales of light commercial vehicles (LCV) are also performing strongly, up 42% for the year compared with last year at 23,471 vans. Many of these include commercial 4x4s that are used by farmers and farm contractors across the country.

Used car imports continue to be important on the market with more than 40,000 used cars imported from the UK and Northern Ireland for the first 10 months of 2015. This is a marginal decrease relative to last year, while still a significant part of the market despite the renewed strength of sterling against the euro.

The five top selling car brands for 2015 are as follows:

The five top selling car models for 2015 are as follows:

Volkswagen’s Dieselgate is the biggest scandal to hit the world motor industry in the past decade, not to mind the past year. It is especially significant for the Irish market, where the Volkswagen brand cars now account for more than 21% of the 1.9m private cars on our roads. This converts to over 412,000 cars, many of which will be affected by the Dieselgate scandal.

The Volkswagen Group is trying to cope with an emissions scandal on three fronts. The first is illegal and cheating engine software that was installed in about 11m diesel vehicles worldwide, fitted to 1.2, 1.6 and 2.0 litre engines from its EA 189 family and sold worldwide by the VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat brands.

The second issue relates to irregular carbon dioxide emission ratings on about 800,000 vehicles in Europe. In early November, Volkswagen revealed that it had understated the level of CO2 emissions and fuel usage in about 800,000 cars sold mainly in Europe.

The company reported that during the course of internal investigations, irregularities were found when determining type approval CO2 levels. The company said that during the ongoing review of all processes and workflows in connection with diesel engines, it was established that the CO2 levels and thus the fuel consumption figures for some models were set too low during the CO2 certification process.

The majority of the vehicles concerned have diesel engines.

The third issue is one of questionable emissions software in about 85,000 VW, Audi and Porsche vehicles with 3.0-litre V-6 diesel engines in North America.

Diesel engine modifications

Volkswagen has said that the diesel engine refits to make the cars emission-compliant are easy to install. They claim that the repair for the 1.6 litre engine involves upgraded software and what it claims are relatively simple changes to the air-filter system that will take less than an hour to implement.

Volkswagen claims that a new “flow transformer” unit will be fitted directly in front of the air mass sensor on the 1.6-litre EA 189 engine. This is a mesh that calms the swirled air flow in front of the air mass sensor and will thus decisively improve the measuring accuracy of the air mass sensor. The air mass sensor determines the current air mass throughput, which is a very important parameter for the engine management for an optimum combustion process. In addition, a software update will be performed on this engine. Volkswagen claims that this modification will take less than one hour to complete.

The 2.0 litre diesel vehicles will only need a software update involving about 30 minutes of work, according to Volkswagen. It appears that the smaller 1.2 litre diesel engines are likely to only need a software update.

Owner compensation

The Volkswagen Group has said that it will not offer compensation to European customers who bought a diesel car with the illegal cheating software. It is taking a different view in the US where it is providing what is called a goodwill package worth $1,000 to affected owners.

In Europe, Volkswagen said that instead it will tailor a package of different measures. These include ensuring that car owners are inconvenienced as little as possible when their vehicles are recalled for fixes to make them compliant with type approval regulations.

About 8.5m cars in Europe are affected compared with 482,000 in the US. It is reported that the US car owners are receiving a $500 prepaid Visa card, a second prepaid card worth $500 that can be redeemed at VW dealerships and three years of 24-hour roadside assistance.

With so many affected cars on European roads, industry experts claim that it would cost VW a huge amount to compensate customers as they have planned in the US. A similar compensation amount of €1,000 offered to each owner would cost the Volkswagen Group an estimated €8.5bn.

Volkswagen will begin one of the biggest recalls in European automotive history as soon as the German motor transport authority (KBA) has approved the proposed technical fixes. That approval is likely to be accepted by all 28 EU nations, including Ireland and work to repair the cars is expected to begin early in 2016.

The Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal highlights the fact that the European Union now needs an independent watchdog with powers to recall cars if it’s not happy with how manufacturers arrived at their fuel consumption figures. Europe is trailing the US in enforcing standards on emissions and in ensuring that real-world fuel consumption figures are being quoted in car sales literature.

The Road Safety Authority (RSA) is urging drivers to check the expiry date on their licences and learner permits, as they believe that many drivers may be unknowingly driving with expired licences.

The RSA normally sends out a notification to drivers to let them know that their licence is about to expire. However, if the driver has moved or changed address and hasn’t updated the RSA, they won’t get the letter advising them to renew their licence.

As a result, many drivers may be unknowingly driving with expired licences.

If your licence or learner permit has already expired, drivers should go to any of the National Driver Licence Service (NDLS) centres nationwide and renew their licence as soon as possible.

You can renew a licence up to three months before its expiry date. However, if your licence has expired for ten years or more, you must start the application process again and take a driver theory test, mandatory driving lessons and a driving test.

Clocking of car odometer readings or changing the mileage, is still prevalent in the market, particularly for potential buyers of UK vehicles, according to car history company Cartell.ie.

Cartell.ie reported that it has examined a random sample of 4,479 vehicle history checks carried out on the site by potential buyers in September and October and found that a potential buyer of a UK vehicle is almost twice as likely to check a clocked vehicle as a buyer of a domestic vehicle.

The percentage of UK vehicles checked which recorded a mileage discrepancy stood at 14.5%, while the equivalent figure for the domestic fleet stood at 8.4%. This represents a decrease in the overall numbers of domestic vehicles recording a mileage discrepancy since the enactment of legislation criminalising the practice in 2014, according to Cartell.ie.

Cartell.ie legal and PR manager John Byrne said: “Evidence from the UK indicates owners of vehicles are clocking their own vehicle before advancing it in the market. This can be for a variety of reasons including avoiding mileage penalties on Personal Contract Purchases (PCPs).

Concerning

“What is concerning is that we are beginning to see a delta between the Irish numbers on clocking and the UK numbers – a potential buyer of a UK vehicle needs to be particularly careful. This does not mean that a potential purchaser of an Irish vehicle should be complacent. however. Always check your service history and NCT certificates and look to carry out a vehicle history check before purchase.”

New speed technology can save lives in our cars (new article/panel)

There are fresh calls for the use of Intelligent Speed Assistance technology to be made standard in new cars on the back of a Road Safety Authority (RSA) report that revealed that one in five drivers sees breaking 100km/h speed limits as acceptable.

Ireland South MEP and member of the EU transport committee Deirdre Clune says that we need urgent action in Ireland to tackle speeding, in particular on our rural roads. She added, “In 2014, a Norwegian study found Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) technology to be the ‘most effective’ in saving lives.

Cars fitted with fully-fledged Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) systems are now starting to arrive in showrooms. The latest version of Ford’s S-Max and Galaxy, and Volvo’s XC90 is available with a camera and GPS-based system that alert the driver to the current speed limit and help prevent him or her from exceeding it. The systems can be activated and deactivated by the driver using steering wheel controls in a similar way to existing manual speed limiter and cruise control systems.

“ISA is expected to reduce collisions by 30% and deaths by 20%, which going on 2014 Irish road deaths, would be 40 people,” said Deirdre Clune. She has called on the Insurance industry to support this initiative and offer lower premiums to drivers who use the technology, in particular for young men - a high risk category when it comes to speeding.