The 162 car market is getting exciting as car companies prepare to make more appealing offers to keep the market as buoyant as it has been since the start of 2016. There will be attractive offers heaped upon prospective new car buyers from the start of June and we look at some of the options.

While these will be attractive, the message is to buy carefully, consider the longer term costs and plan according to your needs more than your wants. Look at the model options carefully, examine the financial costs and implications for your cashflow, and buy a car that suits your taste as well as your pocket. You’ll be the one looking at it for some time to come.

Farm cars can be useful towing vehicles and we look at some of the important figures around towing demands. We give an update on the latest tyre safety legislation, so give some time to consider your tyres, so that you and your passengers can arrive safe.

Car sales growth continues

New car registrations in Ireland to the end of April were up by 26% compared with the same period in 2015, according to official figures released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI). New car registrations in April alone were up by 10% on last year.

SIMI believes that as we move closer towards the second registration period, we would expect to see sales taper off somewhat. However, there are still very strong offers and many deals still to be done.

The growth in registrations is varied by county, with some rural counties showing larger than national average growth rates. Roscommon recorded the highest level of new car sales growth (40.68%), while Leitrim recorded the lowest level of 15.86% (see Table 1).

The figures show that new car registrations are growing in many counties outside of the two main urban centres of Dublin and Cork. Rural Ireland is back buying new cars.

Toyota was the top-selling brand for April followed by Hyundai, Volkswagen, Ford and Nissan. The five top-selling car models for the year to date were the Hyundai Tucson, followed by the Volkswagen Golf, with the Ford Focus in third place, Skoda Octavia in fourth and the Nissan Qashqai taking up fifth place. The most popular car colour in Ireland is now grey, followed closely by black.

Diesel cars continue to dominate the market, with over 70% of all new cars registered being diesel models, although the diesel proportion is falling slightly. Hybrid petrol electric car sales are rising, while pure electric sales are declining.

Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) or van registrations are up by 29% for the year to date, while registrations of heavy trucks rose by 57% compared with last year.

Over 10% of UK used car imports are insurance write-offs

Vehicle history company cartell.ie recently reported that 10.75% of all UK used car imports registered in Ireland over a six-month period in 2015 were previously written off in the UK. Cartell.ie examined 29,089 imports registered in Ireland in 2015 (taxed private and untaxed) and found this extraordinarily high number of cars already written-off in the UK.

In the case of untaxed imports, vehicles which have been registered in Ireland in 2015 but not yet taxed, that percentage shot up to 12.6%. In the case of taxed (private) imports, the percentage was 10.4% written-off in the UK.

Cartell.ie next examined the year of registration in the UK of each vehicle imported to examine which years were more likely to be written-off prior to importation. Cartell found that in the case of an imported six to seven-year-old vehicle, 18.2% had been written-off in the UK. That percentage increased to 20.8% for a seven- to eight-year-old vehicle and 21.2% for an eight- to nine-year-old vehicle. In fact, a consumer stands more than a one-in-five chance of importing a written-off seven- to 12-year-old vehicle.

Cartell.ie also found UK Category B written-off vehicles are still making their way into the Irish fleet. A vehicle written off as Category B is designated as parts salvageable only and is not meant to be on the road. During the period of research, 26 vehicles were registered in Ireland after attribution of Category B status in the UK. 16 of those 26 had already been taxed in Ireland.

Captur Europe’s best-selling SUV

Sales of SUVs are driving market growth in the car industry across Europe, according to the latest report from industry analysts Jato Dynamics. SUVs now account for almost 25% of all cars sold in Europe for the first four months of this year in a market that grew by 8.4% to 3.85 million cars for the year to date.

Despite its emission woes, Volkswagen remains Europe’s best-selling brand, accounting for 12.2% of the total market, even with a small drop in market share. Volkswagen’s Golf and Polo models were ranked first and second, respectively, in the European market.

The Renault Captur overtook the Nissan Qashqai to become the best-selling SUV in Europe’s top-selling countries of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK during the month of April. The Renault Captur was Europe’s top-selling small SUV in 2015.

Volkswagen’s late arrival to small SUV/crossover market in Europe is expected to make this car segment even stronger. Small SUV sales are predicted to double by 2022 as automakers such as VW brand, Seat and Skoda, as well as Hyundai and Kia, all add new models.

50 years of Subaru Boxer engine

This year, Subaru celebrates the 50th anniversary of its horizontally opposed Boxer engine. The engine is called a Boxer because its pistons resemble the punch-counterpunch motion of a boxer’s fists.

Subaru’s first Boxer was introduced on the Subaru 1000 car on 14 May 1966. Since then, Subaru has sought to maximise the advantages of the engines and continuously enhanced them to power its vehicles to this day. Today, every vehicle sold by Subaru is fitted with a Boxer engine, with total production over the last 50 years topping 16m units.

With the horizontally-opposed design of the engine, the opposing pistons work to cancel out the inertia force of each other, resulting in less vibration and superb rotational balance to provide smooth acceleration right up to the highest engine speeds. Its compact form also allows it to be fitted lower in the engine bay than a conventional four-in-line engine, lowering the centre of gravity.

The Boxer engine is one of the key components of Subaru’s symmetrical all-wheel drive system. Subaru claims the system offers a combination of better stability and traction, because of the more balanced weight distribution.

To read the full Motoring Focus click here.