Buying a car can be expensive. However, there is one way you could drive away a brand new car for no more than a few hundred pounds. Intrigued?

I don’t know just how passionate you are about your car. But I do know that, whether it be a Bentley or a banger, owning a car can also be stressful, especially when the poor dear is coming to the end of its life. If you buy a second-hand car thinking you’ve picked a bargain and it turns out to have a major problem, you could risk spending thousands of pounds only for it to end up as scrap metal.

So, if you want the assurance of a new car without the hassle, one often-overlooked alternative is to lease it. Read the rest of this entry »

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New car registrations were up by 26.4% in February, compared with the same month last year, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has said.

The scrappage scheme appeared to have fuelled the eighth consecutive month of growth in new car sales, as it accounted for 19.6% of sales.

With the scheme coming to an end at the end of the month, the SMMT said new registrations were likely to decline in the second half of this year.

Although the February 2010 total of new registrations reached 68,686, this was 1.3% below the February 2008 figure and 12.2% below the average for the month of February from 1999 to 2009.

The top-selling models in February 2010 were:

1. Ford Fiesta
2. Ford Focus
3. Volkswagen Golf
4. Vauxhall Astra
5. Vauxhall Corsa
6. Hyundai i10
7. Volkswagen Polo
8. BMW 3 Series
9. Kia Picanto
10.Peugeot 207

Source : Sky News

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UK car production saw a sharp increase in January, rising 64.8% from the same month the previous year.

That was the biggest year-on-year increase in monthly production since May 1976, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.

Some 101,190 cars were produced in January, up from 85,316 in December.

Car production levels fell to a 25-year low in 2009, but the SMMT said it expected “modest growth” in the year ahead.

“Vehicle and engine production rose for a third successive month in January, demonstrating the continued success of global scrappage incentive schemes,” said Paul Everitt, SMMT chief executive.

But the UK scrappage incentive scheme that commenced in May last year comes to an end next month, having been extended in September.

The SMMT estimates the scheme – which offers a £2,000 incentive to scrap old cars and buy new ones – has been responsible for about a fifth of all new car registrations since its introduction.

Overall 2009 was a subdued year for automobile manufacturers following the collapse of the market in the wake of the credit crisis. Car production fell 30.9% from the previous year.

However, Mr Everitt said he expected the recent recovery to continue, despite the ending of the UK scheme.

“SMMT expects a modest recovery in 2010 output as economic growth, a competitive exchange rate and the introduction of innovative new models to UK plants help to lift manufacturing levels above those seen in 2009.”

Source : BBC News

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Halfords has bought Nationwide Autocentres for £72.3 million in a deal that creates the UK’s largest car parts, servicing and repair group.

Halfords said today that the purchase of Nationwide, which services cars and carries out MoTs and repairs at its 224 outlets across the country, was a logical move.

Nationwide, which has been owned by Phoenix, the private equity group, since 2006, employs 900 mechanics and serves about 500,000 customers a year.

David Wild, the chief executive of Halfords, said that car maintenance was a large and highly attractive sector in which there was increasing demand from motorists.

The Nationwide business will be rebranded as Halfords Autocentres and the group said that it intended to open at least another 200 centres, creating more than 1,000 new jobs in the automotive industry.

Halfords added that it continued to trade in line with market expectations.

Andrew Wade, a retail analyst for Numis, said that the deal unlocked considerable growth potential, and was an excellent use of Halfords’ strong cash-generation and exactly the sort of acquisition that the business had talked about making.

Halfords, whose shares topped the FTSE 250 this morning, up 28.9p at 420.6p, has also recently been linked with potential bids for Blacks Leisure, the outdoor retailer, and Hobbycraft, which is privately owned.

Source : The Times

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Sales of Jaguar Land Rover are rising, just as the Indian-owned British-based car manufacturer has been given a new boss.

Tata Motors, Jaguar Land Rover’s owner, appointed Carl-Peter Forster yesterday as its worldwide chief executive, given special responsibility for rehabilitating the great British car marques.

David Smith, the chief executive who had overseen Jaguar Land Rover during its $2.3 billion acquisition by Tata from Ford in 2008, left last month. The arrival of Mr Forster, the German former head of General Motors’ European operations, including Vauxhall, comes as Jaguar Land Rover’s fortunes appear to be turning. Tata reported that global sales of Range Rovers and Land Rovers had more than tripled in January from the same month last year to 13,295. Sales of Jaguar cars more than doubled to 2,974 over the same period. There are also high hopes for the introduction of new models, including the Jaguar XJ and the Range Rover LRX.

Much of those sales went to the export market. In Britain in January, sales from the Land Rover half of the business were 66 per cent higher at 2,518, while Jaguar sales were down marginally at 1,041.

The rises come after an awful 2009 for the car industry, when sales plummeted, especially in the early months. Even after a stronger last few months, Land Rover sales are down 16 per cent in Tata’s current financial year and Jaguar sales are off 30 per cent.

In the UK last year Land Rover and Range Rover sales fell by 10 per cent to 29,185 while Jaguar sales were down 10 per cent at 18,234.

Mr Forster, 55, quit GM last November after the company decided to retain its Opel/Vauxhall operations, rejecting his call for a sale to Magna, the Canadian automotive group. The one-time McKinsey management consultant had been with GM for eight years. Before that, he had spent 13 years with BMW, where his roles included management board responsibilities for manufacturing and a stint running BMW South Africa.

Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors, said that Mr Forster’s arrival would help Tata to reach its ambition of “being a truly international company”.

Lord Bhattacharyya, Professor of Manufacturing at Warwick University and founder of the Warwick Manufacturing Group, said that Mr Forster’s international expertise would be vital to the future of Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors. “He has very good international experience and Tata Motors are very lucky to get hold of him,” he said. “The majority of Jaguar Land Rover sales are overseas and his experience of overseas markets is what it and Tata needs.”

Lord Bhattacharyya also believes that the arrival of Mr Forster will hasten the integration of Jaguar Land Rover into Tata Motors. The question mark hanging over Jaguar Land Rover is whether its Indian owners want to take production out of Britain to India — a suggestion that Tata Motors has always denied. However, the immediate tough decisions facing Mr Forster include the restructuring of Jaguar Land Rover’s operations in the Midlands, where workers — who are in dispute with the company over changes to terms and conditions — have been told that either the Solihull plant that makes the Range Rover or the Jaguar plant in Castle Bromwich is to close.

Source : The Times

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General Motors is to cut a further 154 administrative jobs from Vauxhall UK around the country on top of previously announced job cuts at its Luton plant.

Nick Reily, the chief executive of Vauxhall and its European counterpart Opel confirmed that 369 jobs will be cut at the Luton van making factory — while 154 car sales and admin roles will be axed across the country, including 15 at Luton.

No jobs will be lost at the Ellesmere Port factory on Merseyside.

The cuts are part of a plan unveiled today to axe 8,300 jobs across Vauxhall and Opel’s European operation to try to bring the brands to break even by 2011.

Mr Reilly said that the company would invest €11 billion (£9.7 billion) in its European operations by 2014 and added that the goal was to renew four fifths of its product line even as it shrinks to a profitable size.

“We now have a road map, we know where we are headed and we are working with all our partners so we can switch into high gear for a successful future,” he said.

Labour leaders and management have clashed over the project — the outline of which was unveiled in December — partly because it includes the controversial closure of Opel’s Antwerp plant in Belgium and 4,000 of the job cuts will be in Germany where half of its 48,000 staff are based.

Representatives of European engineering unions plan to meet in Brussels on February 23 to discuss the next steps at Opel.

GM wants €2.7 billion in state aid from countries hosting plants — including Britain, Germany, Spain and Poland — to help finance the Opel and Vauxhall revamp.

Mr Reilly said: “We have no time to waste. We need a plan that is going to be realistic about the tremendous economic pressures we face.”

Source : The Times.

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Japanese carmaker Nissan has reported a return to profit for the last three months of 2009.

The company made a profit of 45bn yen ($500m, £320m) in the October to December period, compared with a loss of 83bn yen a year earlier.

It now says it expects to make a full-year profit of about 35bn yen, instead of the loss it previously predicted.

Nissan said scrappage schemes in major markets and sales growth in China had provided a boost to sales volumes.

The company sold 882,000 vehicles worldwide in the three-month period, a 20.6% increase on the previous year.

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Source : BBC News

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Toyota has announced the recall of about 436,000 hybrid vehicles worldwide, including its latest Prius model, to fix brake problems.

It includes more than 200,000 Prius cars sold in Japan and 8,500 cars in the UK.

“We have decided to recall as we regard safety for our customers as our foremost priority,” the firm said.

The company has already recalled eight million vehicles because of accelerator and floor mat problems.

Company president Akio Toyoda made the latest recall announcement at a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday afternoon.

“As the president of Toyota, I take personal responsibility,” he wrote. “That is why I am personally leading the effort to restore trust in our word and in our products.”

The Prius was Japan’s top-selling car in 2009 and the world’s most popular hybrid model.

Peter De Lorenzo, author of the book The United States of Toyota, told the BBC that the latest recall would be particularly painful for the company.

“The Prius is their shining example of their vision of what we should all be driving and it is everything the new Toyota represents. So for them to have to acknowledge a recall of hundreds of thousands of them is a tremendous blow to their image,” he said.

Credit rating agency Moody’s said it had put Toyota’s credit rating on review for a possible downgrade, following the latest recall.

“This action is prompted by Moody’s concern that the growing scale of Toyota’s product problems and associated recalls may have longer term impacts on its brand equity, pricing power and market share in key markets,” it said.

Toyota president Akio Toyoda has come under criticism from Japan’s transport minister Seiji Maehara for not reacting quickly enough to recall faulty vehicles, according to reports from the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.

“I wish you had taken measures earlier rather than simply saying it was not a major technical problem,” Seiji Maehara told Akio Toyoda in a meeting, says AFP.

Software update

There would also be recalls of Hybrid Sai, sold only in Japan, and Lexus HS250h, sold globally, the company said on Tuesday.

The latest recall refers to third-generation Prius models built before 27 January 2010.

The brake problem was thought to affect Prius models that were sold in the US and Japan starting last May.

There have been complaints in Japan and the US that the brakes momentarily fail when driven on rough roads.

Toyota blames a software glitch and says it has already fixed vehicles sold this year.

In a statement, Toyota GB was keen to reassure Prius owners in the UK and said that the cars were safe to drive.

“At no time are drivers without brakes,” the firm said.

Toyota GB said that it would be writing to every owner or keeper affected in the next few days and the procedure, to upgrade the anti-lock braking system, would be carried out free of charge.

Toyota is recalling 436,000 hybrid cars worldwide
In the UK, no other Toyota or Lexus models are affected by the latest recall.

Toyota representatives in the US said the firm was recalling 133,000 2010 Prius models and 14,550 Lexus Division HS250h 2010 models to update software in the vehicle’s anti-lock braking system.

In the US, no other Toyota, Lexus or Scion vehicles are involved in the latest recall.

Separately, Toyota has announced a safety recall on about 7,300 2010 Camry vehicles in the US over problems that could lead to a hole in the brake tube, causing a brake fluid leak. Owners of the Camry models involved will be contacted by post in the middle of February.

The US Transportation Department said last week that it was investigating the braking problems with Prius.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration received 124 reports from drivers about it, including four of crashes.

There have been no reports of any such accidents in the UK.

The US investigation will look into allegations of momentary loss of braking power while travelling over uneven road surfaces.

Mr Toyoda wrote that he had been in contact with US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and assured him that communication would be kept open, would be more frequent, and that Toyota would be “more vigilant in responding” to officials.

Before it announced the Prius recall in Japan, Toyota estimated that its losses would reach $2bn (£1.23bn) in costs and lost sales from its worldwide recall of vehicles that might have faulty accelerator pedals.

The Prius recall is expected to send this figure even higher.

Source : BBC News

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Car sales rose by nearly 30 per cent in January, as buyers hurried to benefit from the Government’s car scrappage scheme, which has been extended for an extra month.

The scheme, which began last May, was due to end in February or when funding ran out.

However, yesterday the Department for Business, Skills and Innovation (BSI) said it would allow buyers until the end of March to take advantage of the scheme, which offers consumers a £2,000 discount, half from the industry and half from the Government, to trade in vehicles that are more than ten years old.

According to BSI estimates, there is £70 million left of scheme funding. Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, said: “Against the background of the economic downturn the scrappage scheme has proved a great success, driving UK car sales, protecting jobs and supporting the supply chain for car manufacture at a time when this sector needed it most.

“If you’re considering buying a new car, you should place your order as soon as possible to avoid disappointment, because the budget is strictly limited.”

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said the scheme accounted for 17.8 per cent of sales in January — the seventh increase in a row — despite the return to 17.5 per cent in VAT at the beginning of the year.

Paul Everitt, the SMMT chief executive, said: “The 29.8 per cent increase in January new car registrations provides a better than expected start to 2010 for the UK motor industry.

“Scrappage continues to lift demand successfully and today’s announcement of a continuation of the scheme to the end of March will allow the maximum number of people to benefit from the budget that’s still available.”

However, the SMMT warned that the outlook for 2010 was still constrained, with demand expected to fall by nine per cent to 1.82 million units for whole of the year — the lowest level since 1993.

In 2009, car production fell by 31 per cent year-on-year, the SMMT reported last month.

Mr Everitt added: “Industry expects another difficult year with the availability of finance, consumer confidence and sustaining demand post-scrappage, key to performacnce in the second half of the year, but signs of recovery in the fleet and business sectors are enoucouraging.”

The most popular car in January was the Ford Fiesta – which was also the bestseller of 2009. Toyota, which is currently embroiled in controversy about its handling of a global recall following an accelerator defect in several of its models, did not appear in the top ten.

Source : The Times.

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Toyota drivers in Britain will be forced to wait another week before the company begins repairs on cars with faulty accelerator pedals, as part of a $2 billion (£1.26 billion) recall that has forced the Japanese carmaker to suspend delivery of thousands of new cars in the UK.

Toyota revealed last night that up to 180,865 vehicles could be affected in the UK, as well as 1.8 million in total across Europe and millions more in the US and Japan. It has identified eight models as potentially at risk of the defect, which can cause the accelerator to stick, but has stressed that very few are actually faulty.

The models affected are the IQ, Aygo, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Avensis and Verso. The parts needed will not arrive in the UK until next week, with the first repairs scheduled for 10 February.

Toyota confirmed that it has stopped delivering new vehicles of affected models to British customers. The vehicles will not be released until they have been fitted with a new part, which could take weeks until the backlog is cleared.

More than 10,000 Britons have jammed the Toyota switchboards in the last few days, wanting to know whether to continue driving their cars. Angry customers are also demanding to know why recall notices have only just been issued when Toyota has known of the accelerator defect since last winter.

It has also emerged that Toyota may be considering an additional recall of the latest models of its Prius hybrid cars, amid a widening probe of brake faults that have dogged its flaghship “green” vehicles in the US and Japan.

On the orders of the Japanese Government, Toyota is currently investigating 85 complaints relating to incidents where the Prius brakes have intermittently stopped working. The problem has risen in frequency over winter months and is thought to be linked to occasions where the car was driven over snow or ice.

Toyota admitted that there were design snags with the way that the two braking systems used in hybrid cars are linked. The company also said that it was looking into whether the fault applied to other vehicles in its hybrid range.

There are suspicions that Toyota may have attempted to keep the problem with its Prius brakes out of the public eye. An investigation into the alleged brake faults has been going on since August. It then redesigned the brake system for all Prius models sold since January but had not yet deemed it necessary to inform existing customers of the problem.

Hiroyuki Yokoyama, a Toyota managing officer in charge of quality control, said today: “We, as a maker, want to take some sort of measures to explain to our customers and are studying it now. We’ll make an announcement before long.

“This is a problem where you can stop your car safely if you push the brake pedal strongly.”

Rather than admit that there was an outright defect with the Prius, Mr Yokoyama described the temporary brake failures as a “phenomenon”, with the main effect being that drivers have felt uncomfortable at the temporary sensation that the brakes are not deploying.

The Japanese Government, traditionally a supporter of its largest company, demanded that Toyota “firmly investigate” the brake problems with the Prius. The consumer affairs minister, the trade minister and the transport minister have all held emergency meetings with senior Toyota staff over the past 24 hours. The US Transport secretary, Ray LaHood, has also demanded a conversation with Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, to discuss the handling of the US accelerator-related recalls.

Mr LaHood said that his department’s investigation of the accelerator pedals would be expanded.

He warned: “We are not finished with Toyota yet.” He caused a furore earlier in the day by telling Toyota owners: “My advice is . . . stop driving it. Take it to the dealer.” Toyota shares dropped sharply on the New York Stock Exchange until he retracted the remarks.

Despite having been dogged by similar problems for several months, including recalls of eight million vehicles, Toyota today announced a net profit of $1.7 billion (£1.06 billion) for the three months to December — its strongest profit in six quarters.

However, today’s results do not include the impact of the global recall which Toyota said will cost the company $2 billion. Despite the financial impact of the recall, the Japanese carmaker still expects to make a net profit of $879 million for the year to March 2010.

Toyota shares plunged 3.5 per cent in Tokyo trading today and are now at lows seen during the depths of the financial crisis.

Toyota’s ongoing struggle to restore its reputation came against a backdrop of surprisingly strong financial performance. The world’s largest automaker said that it now expected that the current fiscal year ending on March 31 would see the company return to profit. Its previous forecast was for a loss of Y200 billion, but net income is now expected to be Y80 billion. A year previously, the company made its first full-year loss since it began making cars.

Much of the impetus behind Toyota’s return to form came from the US — the very market in which it will now have to fight hardest to regain consumer confidence. Analysts in Tokyo said that there remained a “huge” possibility that the company would miss its forecasts because of spiralling recall costs and unexpectedly heavy damage to its brand.

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Source : The Times

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