What can you expect for £75?

On behalf of the motorist and after so many years in the making, FOXY had hoped for a more demanding code of practice; one that aspired to greatness for a change, not just the same old minimum business standards including an ‘accessible and robust dispute resolution’ system.
Had the benchmark standard been set higher, I feel sure that the number of complaints would start to fall proportionately.

All in all, I am disappointed.

The new Motor Industry Code of Practice for Service and Repair, run by a division of a leading motor industry body, costs £75 to sign up to. Garages, dealerships and fast fit businesses of all sizes and competence levels alike can buy their certificate to say they have signed up to this code knowing that this is going to be backed with serious promotion equating this to best practice; all this to be read by trusting motorists, female and male alike. And they get this without being vetted.

Is this as good as it might be?

Please judge for yourself.

The code asks them to commit to basic business behaviour such as ‘honest and fair services’ and ‘open and transparent prices’ and provides a helpdesk and complaints procedure. Sound familiar? It would if you worked in the industry as there have been other similar models of old.

My point is that many garages and dealerships are SO much better than this already. Granted some others need to be reminded of the basics but there are also those who may well rub their hands in glee at being associated with better businesses for as little as £75, if only to take advantage of the initial communications launch.

This code is not as good as others in existence but how do motorists know this? What about proven and demanding quality schemes like ATA, BSI or OFT approved code status?

The industry has tried this ‘one size fits all’ approach before. If too many garages/dealerships sign up (and they will because it’s too cheap) it will be unsustainable to manage the quality issues. But it’s a nice little earner at an estimated minimum 5000 businesses x £75 at start up. A cool £375,000+ for promotion and complaints handling; FOXY could do wonders with that sort of income.

I’d be even more sceptical if I had invested heavily in going the extra mile to prove my professionalism above others through ATA training, completing the BSI Kitemark process (service and repair or bodywork repairs) or was a Bosch Car Service centre, the only UK garage network to have invested serious time, money and effort in achieving and maintaining the rigorous OFT approved code of practice. Some businesses have more than one of these acronyms, a few have all three. They are the best there are today.

Looking at this from the female motorists point of view, which FOXY is unique in doing,  rather than from the industry’s point of view, foxy ladies want to know what their local garage choices are and who and where the best ones are.

This code doesn’t answer either question but it could have done, with a little more ambition at the outset.

Yet I am sure it will be declared a success and I really do hope it does make a difference… BUT it is too cheap and easy for garages to sign up to a ‘me too’ undemanding scheme like this one and opt out later if the going gets tough.

The consumer does not understand this yet.

Female motorists pay a high price

My paper tells me that petrol/fuel sales have fallen by 20%, allegedly, because of rising prices.

Who are these people that can do without their cars?

Well they certainly don’t live in rural areas as I do, where buses are no alternative.

Nor can they be Mums with multiple children - have you ever tried a combination of toddlers, pushchairs and the like on buses, tube trains or [joke] bicycles…

And they can’t be part time workers (mostly females) whose hours rarely coincide with others so they are less likely to be able to car share…

The same is true for those of us who also care for elderly relatives or neighbours - how do you get an elderly person to a distant hospital or surgery without it costing them a fortune in taxis - even more than it used to now.

And if you live on your own and want to go out at night, women rely on their car for safety reasons.

Hopefully any such fuel save is environmentally-minded people working from home, being able to walk/bike to work and now feeling the pinch and those of us using technology to save on unnecessary travel. I am surprised to hear how many employers still don’t trust their staff to work as hard at home (despite technology showing what work is done)… there’s a mountain to climb here.

Yes I honestly do believe that most women need their cars more than most men and I think that most women drive fuel efficiently too. So what’s the choice for us? Cough up or stay at home I suspect.

I am sad to see the price of diesel so high to almost negate the mileage and CO2 advantage over petrol. And the unexpected and unfair hike in VED rates for those of us driving popular older cars for sound financial reasons is nothing short of scandalous…

And as the price of fuel rises, the % tax rate remains the same ie richer government coffers by stealth.

Is there a bright light or a dead end at the end of the motoring tunnel? I can’t see where we’re headed yet.

Feeling glum, need a chum.

FOXY Steph

MOT test failures could be worse

In 2007 one in five of all 3 year old cars in the UK failed their first MOT test according to figures from the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists).

This is a serious issue concerning road safety, and the government is considering deferring MOT testing cars until they are 4 years old - imagine how unsafe many would be if left another year…

We are told that France had a low 5.61% failure rate after 4 years, Switzerland 17.5% and Norway 19.9%. On the other hand Spain, at 32%, has one of the highest rates there are.

Other countries that test after three years like the UK are Germany (a failure rate of 4.8%) and Austria with a 10% failure rate.

Lighting, signalling, tyres, wheels and windscreens were the major reasons for failure.

The report I read suggested that UK garages might be failing cars to earn from the work they identified. Shock horror.

I am less cynical than I used to be here as the VOSA appointment process is thorough and FOXY has little experience of this happening to women drivers in real life. More likely is that, in true British style, our processes and attention to detail are more rigorous than other countries.

I’d prefer to err on the side of vehicle safety, especially with longer and longer periods between servicing. As many fleet cars are usually sold pre MOT age might it not be that these vehicles enjoy the bare minimum of maintenance and servicing and are thrashed by company car owners in between? That might explain the three year failure rate in our country and be a serious cause for concern.

Equally worryingly, if the three year MOT is postponed to four years, according to a Lord Davidson and an EU report UK motorists would save £465 million (a year apparently) but there is no mention of the cost in human life following any increase in serious road accidents and the economic multiplier effect after the loss of so many industry jobs.

Ask a motorist and she (or he) will go for the financial save believing it to be a safe decision; she and he’d be wrong and I’d hate to be proved right.

I’m not at all convinced, unless of course, someone can prove this with facts and figures.

FOXY Steph

Women drivers dump Swiss Tonis

Smarmy car salesmen, like the Fast Show’s Swiss Toni, have been named the least sexy profession for a man to have by female motorists in a recent survey.

Extra marital dating website IllicitEncounters.com polled nearly 3,000 of its women drivers to name the sexiest profession; car salesmen came in last by a long shot, with just 0.5 per cent of respondents finding them sexy.

Apparently the vote came down to how men respect women which seems a bit ironic when you think why women drivers probably visit this site in the first place.

Just for the record, pilots were voted the sexiest, followed by men employed in media (why don’t I know these chaps?), men in property (not your average builder I guess) then lawyers in fourth place.

More confirmation that women drivers have a poor perception of the motor industry and car dealership salesmen, no matter the reality.

For example, whilst chatting recently, I asked a FOXY Lady Drivers Club member to recommend the VW dealership she had bought her last new VW car from. She later emailed me the name of the salesman who had been very helpful (and got her business for two cars) as well as the name of a female sales rep at a different dealership who was not at all helpful or informed and where our member will not be returning in future.

A case of employing the best you can, no matter the gender. It isn’t difficult.

FOXY Steph

Better consumer communications needed

Apparently women drivers aged 25 to 35 are the worst at keeping their cars in good condition according to a recent survey carried out by Bridgestone Tyres. This is particularly worrying because this age group is more likely than others to have children in their cars at some time.

I wonder if they surveyed female students as these are some of the motorists we find are looking to cut corners for financial reasons.

We are told that motorists in Nottingham are notorious for failing to maintain vehicles well yet Leeds leads the way in car maintenance.

In Nottingham, one in three drivers regularly fails to service their car while other “bad” regions include Birmingham, Bristol, Norwich and Sheffield.

Seven years ago our daughter was fleeced by a garage in Nottingham - this was the catalyst for my business, FOXY Lady Drivers Club.

None of this surprises me but I am disappointed that the retail motor industry has failed to get a stronger message across that a badly maintained (and serviced) car of any age is less safe, less green, less reliable and more expensive to run in the end.

I’d also want more motorists to understand that a professional eye is better than an amateur doing her (or his) best with car maintenance AND that a bad garage does not mean a good car service.

One area that I’d want to look at is the increasingly attractive sales promise that a new car needs fewer services… as the intervals in between lengthen. Yes this is good news for the fleet buyer but how are they checking that their car is being maintained in between? Lots of motorists/businesses think that an U3 year old car doesn’t need much maintenance in between servicing and few know how to choose one of the best local garages.

Maybe the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 will start to make these points, now that companies can be held liable in law if negligence can be proved or if an employer has failed to demonstrate a duty of care to their employees using their private cars for business use.

Imagine a situation where a female employee whose private car is insured for regular travelling to and from her work (in addition to the normal domestic, social and pleasure cover) and is involved in an accident as a result of her badly maintained car. How long will it be before the claiming solicitors look to the employer for settlement under this Act?

Makes sound sense for them to subscribe to FOXY’s corporate membership solution and get quarterly car checks, a friendly helpdesk and professional legal motor claims advice and fees I’d have said…

FOXY Steph

Nine years no claims bonus

I am not sure what ‘up to 9 years no claims bonus’ means for the motorist, as advertised by Zurich Insurance.

Certainly it sounds like Zurich wants to cream off the least risk motorists over 25 (more women than men I’d calculate) who are the least likely to use their motor insurance claims service… but what do foxy lady drivers get as a result?

LV= advertises up to 75% NCB which is a more meaningful promise for female motorists but is the Zurich offer even better?

And can you protect it? I certainly would recommend it if the NCB is as significant as it should be/probably is.

Or are they positioning themselves to be seen to offer better value for customers with RBS insurance brands?

FOXY Steph

A better car insurance deal for women?

If you controlled a third of the UK’s private motor insurance market, including a significant portfolio of policies held by better risk women drivers, and this market was predicted to grow by £6bn by 2012, would you choose to sell car insurance brands that are so well known by female motorists? I’m talking about big brands like Direct Line, Churchill and NIG.

That’s the situation the Royal Bank of Scotland is in with the likes of Zurich, AIG and Generali competing for any motor insurance business spoils.

With the marketing job done in terms of brand awareness and so many potential economies of scale to be gained in servicing this business I can’t help thinking that size and status quo is a critical financial advantage for the Bank to leverage. Perhaps we’ll see some brands peeling off instead but surely not the majority unless things are much worse than we realise…

At least this exercise will allow it to put a value on its brands and review ways to make it more competitive in future. Which will be a good thing for female motorists, either way, I’m sure.

Anyone up for a bet?

FOXY Steph

www.foxyladydrivers.com

Credit cards are a better motoring risk

If you prefer paying cash to avoid getting into debt you get less consumer protection that you would have by using a credit card. This is advice from the Trading Standards Institute, not me.

For example, if a foxy lady driver paid for garage services like car servicing or repairs by using her credit card, and if the work costs more than £100, she would be protected by the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes the credit card company as responsible as the garage for a breach of contract or a misrepresentation. So, if she or any other driver was unhappy and unable to resolve the issue to her satisfaction she could take action against the garage owner (checking to find out if the owner is an individual, a partnership or a company), the credit card company or both.

But Section 75 does not apply if she were to pay by charge card or debit card.

Which seems daft to me when many smart females and males might prefer to pay cash or use a debit card… why should the law be any different depending on how you pay?

FOXY Steph

www.foxyladydrivers.com

Car safety question mark

A recent survey confirmed that 1 in 5 cars failed their first MOT in Britain.

That doesn’t surprise me as few motorists, female and male, seem to do regular maintenance or visit local garages as often as they might. Only recently my next door neighbour found she had run her ’special’ 3 year old VW tyres flat and paid £400+ for a new set (after two years of not checking them at all). She was not a FOXY member then btw…

What concerns me most is the genuine possibility of existing MOT rules being slackened from a 3 year old first MOT test thence yearly (referred to as 3:1:1) to the EU model of a 4 year old first MOT test then biennial tests (referred to as 4:2:2).

Knowing that so few of us, women and men drivers alike, check our tyres regularly, let alone the performance of our brakes, or economic/environmental indicators like oil levels, this would be an all round bad thing in my opinion. I am seriously surprised that little seems to have been made of this whilst the UK’s back door seems still open to this EU approach…

Perhaps this is because those of us who trust others to know best (as many women do in a male-oriented and often female-unfriendly industry) will welcome a financial save of the test fee, £50.35, in tough economic times, without any thought to possible safety consequences…

I recall that the only EU country to do worse than us in this respect was Spain which could support the theory that if left a further year ie tested at 4 not 3 years old, more cars will be less safe and potentially more dangerous; never mind the added environmental considerations of all poorly maintained cars.

There is a sense that today’s cars are safer than they used to be and that young cars don’t need much servicing or maintenance. Certainly longer intervals between servicing means lower running costs to vital car fleet operators YET commonsense tells us that a poorly maintained car is inevitably less safe, less green, less reliable and less economic to run than one that has been loved, whatever its age.

Shameless FOXY plug - Realising this, what we do is encourage women driving cars [of all ages, women and cars ;-)] to claim FREE green and safety car fitness checks as part of their membership; these check tyres, oil levels, lights, emissions, brake fluid levels and so on, working with Bosch Car Service across the country. For details see http://www.foxyladydrivers.com/freegreenchecks.php

There are now moves afoot to either progress this EU 4:2:2 route or park it once and for all.

Dear Gordon - please see the BIG picture here and support the 3:1:1 route for UK motorists and garage jobs alike - it’s dangerous enough out there as it is and the standard of MOT centres is better policed than ever before.

FOXY Steph

Scrap the car scrap scheme…

In today’s environmentally minded society I am told that Government regulations intended to solve the car scrap problem are being openly flouted by unscrupulous businesses who are probably adding noxious materials to local landfill mass.

Official figures suggest that just 900,000 Certificates of Destruction (CoDs) and Notices of Destruction (NoDs) were issued in 2006 out of some 2 million cars that were taken off our roads.

By the look of it, more than a million scrap cars a year, many that used to belong to women drivers perhaps, could be reaching landfill together with their harmful oils, tyres, plastics and unused airbags. This despite End of Life Vehicle Regulations which came in to force in 2003, requiring cars to be properly de-polluted and recycled at licensed Authorised Treatment Facilities.

As I understand it, the problem comes through a loophole in DVLA records and is compounded by poor monitoring by the Environment Agency. Under a system called continuous licensing, owners are supposed to pay road tax until a CoD has been obtained from a licensed dismantler. However, a tick-box on the V5 registration form means that last owners, as well as unlicensed dismantlers and shredders, can simply de-register a vehicle. Un-licensed operators can then do precisely what they like to our environment; selling valuable scrap materials first of course then dumping the rest including untreated waste. I can’t see any way that they can be penalised or the last registered keeper, for that matter.

I don’t know what the solution is but I do know that most foxy lady drivers will be unhappy about this after working hard to run greener cars over the last year or so. I presume that insurance companies specify licensed dismantlers in their garage services dealings but I shall ask my contacts in due course…

I believe it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that, at the end of a car’s useful life, it is disposed of in as environmentally friendly a method as possible.

But until everyone has to or knows they won’t get away with dumping polluting materials in similar ways, this is another example of bad practice being allowed to succeed in an industry with an appalling reputation. My point is that there are many good garage businesses that should be benefiting from this business instead…it’s a case of getting the rules right and then spreading the word.

Dear Gordon - please put this on your ‘another fine mess…’ wishlist to be sorted out PDQ…