Car Talk

[ScrumpyCheddar]

Abit of winter prep today. To soon to go on at moment. 🤣

[grendel]

Good news on the car front, the ecu repair  place has accepted responsibility and sent a reconditioned  abs pump to my garage, they will now fit it and take it to the volvo dealership across the road for coding. So looks like I may have my car back by next week. 

[grendel]

oh dear, having fitted the new ABS pump, and had the pump ECU coded to the car by volvo, I thought it would be a quick matter for them to bleed the now functional system and return the car to me, however after performing all the above tasks, the car is still throwing the ABS codes, and wont clear- so back to volvo, who are now saying that the pump part of the newly refurbished ABS unit is faulty, now we are back into a back and forth discussion with the ABS repair company we are also awaiting delivery of a new bracket that holds the ABS pump from volvo, as the old bracket was lost with the pump by DHL. more waiting while this latest issue is resolved, of course until they can clear the codes, they cannot pass it through the MOT- the wait resumes.

[MauriceMynah]

I've just had my car insurance quote for the next 12 months.

It's gone up from £375 to £665

Has anyone else had such a hike?

Does anyone else use Coop?

Has Dr Packman gone into the insurance business?

[CeePee1952]

36 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

I've just had my car insurance quote for the next 12 months.

It's gone up from £375 to £665

Has anyone else had such a hike?

Does anyone else use Coop?

Has Dr Packman gone into the insurance business?

Hmmmm - perhaps the insurers are now hiking up their quotes as a result of the Luton car park fire! I can't imagine what else would cause such a huge hike! Having said that, my previous insurance company (not Co-op) wanted an extra £198 on renewal back in April this year, so I went on comparethemarket.com. I'm now with AA (not the falling down water one!) who came in at £85 cheaper than my current one at the time and with the same benefits. It does pay to shop around!

Chris

[BrundallNavy]

3 hours ago, MauriceMynah said:

I've just had my car insurance quote for the next 12 months.

It's gone up from £375 to £665

Has anyone else had such a hike?

Does anyone else use Coop?

Has Dr Packman gone into the insurance business?

My renewal had gone up over £250 on last years price. Visited the meerkats and now paying about £20 more with A certain British Dog. 

Interestingly the large singing tenor wast around £80 more than the meerkats for the cheapest quote. 

[oldgregg]

I think the market had gone hard before the Luton Airport fire. I was looking at an F31 335D a few months ago and the cost of insurance put me off. A lesser model was way cheaper and I didn't fancy funding the Aviva pension fund.

Looking at other models and brands I realised it was across the board and I guess will be because of cost of repair / replacement.

The Chinese have also been manipulating the supply of chips to the car industry and they're starting to realise what's really going on. COVID was the perfect cover but you'll notice there's no shortage of new chinese-built cars on our roads. Just how are there so many MG4's and why are they so cheap? 

The insurance industry seems to flip-flop between 'hard' and 'soft' market conditions depending on how scared or reckless the market is feeling. When I worked in commercial insurance they had various ways of measuring the 'hardness' of the market because massive corporate clients needed hard evidence of why their fleet premium had just gone up by hundreds of thousands of pounds.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

https://www.independent.co.uk/money/why-has-car-insurance-risen-so-much-b2391334.html

 

[Matt]

We had two cars on a multi car policy with admiral, renewal in mid October. Last year - £650 for both. Renewal this year for both £1,150. Nothing has changed in the policy. 

Now they are separate policies with Tesco for a total cost of £720.

I seem to have lost all sense in what things are worth these days!

[BroadAmbition]

Not car related but insurance related, the insurance renewal for Purdey has landed  in my inbox - £530 for the year - Wow.  I'll need to check what the current price is/was

Griff

[Happy]

9 hours ago, Matt said:

We had two cars on a multi car policy with admiral, renewal in mid October. Last year - £650 for both. Renewal this year for both £1,150. Nothing has changed in the policy. 

Now they are separate policies with Tesco for a total cost of £720.

I seem to have lost all sense in what things are worth these days!

Whilst our costs for two cars had not risen that much they had increased considerably both cars are now with Tesco, similar cover and much better price.  It seems you have to 'go compare' every year now  

[Matt]

1 hour ago, Happy said:

Whilst our costs for two cars had not risen that much they had increased considerably both cars are now with Tesco, similar cover and much better price.  It seems you have to 'go compare' every year now  

When I rang Admiral to cancel the auto renewal they wanted to go through it all to get me a better price. I refused and told them they should have offered me the best price in the first place- never, ever auto-renewal without shopping around first!

[ChrisB]

I wonder if these increases are a reflection of the growth in fully electfic vehicles? 

John Lewis can no longer get them underwritten.

 

[MauriceMynah]

I phoned the Coop to discuss the hike in the premium.  Their reply was to offer the same policy at a lower price but with a lower estimated annual mileage. The increase went from 50% to 12%. Make of that what you will.

[grendel]

It does seem a shame that the insurance companies no longer believe in brand loyalty, so you need to shop around for the best price every year, they obviously dont realise that if they offered the best price to existing customers and a slightly higher premium to new customers, that year on year they could increase the prices little by little and make a much greater profit - perhaps its good that they dont realise this, after all a certain authority has been pricing this way for years- and still gets away with it.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

5 minutes ago, grendel said:

It does seem a shame that the insurance companies no longer believe in brand loyalty, so you need to shop around for the best price every year, they obviously dont realise that if they offered the best price to existing customers and a slightly higher premium to new customers, that year on year they could increase the prices little by little and make a much greater profit - perhaps its good that they dont realise this, after all a certain authority has been pricing this way for years- and still gets away with it.

Dont think two tier pricing is allowed grendal.

[Meantime]

1 hour ago, MauriceMynah said:

I phoned the Coop to discuss the hike in the premium.  Their reply was to offer the same policy at a lower price but with a lower estimated annual mileage. The increase went from 50% to 12%. Make of that what you will.

That's common. The less time your car spends on the road, the less chance of an accident, however beware of intentionally under estimating to save money. If they can prove you have done so they will pay out less in the event of a claim! 

The devil is in the detail and the small print. If you realise during your policy that you have under estimated your mileage then you are meant to contact and tell your insurance company so they can arrange an uplift for the rest of the year. I've always over estimated to be on the safe side, but never thought to ring them near to the year end and ask for a refund as I've done less mileage than estimated. You'd probably find they will give you a small refund completely wiped out by some admin fee!!

 

[Happy]

21 minutes ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Dont think two tier pricing is allowed grendal.

When I compared prices because ours had gone up, our current (then) insurer were quoting quite a bit less on there than they were trying to charge me as an existing customer with a no claims history!  How does that make sense.  I am sure that if I had spoken to them they would have offered a better deal but I am sorry, I don't do business on those sort of terms

[floydraser]

3 hours ago, Happy said:

When I compared prices because ours had gone up, our current (then) insurer were quoting quite a bit less on there than they were trying to charge me as an existing customer with a no claims history!  How does that make sense.  I am sure that if I had spoken to them they would have offered a better deal but I am sorry, I don't do business on those sort of terms

That happens with mine most years. I just ring them and they'll ask for the quote number and check it, then match it. When they don't, I move to the next best well known name. I'm almost looking forward to the renewal of the Corsa insurance next Feb. If it goes by much I'll flog the Corsa.

[MargeandParge]

8 hours ago, MauriceMynah said:

I phoned the Coop to discuss the hike in the premium.  Their reply was to offer the same policy at a lower price but with a lower estimated annual mileage. The increase went from 50% to 12%. Make of that what you will.

I mght be tempted to take that if the mileage agreed would cover my needs with a little wriggle room as car insurance has increased across the board I read an article that the fire risk from E.V,s had contributed to the rises as if they were involved in an accident nobody could assess the internal damage to the batteries,which are the dearest most volatile part of an E.V.

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

 

 

 

[ScrumpyCheddar]

We always shop around every year and can not find anything cheaper than ours.. And ours don’t seem to go up much a matter of a few quid £8 rise this year on both cars, we can’t grumble on that. I limit my mileage on the policy and low excess. We use Adrian Flux we have been with them for the last 11 years very good 👍 

[JanetAnne]

9 hours ago, ChrisB said:

I wonder if these increases are a reflection of the growth in fully electfic vehicles? 

John Lewis can no longer get them underwritten.

 

That was always going to happen. They are even starting to be excluded from motor trade policies.

I suspect the manufacturers will have to offer the insurance themselves in the future.

[oldgregg]

I think Tesla are creating trouble for themselves.

It's not so much the batteries as the shift towards building the structure from as few castings as they possibly can. Pretty much guaranteed to fracture in an impact and be horrendous to replace.

[NeilB]

On 29/10/2023 at 11:04, oldgregg said:

The Chinese have also been manipulating the supply of chips to the car industry and they're starting to realise what's really going on. COVID was the perfect cover but you'll notice there's no shortage of new chinese-built cars on our roads. Just how are there so many MG4's and why are they so cheap? 

When covid kicked off serval large car and truck manufacturers cancelled lots of raw materials including chips expecting a massive downturn.  When they tried to re-instate these orders the chips had been resold to laptops, mobiles etc. which were booming. Throw in a fire at one of the chip plants and you now have a global shortage!  

[CambridgeCabby]

My renewal quote from Tescos saw a rise from £238 last year to £625 for the same cover this year , I phoned them up and they offered £525 as a compromise , went on Compare and have been quoted £242 by Hastings for exactly the same cover but with a lower excess