Car Talk

[Mouldy]

50 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

Ye Gods 

Received an email from Trevor Transit current insurance company with notice of the renewal price.

I renewed the policy February 2023 and it cost £432

The renewal price quoted for Feb 2024?   £709  

They can take a long walk off a short plank

I'm now wondering if their pricing policy is modelled on the Blessed Authorities Tolls increase

Griff

Hmmmmm!  My insurance renewal came in a few days ago.  We have a Multicar policy, which includes the buildings insurance for our bungalow (but not the contents).  The cost last year was £961 and the renewal came in at £1285, an increase of more than 33%.  I drive a seven year old ŠKODA Octavia vRS TDi and the wife has a three year old Kia Sportage AWD, neither being prestigious or of a particularly high value.

Hearing that there’s been significant increases in insurance rates, due in part to the fire at a multi-storey car park in Luton that resulted in about 1500 vehicles being written off, I’d already made some enquiries with other insurers, as well as a couple of the comparison sites.

Frankly, no one was cheap, one company who has a talkative dog as their advertising mascot quoting me almost £800 for my car alone, so I phoned our current insurers and negotiated the cost down to £1202 for both cars and the bungalow.

Cant say that I’m happy, but judging by some of the quotes I had, there’s not much to be gained by looking elsewhere. 🤨

[NeilB]

I'm lucky in that mines a company car so I don't have to worry about insurance, however, the boat is due late February so it will be interesting to see if this goes up!

[Regulo]

2 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:

Ye Gods 

Received an email from Trevor Transit current insurance company with notice of the renewal price.

I renewed the policy February 2023 and it cost £432

The renewal price quoted for Feb 2024?   £709  

They can take a long walk off a short plank

I'm now wondering if their pricing policy is modelled on the Blessed Authorities Tolls increase

Griff

I was in the garden yesterday, bit of a North wind blowing. I swear I heard a Yorkshire accent on the air crying "'OW MUCH!!!". Now I understand. 

[BrundallNavy]

11 hours ago, Mouldy said:

Hmmmmm!  My insurance renewal came in a few days ago.  We have a Multicar policy, which includes the buildings insurance for our bungalow (but not the contents).  The cost last year was £961 and the renewal came in at £1285, an increase of more than 33%.  I drive a seven year old ŠKODA Octavia vRS TDi and the wife has a three year old Kia Sportage AWD, neither being prestigious or of a particularly high value.

Hearing that there’s been significant increases in insurance rates, due in part to the fire at a multi-storey car park in Luton that resulted in about 1500 vehicles being written off, I’d already made some enquiries with other insurers, as well as a couple of the comparison sites.

Frankly, no one was cheap, one company who has a talkative dog as their advertising mascot quoting me almost £800 for my car alone, so I phoned our current insurers and negotiated the cost down to £1202 for both cars and the bungalow.

Cant say that I’m happy, but judging by some of the quotes I had, there’s not much to be gained by looking elsewhere. 🤨

The dog insurance company does both the Focus ST and the Z4 for just under £500. 

[Mouldy]

9 minutes ago, BrundallNavy said:

The dog insurance company does both the Focus ST and the Z4 for just under £500. 

They must have something against ageing ŠKODA drivers living in rural Norfolk then!

[floydraser]

If insurance prices go up because of large event causing a massive payout, then the insurance business carries no risk and that's the business to be in. But they are supposed to be covering our risk for us so by raising prices for the reason mentioned, surely we are insureing THEM? 

[Mouldy]

23 minutes ago, floydraser said:

If insurance prices go up because of large event causing a massive payout, then the insurance business carries no risk and that's the business to be in. But they are supposed to be covering our risk for us so by raising prices for the reason mentioned, surely we are insureing THEM? 

Watch home contents go up soon due to the amount of flooding there has been recently.  They’re in business to make a profit, don’t you know! 
The issue with the fire in the car park at Luton was caused by an electric vehicle setting itself alight.  Obviously, with more and more electric cars now on the roads, the chances of more frequent incidents involving fires of EV’s is increasing.  While ICE cars catch alight more frequently, they’re easier to extinguish than fires involving the batteries in electric vehicles.

[Regulo]

From Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue service:

Quote

The investigation into the cause of the fire continues, but it has been determined that the vehicle that first caught fire was a diesel car. Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s fire investigation team will be working closely with Bedfordshire Police to get a better understanding of what happened on Tuesday evening, and why.

 

[Bikertov]

I heard it was a Range Rover that was already on fire, driving into the car park, thinking there were sprinklers in there that would put the fire out.

Only there weren't any sprinklers. 

[BroadAmbition]

I heard it was a Range Rover that was already on fire, driving into the car park

What an absolute plonker, drive into an area full of highly combustible vehicles & fuel - Yes - that'll do it every time, sprinklers or not  

Griff

[Mouldy]

There is too much speculation that the cause of the fire was hushed up.  With the promotion of EV’s as ‘the future’ open admission that they aren’t dangerous when they do catch fire could be damaging to the industry.

Looking at some of the videos and explanations on line, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that it was a hybrid.  The explosion that caused much of the damage seemed far more violent than one would imagine from a diesel vehicle.  Although diesel combusts, it is far less combustible than petrol.

There are a great many rules and regulations abut the safety of lithium batteries.  Try sending them by post and see the hoops that have to be negotiated before they can be sent.  There are special boxes that are recommended for storing batteries for drones and camera, such is the volatility of the materials they contain, yet they are deemed safe in a vehicle that can be involved in an accident.  I’m afraid that I remain suspicious of their safety in vehicles and of the cause of this incident.

The current storm of publicity in the news about another ‘cover up’ should be proof that the truth is often withheld.

[oldgregg]

There are SO many videos around of Range Rovers on fire, due to failed turbos dumping oil everywhere, electrical issues etc etc.

And there's a video of the initial Range Rover on fire in the Luton airport car park.

A lot of lobbyists want you to believe that electric = bad, because the oil industry is in serious trouble if we stop burning the stuff.

A lot of the legacy car industry is also going to be toast in the next ten years, so you can be sure they're not helping things. We're talking multi-billion dollar corporations that know they can't change quickly enough. Are they just going to idly sit there and do nothing or are they going to try to delay the shift to electric so that they might have a hope of competing?

Yes, some older EV (and hybrid) battery technologies are unstable. The LG Chem batteries used in the Jaguar iPace (again, JLR cutting corners) can be particularly troublesome and that's one of the reasons you can now buy an iPace for a third of its original list price.

There are certain brands and models of EV that you really shouldn't buy because they will be trouble, but that's due to corner-cutting based on sloppy engineering and products being designed by accountants. It does not mean that the technology itself is fundamentally flawed.

Newer battery tech is better, and it doesn't use anything like the amount of rare metals that people think it does and it's much more thermally stable. 

All of the information is out there (in credible places) if people care to look. It gives me a good laugh seeing such uninformed nonsense in the mainstream media, but I do think those funding it would be better placed investing in getting their industries into this century. They'll regret not doing so, I suspect.

JLR really need to hope that Tata sell them to a large chinese outfit. I don't think India has the right mindset for quality high-tech manufacturing.

I suspect the Chinese will wait until they're bankrupt and then hoover up the rights, though, as SAIC (indirectly) did with MG. With the cars being uninsurable in some parts of the UK (even now there's in-house JLR insurance) due to the amount of total losses, they can't carry on like this. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors (and a lot of the former) because they're seen as a prestige brand.

[floydraser]

Corsa insurance renewal notice just in: last year £160.75 this year £320.51.

I reckon someone just couldn't be bothered to think about it, "Ah just double it and see if the idiot pays up".

Nope. Retired now so don't need two cars. They'll probably end up with 100% of nowt and I'll have to do that silly dance after selling the car to wbac dot com! 

[oldgregg]

The frustrating thing is that insurance is now supposed to be the same price for a new customer as it is for existing.

But that's blatantly absolute nonsense, unfortunately. Mrs OG's renewal has come up, last year was £100 less than the renewal quote.

A quick look with the Meerkats and we're getting quotes for £150 less. Not really a shocker, but not how things are supposed to be.

[Mouldy]

21 minutes ago, oldgregg said:

The frustrating thing is that insurance is now supposed to be the same price for a new customer as it is for existing.

But that's blatantly absolute nonsense, unfortunately. Mrs OG's renewal has come up, last year was £100 less than the renewal quote.

A quick look with the Meerkats and we're getting quotes for £150 less. Not really a shocker, but not how things are supposed to be.

There appears to be no reward for loyalty now.  My RAC renewal came in at the end of November and it took a phone call to negotiate the price down to something more acceptable.  Our mobile phone contracts were coming to an end and we’ve saved a fortune by buying new phones direct from Apple and getting discounted SIM only deals from EE, who provide our full fibre broadband and not accepting the deal offered.

And don’t start me on actually getting through to speak to a human being.  Automated answering, selecting multiple options to eventually get through to someone who can help is so frustrating and the music they choose to play whilst you’re waiting usually drives me to distraction.

My most recent experience being with Halfords, whose Tyres on the Drive operative succeeded in damaging two of the alloys on my wife’s car whilst fitting new two new tyres.  Twenty minutes listening to inane ‘muzak’ to speak to someone in South Africa, who lacks any degree of empathy, is not what I call customer service!  Grrrrrrrrr! 😡

 

[Happy]

7 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

There appears to be no reward for loyalty now.  My RAC renewal came in at the end of November and it took a phone call to negotiate the price down to something more acceptable.  Our mobile phone contracts were coming to an end and we’ve saved a fortune by buying new phones direct from Apple and getting discounted SIM only deals from EE, who provide our full fibre broadband and not accepting the deal offered.

And don’t start me on actually getting through to speak to a human being.  Automated answering, selecting multiple options to eventually get through to someone who can help is so frustrating and the music they choose to play whilst you’re waiting usually drives me to distraction.

My most recent experience being with Halfords, whose Tyres on the Drive operative succeeded in damaging two of the alloys on my wife’s car whilst fitting new two new tyres.  Twenty minutes listening to inane ‘muzak’ to speak to someone in South Africa, who lacks any degree of empathy, is not what I call customer service!  Grrrrrrrrr! 😡

 

When we ran a business we had a severe problem with British Gas and sometimes had four calls a day from I assume somewhere in Asia.  It was hard to identify what they were saying and Assume reading from a script sheet.  Did'nt sort out the problem.  Just wound me up more and more on a daily basis.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Warnings of huge insurance hikes on every type of policy were given out on various media sites long before any fire with the advice to renew three months in advance. Wasnt it something to do with a big rise in false claims being submitted.

[Regulo]

49 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

There appears to be no reward for loyalty now. 

Was there ever? The point of the legislation was to stop insurance companies from charging loyal customers more than new ones for the same cover. That's worked out well, hasn't it? Now the greedy b*****ds rook everyone to maintain their profits. 

[grendel]

its not just the luton carpark fire, there were all those car carrier fires that now seem to have disappeared off the radar, but they were such that several car carriers refused to carry EV's, and just try getting a cross channel ferry with an ev nowadays, you have to jump through hoops to get aboard. eg dfds wont allow damaged EV's aboard. one norwegian ferry company has put a blanket ban on ev's.

[floydraser]

3 hours ago, floydraser said:

Corsa insurance renewal notice just in: last year £160.75 this year £320.51.

I reckon someone just couldn't be bothered to think about it, "Ah just double it and see if the idiot pays up".

Nope. Retired now so don't need two cars. They'll probably end up with 100% of nowt and I'll have to do that silly dance after selling the car to wbac dot com! 

Quoted from the renewal email: You have been with us for a number of years. You may be able to get the insurance cover you want at a better price if you shop around.

Thanks, I will, before calling you to discuss. It'll only be worth keeping the car if it's cheap enough.

[BroadAmbition]

From another thread:-

I also took along my camera and big lens to get some shots of the moon, unfortunately it was so cold that my camera batteries all gave up the ghost so I only got a few pictures.

Apparently a lot of the Scalextric EV owners are having serious issues with range during this cold snap

Griff

[Smoggy]

2 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:

From another thread:-

I also took along my camera and big lens to get some shots of the moon, unfortunately it was so cold that my camera batteries all gave up the ghost so I only got a few pictures.

Apparently a lot of the Scalextric EV owners are having serious issues with range during this cold snap

Griff

My petrol engined bike has the same range issue in cold weather, it goes absolutely nowhere.

Oh that's right, I'm a wuss........

[grendel]

my Electric bike  I used to get there was the same, i hadnt charged it and had used it for a few short trips recently, but in the 8 mile round trip it dropped 2 bars, normally i dont see a drop of the top bar for over 20 miles and at most i was at 18 miles, where I could have expected to have seen a drop of 1 bar, but not 2, so the cold was definitely causing a loss of range. If other EV's are experiencing similar range drops in temperatures that could be considered normal winter temperatures, then i worry that they will never cope fully in this and colder countries.

[floydraser]

A heads up to try and save anyone a wasted journey: If you need to buy fuses for your car, take an old one of the correct physical size with you. The photo sort of says it all, well most of it.

But wait, there's more - the larger one is a blade fuse, the smaller one a mini blade fuse and there is one more not on the pic, a micro blade fuse!

The fuse went on the Corsa when I tried the washers during the recent frost. Fair enough, I thought I would just go to my tray of spare fuses and get another one. Ah.

I slipped the old one into my pocket just to make sure I would get the right size when I see them in the shop. The Range had blade fuses but only the large ones, the most popular as I would expect a shop like to have. In Halfords I found the micro size and thought without the original I may well have got confused and bought the wrong size. Although to be fair, Halfords staff are always very helpful, but you get my drift, I hope.

 

[MargeandParge]

1 hour ago, floydraser said:

A heads up to try and save anyone a wasted journey: If you need to buy fuses for your car, take an old one of the correct physical size with you. The photo sort of says it all, well most of it.

But wait, there's more - the larger one is a blade fuse, the smaller one a mini blade fuse and there is one more not on the pic, a micro blade fuse!

The fuse went on the Corsa when I tried the washers during the recent frost. Fair enough, I thought I would just go to my tray of spare fuses and get another one. Ah.

I slipped the old one into my pocket just to make sure I would get the right size when I see them in the shop. The Range had blade fuses but only the large ones, the most popular as I would expect a shop like to have. In Halfords I found the micro size and thought without the original I may well have got confused and bought the wrong size. Although to be fair, Halfords staff are always very helpful, but you get my drift, I hope.

 

What are you trying to say wrapping foil, roasting foil or Turkey roasting foil they all serve different needs. 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge