finalzero

Well,

Was listening to Gordon Hashbrown on TV last night and I lmao when I heard him try and explain the current car industry problems and then justify his fumbled solution.

Especially why people are not buying cars and as a result the industry suffering... I couldn't help thinking the real problem is because you and your goverment are a bunch of thiefs, by taxing and double taxing everyone you have single handidly caused the current problems.

On the one hand you have this goverment badgering on about cars being evil and we should all be using public transport and then he is on the telly trying to explain why the car industry is in a slump - doesn't take a genius to realise those policies added to the crooked vehicle taxations and other hair brained schemes have led to such a low demand for motor vehicles.

He is so out of touch it's unreal

Coc-ker

iTrader: (1)

That's the problem in essence, the people who run the country don't have a clue how life really is.

unclebuck

He's more than out of touch.

The man is a dangerous lunatic.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

And blaming the recession on the government is not out of touch?

Devildog

New Labour may not have caused it, of course, but their policies of spend, sell, waste, spend some more, waste some more and sell some more to whitewash the holes in their fiscal policy when the going was good and kid on to the public that NL were indeed the "good guys", rather than to have a sound fiscal policy and provide for the probability that one day it will not be so good is most certainly the Governments fault.

Had Gordon not pished away all the benefits of economic growth, we would be far better placed now than we are.

FlightMan

This may come as a shock, but people aren't buying cars because of green taxes.

They're not buying them because they can't get credit, their savings are diminishing due to low IR's and they're worried they'll loose their job. A car is a discretionary purchase, and if you have one right now, you keep it until things get better.

There is nothing GB can do about it, short of saving the world, and he's working on that.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Really, but SN NSR tellls me different

Paul3446

It made me laugh when the government was talking about bailing out Jaguar/Land Rover, when they've spent the last few years trying to tax their cars off the road!

Scooby Snacks 23

Didn't the introduction of a new registration every 6 months effectively knacker the (at least 2nd hand) car market?

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

stilover

The slump in car prices can be firmly placed at the hand of Mr. Brown.

Raising "Gas Guzzling cars" (Hate that term) tax to £400, and the possibility of having it raised every year, year on year until it's somewhere near £1000 pa has vastly reduced people needs/wants for a new car.

Part ex prices tumbling has also affected peoples decession to buy a new car.

Well done Gordon. It's firmly blown back in your face. You're losing 100's Millions pounds a year in lost VAT on new car sales.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

So why aren't toyota, citroen and peugeot selling ****e loads of Aygos, C1's and 107's where tax isn't an issue?

Lee247

Tell you what else is galling. The tax on Company Cars. The value of cars has drastically reduced, yet they are still taxing at the original high price.

Car value per manufacturer, say 20k, sold for say 15k ( guessing before you all pounce quoting figures). Taxed on 20k.

stilover

Because your part Ex is worth £12.50.

rr_ww

Sad thing is that people aren't servicing them either! Both Sales and Service at the franchises seems to be drying up to. And closing.

Some of that should go to the EU for introducing block exemption and the manfacturers for paying way below market rates for the numerous Warranty issues modern cars have.

Paul3446

Quote:
"Sad thing is that people aren't servicing them either! Both Sales and Service at the franchises seems to be drying up to. And closing."


Agh, my heart bleeds for the poor old dealers. For years they've been ripping us off, the last time I went to Haddocks they charged me £750 for a cambelt service, needless to say I haven't been back in 4 years.

My other half never uses dealers either, but wanted to get her Civic cambelt done at the Honda dealer in Colchester. She called 3 times to be told that there was no-one answering in the Service Dept. She asked if they could call her back, which they did a day later when she was out. So she called again to leave a message for them and they never rung her back at all. That was about a week ago, she has now booked it in to a little local garage.

I can only assume Honda don't need the £400 she would have given them.

greenonedave

just to add to the flavour of why people aint buying cars, Richmond council have introduced a system that people with gas guzzlers ( I hate that too )
pay more to use the councils parking spaces.( I thought that cars dont emit co2 when parked ). More joined up thinking.

mykp

Having been speaking to two of my customers about this, both sell vehicles for a living and the picture I get for them is that peoples expections of what there car is now worth is still substancially higher than the trade in price. This is leaving some people with negative equity on their cars. So even if they swap them they still have debt on the old one or this is putting them off.

Also finance is proving more difficult to get hold of and if they can get finance for a customer then the interest rate is much higher than it was even 6 months ago.

Bonehead

Slightly childish but it made me smile.
For some reason me and some colleagues got sent along to some stupid day long conference about making Lincoln a greener place. I'd kept reasonibly quietb but said enough they knew I wasn't a believer. When those around my table got onto the subject of powerful cars. During a break in the conversation I pipped up with "I've got a green car", the tree huggers and sandal wearers all looked suprised but pleased while my boss started rolling his eyes as he knew what came next, "Yeah, a Green Subaru Impreza Turbo"

mykp

Brilliant. Must remember to steal and re-use that.


Frequently

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

This is nothing new, my mate got hammered for this to park his Focus ST outside house in Hackney.

Bonehead

Who's house?, his?
If so, they should swivel

rr_ww

Maybe you'd like to spare thought for the productive Technicians that a) used to get less than 10% of that bill. and b) lost their jobs as the companies closed because they had more un-productive staff* than the ones ACTUALLY making the money.

* I'm not even joking. Place I used to work at had 5 technicians. But 2 service advisors, 2 admin girls, a manager, 2 cleaners and 2 drivers. Parts had 2 but that pays for itself.

Petem95

UK debt is so out of control, we can't even join the Euro. Instead of bailing out the car industry, how about the government slash outgoings so that we can actually pay off some of the UK's debt - then maybe oneday they'll be in a position where they can actually have money to use to support industry. Bailing out the banks is maybe different, because the system would collapse if they went under en-mass.

The government needs to;

a) get real with the pension situation - stop pretending the UK can afford to pay all these public sector state pensions, when it cant

b) lose the NHS - nice if we could afford it, but we can't

c) ignore the PC police, and just deport all immigrants who dont work/have never worked and stop accepting anymore - we dont need them, dont want them, and cant afford them

That would be a start, and would save 10's or 100's of billions. This country needs to start getting itself back on its feet before its too late.

stuart n

Not really. The warning signs were there 2 years ago when figures put the average house hold debt at over £17,000. That with the house prices rocketing out of control was always going to unsutainable. Rather than take action then "prudent" Gordon burried his head in the sand. The result is that with an election looming he's throwing money left right and centre in the hope he can fix the problem.
When the last interest rate rise happened a couple of years back the bank of England said not to worry as it takes 2 years for any rate adjustment to filter through. So using that equation the benfit of the recent cuts in interest rates should be seen in 2011.
The government aren't entirely to blame for this recession but they're not blameless either.

lozgti

As well as the governments help to kick the industry whilst it is down,it hasn't helped that the car market is awash with cars from the credit crazy days.

Every man and his dog was out 'buying' cars or leasing them.

When's the last time you saw a really old car?

Do you gasp when you see a porsche or BMW or Jaguar? No because everyone has one so no wonder they are worth stuff all

RyanSTI

iTrader: (1)

thats spot on. im sure these people are bread in country manors and never see or have to do anything for themselves.

just a slice of good news though on the car industy, the last 2 weeks have been the busyest ever where i work. the amount of people and inqurys has gone through the roof.