ONE than five million motorists are driving dangerous cars says leading breakdown service Britannia Rescue. Its survey found that

• The most common faults were worn tyres, defective brakes and faulty exhaust pipes. It goes without saying that worn tyres and faulty brakes cause accidents and could lead to a motorist being held responsible for injuries caused to another.

• One in five drivers had known about the fault on their vehicle for more than six months but not bothered to do anything about it.

• One in three said they could not afford to fix the problem whereas one in 10 said they did not have time to get their car repaired, neither of which would be an excuse in law if they caused an accident and someone was injured or killed.

• Some 5% of vehicles in need of repair had broken or missing wing mirrors, while about the same number had broken head or tail lights.

Steph Savill of female friendly marketing service FOXY Choice suspects that some motorists have become complacent about their cars, imagining that if they are fairly new they are probably safe.

“Just as the recent vehicle recalls by so many manufacturers tell us, even nearly new cars can have serious safety issues and we mustn’t treat our cars like household appliances, doing little to take care of them and expecting to throw them away when they get old. Even those of us who are competent at checking our car’s tyres, oil and water levels can miss important safety concerns because we don’t have the professional eye to spot the unusual.”

Steph recommends that all motorists have their cars checked by garage professionals on a regular basis and explains that

“A dangerous car can cause a serious accident that could kill or seriously injure the driver, passengers, pedestrians and the occupants of other cars. Those who own a poorly maintained car may find that their insurer withdraws cover if it can be proven that the accident was caused because the car owner had neither carried out regular maintenance nor had it serviced often enough.”

Find out where the good and female friendly garages are in your area.

Find out how women drivers can save money on everyday motoring bills including garage charges.

FOXY Steph

Whilst the current emphasis is on the cost of motoring I have no doubt that it will soon return to the environmental cost of motoring when those who can do without a car will preach at those of us who can’t about the impact on our planet. And that this message concerns a lot of us, men and women drivers alike.

So when you know that you need your car because there isn’t a viable public transport system or you can’t make sense of the bicycle, city car clubs or shared transport, it’s good to know that the car manufacturers are beavering away in the relative background doing all they can to make the new cars women drivers buy in future much greener and produce less CO2 – this will also keep the automotive industry vital for the future.

I am pleased to read that Ford, for example, isn’t stopping at eco-engine technology but is also looking at ways to produce their on board components by recycling wherever possible.

Not only stepping up their research into plastics, rubber, foam, film and fabric with a view to developing alternative bio-based materials that are functional, durable and cost-effective (and therefore steering clear of oil-based products) they are also developing all-new materials that include more natural ingredients such as soy flour, hemp and cellulose.

Test results are encouraging and show that natural fibre-reinforced plastics can reduce weight by up to 30 per cent which means better fuel consumption and lower CO2 emissions.

They are also working with a biodegradable plastic called polylactic acid (PLA), derived from the sugars in corn, sugarbeet and cane so that a plastic part (made from PLA) would biodegrade after its life cycle in just 90 to 120 days, compared with 1,000 years in a landfill for a traditional, petroleum-based plastic.

Just think about the applications here; for carpets, floor mats, upholstery and interior trim pieces that are injection moulded.

Ford has also joined a three-year research project into a new wood/plastic compound known as “liquid wood” which looks as if it will be capable of being reprocessed up to five times, with an overall near-neutral CO2 balance.

Ford’s material researchers (at Dunton Technical Centre in Essex) are required to develop components from recycled material that will not compromise quality, durability or performance in any way but they will reduce CO2 emissions and therefore the cost of motoring in terms of £££s and our planet.

Just to give you an idea of where these can be used…

• Heater and air conditioner housing made from 25 per cent recycled plastics
• Replacement bumpers made from 20 per cent recycled bumpers
• Interior carpets made from 20 per cent recycled carpet material
• Battery tray made from 50 per cent mixed recycled plastics
• Wheel arch liners made from up to 100 per cent recycled polypropylene
• Air cleaner assembly made from 25 per cent recycled plastics
• Fabric seat option made from 100 per cent recycled material
• Roof lining, parcel shelf, instrument panel, insulation and sound-proofing materials include recycled textiles

Sources for this recycled material are everyday items like plastic bottles, bottle tops, computer and TV casings, CDs, household carpets and even denim jeans. For example, the noise insulation in all Ford vehicles is made from jeans and reclaimed car seat upholstery.

Every little bit helps. Maybe we’ll see the automotive industry investing in landfill schemes soon .

FOXY Steph

I can’t imagine it’s just me that feels irritated by the latest ActonCO2 advertising campaign stating ‘Drive five miles less a week by combining your journeys’.

Not only is this patronising message costing taxpayers millions to promote but it’s obvious that ACTONCO2 thinks male and female motorists are stupid enough to be driving unnecessary miles in the UK and are not capable of working this elementary statement out for ourselves.

Now I might run FOXY Lady Drivers Club, a life assistance motoring club for women, but that doesn’t mean I use my car any more than I absolutely have to, but sometimes I absolutely have to…

On New Year’s Eve, for example, I had some last minute envelopes to post after business so I walked to our local post box and arrived five minutes before the post should have been collected by Royal Mail. I then found that it had been collected early.  So I had to go home, get the car and drive to the nearest Post Office for a 6pm collection.

And last night our 16 year old son travelled by bus and train to our nearest town (c8m as the crow flies) to go to the cinema there with some friends. His return train was cancelled, he then missed the last bus and Dad had to get the car out to collect him.

With a non existent regular bus or train service in our rural situation, what should I have done in these two instances and many more like them? Perhaps I should have blamed the Royal Mail (fat chance) and failed to carry out my business promises to customers or told my son to risk walking home at midnight ‘to act on CO2′…

Last night on TV I caught one of the ActonCO2 ads on TV that told me motorists were the transport bad guys – this might have been featured many times before as I am not a regular ITV watcher. And in today’s Sunday Telegraph an ad accuses women drivers of driving five miles more than we need to. Of course it doesn’t say ‘this is for silly women drivers’ but which is the more likely gender to ‘collect kids’ ‘go to ‘Dry Cleaners’, ‘visit the Chemist’, ‘John’s house’ or ‘Grandma’ as their half page and again very expensive ad so helpfully maps out? That’s my point.

To me these journeys are the essence of what many community Mums do in their busy week, often fitting in part time work, emergency shopping, community good works and multiple children drop offs as well. We need our cars.

As you can see I am fed up with being told what I can or cannot do with my car that I already pay heavily to run. Like most other women drivers, I am not stupid, just a responsible motorist trying to manage a family budget that includes my car.

With the cost of motoring so high already, and on the up again thanks to the new rate of VAT for starters, I do not need anyone preaching at me, especially when it is they who are wasting OUR scarce financial resources to make motorists feel guilty when we have no choice but to drive in typical everyday lives.

Before we know it, everywhere will be like Brighton, the least friendly British city for motorists and one I avoid whenever I can for that very reason…

Please HM Government’s DfT do something constructive with OUR marketing money instead of preaching at us.

To fulfil your green agenda, why not promote FOXY Lady Drivers Club’s free car fitness checks including emissions?

Or explain to women drivers the safety, reliability and CO2 implications of having your car serviced regularly and by a garage that is good enough to do the job professionally and at a fair price.  So many cars have gone without servicing in 2009 for financial reasons…

At least this would be a positive message for a change and could do the motor industry some good as a consequence.

FOXY Steph

“I am only one but I am one. I cannot do everything but I can do something”.

Leading insurer esure has just conducted new research revealing 62% of British motorists are considering an electric or hybrid car as their next vehicle purchase. Just enter eco cars uk into Google to see some 19m results – this is competitive territory…

However 93% of motorists say this is fundamentally dependant on a greener vehicle cash incentives scheme from the Government.

No surprises here of course; I know from my dealings with women drivers who are members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club that green motoring is particularly close to our ethical hearts and shopping agenda!

As things stand, the government is peddling a mixed message to female motorists, encouraging many women drivers to scrap perfectly serviceable cars (we know of many really sad cases here) in pursuit of a cheap new one which has been produced overseas ;-(

At least it has helped some UK dealers to stay afloat financially and to adopt a more positive frame of mind. Remove the scrappage scheme (this will end in February 2010 if not before) and I fear for those car dealerships that seem incapable of strategic marketing of their own without an industry showing them how and holding their hand…

However, other than encouraging bargain-minded motorists to trade up (and support the UK’s many motoring-related businesses) this scrappage scheme has certainly served to demonstrate that what foxy female motorists want are small cars and economic motoring - Hyundai for example have outsold Ford here this year in terms of the value of its i10/i20/i30 cars and the Hyundai 5 year warranty.  This is remarkable but may well be explained by Ford’s considered need to raise its prices in a recession – I bet they regret this now. Needless to say Hyundai is ramping up their UK car dealer coverage to make the most of this new car sales bonanza and I would expect them to want to keep this competitive cost advantage post scrappage.

So the message to the government is clear. Incentivise motorists to buy cars and they will as the scrappage scheme confirms.

Just try to get the campaign focused on greater UK gain next time. If the message is to be ‘green’ then the industry is ahead of the game. All you have to do is reward motorists who don’t want to have to pay the higher price a la Prius, knowing that the resale value of the car is set to slump as the development costs are amortised.

In this way the UK motor industry, the UK economy and the global environment will all benefit as a result.

FOXY Steph

“Have a very good reason for everything you do.”
Laurence Olivier

I am considering adding testimonials to the FOXY Choice website in 2010, having decided against this last year in the light of so many bland and evidently prompted endorsements that I find on other websites.

In an industry where garages don’t have to be licensed or mechanics qualified, how good can an endorsement be to the effect that ‘I’ve been coming here for years and they are nice people..’  if the person giving it doesn’t know how to check that the standard of the workmanship in the workshop is good enough.

But a recommendation that arrived yesterday caught my attention and summed up what makes a garage female friendly in my opinion, over and above the FOXY minimum standards we expect.

So in case anyone is reading this and wonders what the female friendly FOXY Choice website is all about, and what a garage, dealer or dealership has had to do to be listed by us (other than sign the female friendly FOXY Promise of course) this testimonial speaks volumes about the level of service we are working hard to identify and promote for women.

It is about a FOXY Choice garage subscriber in Sheffield which is also a Unipart Car Care Centre and called Chris Noyland Bill Rhodes.

This is what one of their female customers, Christine Antunes, has said about them.

“I was recommended to Noyland+Rhodes a few years ago and have not looked back. We have always been impressed by their friendly service but also by their reasonable prices.
I am a mom with 2 young children and I recently developed a problem with my car’s clutch. I had just dropped off my toddler at nursery and almost all the red lights came on.

I had nowhere else to go and I prayed to get to the garage, which I did thankfully.

I had my 3 month old daughter with me at the time and the manager, Phil, said he would fit my car in and try and sort it out asap. He was really friendly and helpful. They also offered me a loan car, which was such a help, as my car repair took 3 days. I could use the car at no extra cost, which I could not believe! My car was still under warranty and Phil took my details, phoned the necessary people up and sorted it all out for me. What a star.

I would highly recommend Noyland+Rhodes to other women drivers for their friendly and professional customer service.“

Thank you Christine for troubling to tell us some good news.  I agree that this is a sign of a caring garage that goes the extra mile for women. Well done Phil.

FOXY Steph

“Four words sum up what lifted successful individuals above the crowd – a little bit more. They did what was expected, and a little bit more.”

A. Lou Vickery.

The industry tells us that prices will never be as low again  so what’s stopping us from buying in 2009 (other than Economics of course…)?

The RMI thinks it’s the scarcity of finance so they are planning to bridge that gap as a bank of sorts. A wise move and likely to be profitable when sorted.

Despite the recession Ford, Vauxhall, Lexus, Toyota and other manufacturers are quietly planning to raise new car prices on their most popular models; another reason to buy now for less than later, when they’ll cost more .

Used car sales are booming -  ‘phenomenal’ reports Trident Garages and auction houses are doing especially well says Honest John.

Nothing like online auctions to reach a bigger audience (think eBay) and get a better price than an ad in the local paper – all allowing competition to take its natural course.

And perhaps the government might support the industry’s suggestion of rewarding motorists financially so they trade in an older car for a new one (referred to as scrappage by the trade – what a ghastly word) to shore up our industry and jobs at risk.

Prior to 09 sales this month many car dealerships have been surviving on used car sales and aftersales alone this year.

Thank goodness there were no ‘head in the sand’, ‘can’t afford to spend anything’ or ‘we don’t need to discount’ tactics suggested in the briefing meeting reported in this week’s AM Magazine. All good and constructive ideas instead.

All delegates agreed that customers expect a good deal in a recession, as evidenced by High Street businesses.  Hence the fantastic new and pre registered car deals to be found online.

And more competition between franchised dealerships and independents when it comes to car servicing; this is such a great opportunity to develop the relationship of trust needed to tempt her back into the showroom when the time is right.

Ridgeway Group, for example,  is actively price-matching with independents re tyres, exhausts and batteries. That’s good and once again, the customer will be the winner in terms of price and service levels.

Sadly I am not convinced that any 10% aftersales discount card will buy dealer loyalty on its own, but if it comes with added value extras, fixed price servicing menus and the opportunity to check out prices and compare service levels online, then I am confident that more women drivers, for starters, will associate dealerships with providing value for money service levels than they may have done in the past.

Clearly to afford discounts, businesses need to save on their operating costs in some way. I was fascinated to read that, apparently, training costs could be reduced if better employees were recruited in the first place!

Yes I wholeheartedly agree with recruiting the best person for the job (male or female) but I don’t think training is any basis for cost cutting because everyone needs education to keep up with the latest trends and cutting edge technology/knowledge.

And, if it turns out like the Marketing industry in time, those of us with Chartered Marketer and other CIM qualifications are earning more than others – the reality is that the best staff will cost the motor industry more to emply as well.

The bright light on the industry horizon, from FOXY’s point of view, is that the female friendly garages and dealerships perform to higher service levels than those that aren’t  (because most women are more demanding shoppers than men) so female friendly car sales staff (female or male) can be expected to be more successful in showrooms whether they are selling to men or women.

That’s fine by me.

FOXY Steph

PS: By all means follow FOXY on Twitter where we are tweeting about motoring offers, among other things…

I am not surprised that comparison websites are struggling in today’s economy. Apparently there are some 130 me-too websites, like Confused.com and Moneysupermarket.com, all competing to earn commission from services including insurance (motor, home and travel) and finance deals.

Just think about it. Car insurance comparison websites depend on commissions from insurers to pay to market their service (think big TV ads at peak viewing hours…) and the insurers are now haggling over how much they’ll pay for their listings -  such is their buying power in this competitive arena.

But it’s a strategic mess in my opinion and no good can come from the constant and relentless consumer drive towards cheaper and cheaper service.  Buy motor and we’ll discount household; buy this year and we won’t charge more next year; buy buildings and we’ll give you free contents – my head is dizzy and I’m still suspicious.

Moneysupermarket.com now needs to pare its costs to stay competitive and ahead of the rest… Then the rest tighten their belts and they’re all off again – it isn’t a sustainable model without a significant differentiator.

It used to be the case that a woman driver checking out a couple of comparison websites would get a great deal to reward her being the better gender risk.  This is no longer the case as a recent Which? report revealed. Just one example quoted was of a specifically named policy which could be bought for £204 via one search website but only £170 from another (presumably to do with the commission ingredient?). Bad luck foxy lady driver if you chose the wrong comparison site.

Then, with the emphasis on finding the cheapest policy out there, many consumers are risking travelling without holiday insurance or driving without motor insurance cover. More than ever I imagine in today’s economy.  If there was a proper deterrent there wouldn’t be so many getting away with it (10% admitted to driving uninsured at some stage in one survey I read) and the rest of us wouldn’t find ourselves out of pocket when we meet one of these idiots head on.

I find the insurance industry very confusing. Insurers get away with making preposterous claims stating ‘x percentage  of motorists will save more than c£100 by transferring to us’ when this can’t possibly be true of them all.

And those of us that buy cheap, cheap, cheap then find out what we bought when we need it most, when we come to claim. Inconsiderate customer service, policy terms that change (but the motorist can’t see what they are without re-reading the policy), inflexible garage options, poor pay outs and excesses that mean the customer underwrites the lionshare of the claim, not the insurer (who has had the premium up front).

Yes, insurance is a form of gambling whether you are a motorist or an insurer but to see who can win the most business and spend the least on it is undoubtedly what is  happening today with so many insurers in the red.

Why doesn’t the industry measure the quality of the services provided and make this information available? Ask Which? or FOXY to do it for them.  Not just the policy wording but customer satisfaction levels at all stages of their dealings.

And why don’t insurers work harder to keep their customers in the first place? The foxy ones should surely reward their customers to stay with them, before the renewal notice arrives, rather than having to spend more money attracting new business to replace the customers they allowed to jump ship…

I am sure there is a better way to deliver better customer value for money, even in a recession.

FOXY Steph

Yesterday’s Motor Industry news headlines included two contradictory headings…

3 December 2008 – Ford announces battery-powered plans

and

3 December 2008 – Electric car sales drop 58% this year

Elsewhere our papers feature other encouraging eco-motoring stories including Transport Minister Geoff Hoon waxing lyrical about the Tesla and London Mayor Boris Johnson imagining the first genuinely zero emission car (after another slow lap at the Top Gear circuit that is…).

Obviously both trade news headings are accurate; in the same way as new car sales have slumped, electric cars will have been hit too, despite their eco credentials, because they are comparatively much more expensive to buy.

The worry is whether Ford can weather its current trading problems and catch up here with a view to leading the mass market in an electric direction in future. One hopes it has been doing its green motoring homework before now…

Assuming it isn’t too late for Ford to catch up with more imaginative car manufacturers like Citroen, the only way it can do so is if the Government ie tax payers, contribute towards this bill. With 13,000 Ford jobs at stake in Dagenham, Bridgend and Southampton, plus the economic multiplier effect in these regions, could it be that Lord Mandelson is at work, preparing the PR ground for just such an announcement.

I suspect he will have something to say on the subject soon…W- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } –>

FOXY Steph

The motor industry is struggling to sell new and used cars.

Not the small, green and £35 car tax cars that most women drivers want to buy but the bigger, more thirsty CO2 polluters, like Porsche, Land Rover, Jeep and Chrysler (who saw their sales halve comparing August sales with a year ago).

Clearly the fleet market is fundamental, and for as long as company car drivers continue to see the size of their car as a indicator of their business status, the green effect will be muted in terms of model sales.

As it happens, all this is unfair on the driver who chooses a Porsche, for example, then drives few annual miles in it, compared to a driver in a Vauxhall Corsa, who uses it for heavy business use (each paying their tax in fuel of course). Yet one is seen as green, the other as greedy.

A further blow has been the recent refusal of the EU to entertain predictable delay tactics to the compulsory 130g/km average emissions mandate that all manufacturers must now achieve by 2012.

The problem is that car production can’t be turned on or off, just like that. Apparently it takes 7 years to get a new car up to production and something like a 10 year sales lifespan to make it financially viable. Toyota, for example, has no less than 12 new models to be launched next year, six of which are totally new. Whilst I don’t know which ones, let’s hope they include a cheaper Prius and variations on the Aygo and Yaris rather than top emitters, the RAV and Land Cruiser …

What surprises me is the absence of new and creative thinking in an industry where, in many cases, the same old marketing money is being spent on print, when the market is speeding up and becoming more and more online…

And what about the more lucrative area of aftersales? Couldn’t this be sold better, to new prospects, and even act as a new sales channel into showrooms?

I suspect that the likes of car servicing, MOTs and car repairs are looked after by managers who are more operationally minded whereas those in the showroom are more sales-minded. Were these two to talk to each other about marketing methods, maybe the sales individuals might help aftersales be more creative ways in future, to mutual effect.

Providing they can sign up to the female friendly FOXY Promise, they’d do well to look at the new FOXY Choice website which would give them the added opportunity to show off their investment in quality customer facilities too.

The time is right for new thinking here.

From a consumer point of view, all competition is good and if the manufacturers didn’t seethe green movement coming, they will pay a heavy price. The good news is that in any downturn there are lots of opportunities for those that seek them but few, I suspect, for ostriches playing a waiting game…

FOXY Steph