Ford list prices are due to fall between 6% and 15% for Ka, Fiesta, Focus and Kuga models in August. This is because fleet drivers are taxed on the list price, not the transaction price (the transaction price means the net discounted price to a fleet operator) and Ford is focussing on securing this business ahead of individual motorists.

Kevin Quigg, Ford Dealer Council chairman said: “There was an immediate effect in the showroom as a result of the lower list prices on large cars [in April and for fleet buyers again]. Ford dealers are delighted to see the company continuing to lead the market by applying the initiative across the entire Ford car range.”

Sadly Ford dealers didn’t do at all well in the recent AutoExpress poll of c20,000 customers so perhaps Mr Quigg needs to address the service gap in terms of reported poor standards of workmanship, poor technical knowledge and poor helpfulness scores otherwise they won’t keep that business, fleet or private buyers.

I was surprised I must say to read the Daily Telegraph’s InBrief PR this week stating that Vauxhall and Ford dealers, Britain’s two biggest selling car brands, are the worst in the country, according to this survey.

Could it be that Ford is too busy courting the fleet wallet to bother about the private and typically female purse? This wouldn’t be very foxy at all because so many of us drive Fords and with Hyundai champing at the value for money, customer service and warranty bit they could lose that female support if they don’t pick their skirts up fast.

FOXY Steph

Find out about your female friendly garage choices in FOXY’s Good Garage Guide for women.

See which female friendly garages could look after your car near you.

Join FOXY Lady Drivers Club to sample a female friendly motoring support service with the best deals on offer for women drivers.

Following in the footsteps of the likes of Inchcape’s Autobytel car buying website, and others like it, Ford is now cutting out the middle man franchised dealerships and selling cars direct and online.

How do Ford franchised dealers feel about this I wonder?

Especially after comments from their MD confirms what we know already; that many motorists, especially female shoppers, prefer online convenience/anonymity and the joy of not having to haggle with a commission driven salesman who feels the need to demonstrate his male superior knowledge …

From FOXY’s point of view this is good news because a large number of our members drive older Fords, like a canny deal and, with our support if they need it, are prepared to buy a brand they trust without even test driving the car before placing an order.

The only problem is that Ford will sell them a Ford , not help women find the best deal or car on the market, from other makes, to suit their needs and budget. So there will always be a demand for a foxycars buying service for females.

Ford Online’s MD, Steve Hood says “It shows that consumers are now ready to fully use the internet in the car industry.”

The site is backed by a team of Ford specialists working from a UK contact centre to help female customers find the best cars, come up with part exchange values and low prices… without a visit to a showroom.

FOXY advice? Always shop around first. This promises to be a good service and we like Fords but it’s too soon to see how their prices compare yet. Better still – why not join FOXY Lady Drivers Club who’ll pass on their insider nous and you can do the car buying homework and the deal together?

FOXY Steph

To find a female friendly car dealership for MOT’s, car servicing and repairs, visit FOXY Choice. All garages listed have signed the FOXY Promise© to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell you services you don’t want or need’.

The driver of the Audi was taken to hospital suffering from severe back injuries, whiplash and shock. His wife, who was a front seat passenger, sustained injuries to her back and neck and their two children, aged 19 and 21, suffered whiplash. The driver remained in the A&E Department at Leicester Royal Infirmary for over five hours before being discharged and was unable to carry out his job as a quality control manager for six weeks as a result. His wife was also unable to return to work for three weeks and was put on painkillers for two weeks and required to take extra medicine to reduce muscle spasm.

After filing a compensation claim against the driver of the Vectra, the family won close to £8,000 in compensation although the driver of the Vectra initially denied liability but changed his statement after the case was taken to court. This included over £3,000 for the man’s loss of earnings, personal injuries and emotional damage, some £2000 for his wife’s injuries and loss of earnings plus over £1,300 for each of their children.

FOXY Steph

Find out about FOXY Lady Drivers Club‘s ‘no fault’ accident assistance service included in a FOXY Classic lifetime subscription.

No matter if your Alfa is a Giulia, a Spider or a modern MiTo, your personal photo can be added to Alfa Romeo’s centenary mosaic which has been designed to celebrate this milestone birthday.

“Many of the images capture those special memories or magical moments which bring all Alfa owners together; from the special birthday cake to the son helping to clean his dads car for the first time,” says Damien Dally UK Brand Communications Manager for Alfa Romeo.

If FOXY was writing this, read Mums and Daughters of course because, as the photo confirms, women drivers love and drive Alfas too…

Any Motoring Juliets who do this before June 18 will also be included in a prize draw to win an exclusive Alfa Romeo goodie bag and a pair of VIP tickets to the Goodwood Festival of Speed (2 – 4 July).

To submit your photo before July 5th please visit www.alfacentenary.co.uk.

To find out about genuinely good and female friendly garages who can service or repair your Alfa Romeo, have a look at the FOXY Choice website or join FOXY Lady Drivers Club to get a 1:1 recommendation near you.

FOXY Steph

“Fashion fades, only style remains the same.”  Coco Chanel

The offer is called an Econo Check service which costs £30 and comes with a £15 voucher to be claimed against the next scheduled service.

Garage technicians will carry out a 15-minute check on the car including tyre pressure and condition as well as oil and air filter cleanliness. They will also fit ‘a data logger’ to the vehicle’s diagnostic port which remains in the cabin for seven days after which either the dealer or the customer will detach it and return it to Ford by post. Assuming she has driven enough to make sense of this in the meantime, this will give Ford enough information about the driver’s speed, anticipation, braking and gear change to create a personalised report (the Econo Check) which will then be emailed to the customer.

This report is likely to recommend

1    driving style adjustments that could reduce fuel consumption and emissions by up to 25%.
2    eco driver training, which could be provided through Ford’s driver training partner, the AA.
3    upgrading to a new Ford Econetic car.

“The primary function of this is to help change driving styles so drivers can become greener and save money” a Ford spokesman said.

And the secondary function, says FOXY, is to re-engage with male and female drivers they have lost touch with and who have gone to cheaper independent garages AND to sell them new cars of course.

By and large, this is a good thing but whether cost conscious motorists running older cars will choose to pay £30 to be sold a full service at dealership rates, driver training (unlikely if they’re male ) or a new car in tough economic times is a very different matter.

And the independents will react of course.

FOXY Steph

To find out about FREE quarterly FOXY Car Fitness Checks that include tyres, oil, coolant, CO2 emissions and a seasonal item such as your air conditioning system, visit FOXY Lady Drivers Club.

Even though we can’t park as well as men, allegedly , and we do have the occasional dings, we make better company as we sing and chat our way through car  journeys with our children.

Find out more about motoring mums and why children seem to prefer us to dads…

In my experience car journeys are the best way to find out what’s going on in my son’s life and we do seem to talk a lot!

FOXY Steph

Find out how FOXY Lady Drivers Club assists all women drivers when it comes to their choice of female friendly garages, car insurance services and car dealerships

No matter her age, most females today are shrewd, canny and astute when it comes to shopping – which is what the brand FOXY is all about of course. They are looking for evidence of quality, value for money (not necessarily the cheapest price), ethical behaviour and female friendliness.

And whilst you might think that all businesses should be able to sign the female friendly FOXY Promise, sadly many national garage groups can’t because they pay their staff commission as part of their income. This means that the likes of the big garage names we see on TV can’t promise that their staff won’t sell us tyres we don’t need, for example, simply to top up their wage. Whereas if they were earning a decent flat rate salary, they’d be operating to female friendly FOXY Promise standards like you’d expect them to be doing.

So, when it’s to do with national or regional garage chains, selling tyres and fastfit services in particular, you need to have your wits about you and to take a second opinion if you think you might be being ripped off here.

But at least you can choose a FOXY Choice listed female friendly garage because it will have signed the FOXY Promise to ‘never knowingly overcharge, patronise or sell customers anything they don’t need or want’. And if any listed garage doesn’t get this right, you can tell FOXY Choice and we’ll help you sort it out.

Ultimately we reserve the right to expel any garage subscriber that clearly isn’t good enough AND we’ll help spread the word to members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club.

Keep us posted please.

FOXY Steph

Whereas, of the 60% of men who drove to/for and from work, no less than 94 per cent of them had been offered driver training as an employee benefit.

A clear case of female discrimination however you read this.

Here are a few personal observations as well as ones based on anecdotal evidence from FOXY Lady Drivers Club‘s experience…

• Yes equality is supposed to apply in the workplace but scratch the surface and it rarely does…
• Yes female friendly employers do exist but they might be offering driver training as an optional ‘employee benefit’ which women may perceive to be for men, and prefer a more enjoyable benefit…
• Statistically young male drivers are a far greater accident risk on the roads whereas most women are more cautious, drive slower, have lesser accidents and so on… so why not target the men first?
• When money is tight, why pay to train the better gender driver?
• Women are unlikely to volunteer for training if given a choice – just have a look at the critical male faces in the IAM photo to see why this might be
• Few employers have picked up on their Corporate Homicide and Corporate Manslaughter Act responsibilities (of which driver training and FOXY’s free car fitness checks are THE perfect combination to demonstrate an employer’s duty of care to their female employees)

The poll also found that only 47% of females feel perfectly safe on the roads but isn’t this likely to be more to do with the other drivers and who of us does feel perfectly safe on our roads anyway...

Simon Elstow, IAM Drive & Survive Head of Training makes some interesting points, reminding us that DfT 2007 stats compare 530 females involved in KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) accidents with 1,640 men (a greater percentage of male drivers I’d have thought) and that the most accident prone times are in the morning and evening when we’re all driving to and from work.

Simon says “We know that women have fewer KSI’s but they are most vulnerable at junctions and are involved in more low speed accidents which can result in hefty costs to employers.

Both IAM and FOXY Lady Drivers Club would like to encourage more businesses to offer driver training and assessment to ALL employees, not just because it’s surely best practice but also to demonstrate their duty of care.

What I like about the IAM is their offer to provide a female friendly training programme which recognises that women have massively different needs from their male counterparts. One size does not fit all’ on this occasion and thank you for sharing this research with us IAM.

FOXY Steph

Ford has found¹ that millions of male and female motorists (another massively extrapolated survey mind you) are taking unnecessary risks by scrimping on essential car maintenance in an attempt to reduce their overall motoring costs. Nearly one in five motorists interviewed had no breakdown cover and 15 per cent say they have skipped or postponed routine car servicing to save money.

This situation is worse among younger drivers including students living on a meagre grant. One in three 18 to 24 year old drivers are making do without roadside assistance, with drivers in London most likely (22 per cent) to take this risk.

Mike Weatherston, Group Marketing Manager at Hendy Ford, said: “Whilst trying to avoid the cost, many of these drivers could regret skipping basic maintenance and roadside cover.”

How true Mike. My concern is that this lack of regular maintenance and servicing could be the cause of an unnecessary accident which injures someone (what price economy then). Few motorists realise that if a car is seen to be unroadworthy, the insurer can withdraw cover as well.

I’d also add two further considerations to this important debate.

1 Many women drivers dread going to garages or dealerships because they don’t consider them to be female friendly places.

2 Many motorist, male and female alike, think that the industry MOT is a safety check for the year when it’s only a snapshot on the day.

Yes they should know these things but if they don’t because the industry doesn’t welcome them (as in 1) or explain this well enough (as in 2), whose fault is that?

The answer is that there is a massive communications gap and opportunity for the industry to get these messages across to the general public not just petrolheads, so that all motorists, including women drivers, have absolutely no doubt in their mind that

• regular car maintenance keeps them, their family, other motorists and potentially pedestrians safe
• annual car servicing doesn’t have to be expensive (depends on the mileage)
• female friendly garages are best (see FOXY Choice)
• members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club can claim free car fitness checks from participating female friendly garages and dealerships.

Surely it’s time for the industry to do something about all this, not just produce more me-too research, year in, year out?

One positive way forward would be for a leading insurer to offer cheap car insurance for women drivers (in this instance) who can prove they have maintained their car regularly by having it checked by a professional foxy approved and female friendly UK garage. I mention this because FOXY could organise this for them of course and our Car Fitness Checks are free. Cars would be safer, motorists would visit appointed garages more often and the best garages are likely to get her work and referrals.

FOXY Steph

Find out about other female friendly UK garages

Find out about motoring advice, a club helpdesk and special offers for foxy lady drivers

¹ = 2,245 UK adults, interviewed by YouGov for Ford Motor Company Limited, between 14-16 April 2010

Over a third (35%) of car owners, including a few women drivers perhaps, now say they carry out a service themselves. The lion share ie 69% of motorists, including a lot of foxy lady drivers we are sure, confessed that don’t feel confident in servicing their own car. This is probably a good thing I’d have thought.

But, according to Kwik Fit, as many as 2.5 million cars on our roads today have not been serviced last year (this was a research sample of 2000 motorists remember; not sure if it helps to extrapolate into millions here…) which is to do with the recession and motorists wanting to save money.

Spelling out the blindingly obvious here, we are told that as cars have become increasingly sophisticated, needing computerised engine management systems, the confidence of (mostly male I presume) motorists to ‘self-service’ their cars has fallen dramatically. Gosh.

And their research tells them that motorists driving cars that are over 11 years old are considerably more likely to [think they can] DIY a service (because they can get at the engine no doubt) than those driving cars under two years old. Needless to say, many women drivers still think, incorrectly as it happens, that they need to take their car to a main dealership to maintain its warranty.

If nothing more, this research confirms what FOXY knows already about many women drivers based on anecdotal evidence inside the Club; it also acts as an important reminder for all of us that

• cars that aren’t maintained regularly or serviced properly aren’t as safe as those that are

• unsafe cars are less reliable and more accident prone

• cars that cause accidents and are then be seen to be poorly maintained ie unsafe can invalidate insurance claims

• much worse, anyone who runs a poorly maintained/badly serviced car could kill a passenger, other driver or pedestrian – what price economy then?

• few motorists are good enough at DIY car maintenance
• many dodgy garages don’t service cars well enough (which is the REAL elephant in the room here, hence the resistance of so many women to dread going to garages)

• the industry needs to work harder to communicate servicing prices – this needn’t be expensive, in fact surely it’s better to charge less and see more motorists that might need genuine work done afterwards?

• that the MOT is but a safety snapshot on the day – it is never an alternative to regular maintenance and servicing

• that members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club can claim free quarterly car fitness checks from a network of female friendly garages across the UK.

FOXY Steph

PS: Thank you for reminding me that the garage industry needs to get its marketing act together for women drivers in particular.

Find out about free car fitness checks for women drivers who are members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club.