I have been curious about hybrid cars for as long as they’ve been around but I had never driven one so a recent invitation from Lexus to test drive their 2011 CT 200h seemed the perfect opportunity to put this right.

Their invitation arrived via Twitter which I use to keep in touch with members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club and to help spread FOXY Choice’s female friendly message within the UK motor industry. Lexus  had evidently spotted this and tweeted us about their #socialtestdrive service because they wanted as many women drivers to know about this as possible. And how better to test this on behalf of foxy lady drivers everywhere, than to take one of their Social Test Drives myself, which is exactly what I did and why I am now recommending this service to others!

If I’m honest, I didn’t know too much about Lexus either, other than it being a luxury car brand and one that always seemed to appear at the top of customer satisfaction surveys; a long way ahead of the everyday car brand names I was more familiar with. I had unwittingly assumed that this meant that their cars would be very expensive but the list price of the Lexus CT200h hybrid I test drove is just £22,740. When you factor in the savings this means in terms of fuel economy and not having to pay any road tax or  London congestion charge this starts to make it a very attractive proposition indeed.

Test driving a new car
I know from our Club research that many women drivers are nervous about taking a test drive at dealerships and perhaps my feelings are typical of some of theirs.

Whereas my husband seems able to jump in any car and drive it to its limits, I don’t have that kind of instant confidence. I need time to get the feel of any new car before I drive it, spending time adjusting the driving seat and mirrors to my total satisfaction. If I’m to test drive this alone I’ll even flick through the vehicle handbook first (looking for a section titled ‘Important information when test driving this car’ in vain…) just in case. And when I do set out, I’ll always start slowly to familiarise myself with the width and length of the car, its clutch, acceleration and braking style before I can truly relax.

So the thought of taking a test drive with what might be a smug and patronising male salesman (sorry guys but this is in many female minds…) who expects me to just get in and drive, can be daunting. Which may well be why many women take a man with them of course; so the guys can swap technical banter and not bother the driver .

Fortunately Lexus seems to understand all this and is keen to make the car shopping experience as enjoyable as possible for us. I imagine that their test drive arrangements vary across the UK (they’ll tell you this if you tweet #socialtestdrives) but if you head into a Lexus car dealership first you are likely to meet a ‘host’ who’ll do as much or as little for you as you want. If you prefer to browse on your own that’s fine but if you want to know more, your ‘host’ will then involve a sales person. And if you decide to take a test drive you can always ask for a female member of staff to accompany you, wherever this is possible.

So the prospect of test driving the Lexus CT 200h 1.8 SE-I 5dr CVT Auto Hatchback at a time to suit me, from my home base as it turned out, was the perfect scenario. I was able to drive it on rural roads in Sussex before heading into central London to attend Radio 2′s Pop Festival in Hyde Park. The fact I was able to do this almost straightaway, on a combination of wet and dry roads as well, tells you just how easy I found this car to drive.

First impressions
I’m sure you’ve seen the Lexus CT 200h in the adverts fronted by Kylie Minogue. The CT means Compact Tourer by the way and it’s a 1.8 hybrid engine which was launched in the UK in January 2011. It looked just as stylish sitting on my drive and as good luck would have it, if I had been asked to specify a colour, I’d have gone for the Cerulean Blue metallic paint I was looking at, with its stylish black leather seats, spacious interior, reassuringly big wing mirrors and impressively roomy boot.

I was able to take my time, to feel comfortable in the driving seat and to appreciate that the ‘engine’ is really the battery when you first turn it on; so it’s virtually silent. The dashboard lights come on so you know something is happening but you don’t hear the customary vroom which is odd to begin with.

It’s also a semi automatic which I liked; you floor the brake pedal before selecting Drive or Reverse and as soon as you lift your foot the car glides into motion. That’s very smooth but please don’t think it’s a slow mover by any means; it can accelerate from 0 to 62 in 10.3 seconds if you need it to.

As it happened, my husband wasn’t able to come with me that day so I took my 6ft tall 18 year old son instead. This meant I had a self declared expert with me to test out all the onboard gadgets. This required a thorough ‘play’ with them all first of course, after which I got the thumbs up for the music system, the Bluetooth gizmos, SatNav and a very helpful visual reversing screen. It was good to be able to concentrate on the drive of course but I’m confident that even I could have coped with the central menu screen with its radio, music, satnav and cabin heating controls…

Helped by the foolproof SatNav system we travelled smoothly through Croydon and South London suburbs, up a busy Park Lane and into a Marble Arch car park with the minimum of stress. Quickly enough for us to fit in an excellent Sunday lunch at the Cumberland Hotel’s (Gary) Rhodes Brasserie before strolling across the road and into Hyde Park in plenty of time to catch the opening act of the afternoon – Jools Holland.

In more detail
In simple terms (for me that is) the hybrid engine and the battery take it in turns to drive the car as and when this makes best and most economic driving sense. You’d be wrong to imagine that this makes it a sluggish performer though; we really enjoyed the Sport driving mode for a firmer and more zipply drive through the country lanes on our journey home. You don’t have to do anything to recharge the battery of course, it tops itself up from the engine so you don’t need to worry about recharging points – one of the downsides of electric cars as things stand.

This hybrid relationship makes for an impressive 68.9mpg for a combination of urban and rural road driving conditions, like our journey to and from Hyde Park. Band A emissions of 94g/km means that no VED road tax is payable or the London congestion  charge which is a big bonus. And of course you get the three year Lexus warranty, knowing their dealers have a reputation other manufacturers covet when it comes to customer service!

All in all, the basic price for the Lexus CT 200h SE-1 is £18,950 plus VAT bringing it to a very reasonable list price of £22,740 with a 10% Benefits in Kind (BIK) tax rating for business users. You can then add optional features to suit, like parking assist sensors, metallic paint colours and various packages to include cruise control, a back guide reversing monitor and other navigation aids.

Overall I was very impressed and see this as a hard bargain to beat. It’s an impressive package and I’m confident that the Lexus CT 200h will soon become a very foxy car for stylish women drivers who realise that they can get this sort of value for money, the next time they are shopping for a new car.

To take a Lexus Social Test Drive in your area
If you’d like to test drive a Lexus just tweet your requirements to #socialtestdrive. Lexus tells me that they’ll then do all they can to come up with an experience to give you time to bond with their car. This can be an accompanied drive or not. Ordinarily this could take as little as 2 hours to as much as a whole day to suit you.

You can request any model (including the CT200h) and depending on the location they’ll do their best to make sure you get to drive the model of your choice.

So if you’re as curious as I was, why not have a test drive and see for yourself?

FOXY Steph

Under cover of the latest VAT increase, 69% of manufacturers have raised their new car prices by an average of £142.74 says CAP, who operate a database of new vehicle prices and technical data.

And an unknown 29.5% have reduced their prices by an average of £108.73 according to CAP stats.

In case you wanted to know which ones raised their prices and which ones didn’t, all their PR says is that European manufacturers applied the heaviest increases whereas Japanese and Korean manufacturers have made minimal adjustments, averaging around £10, which is perfectly reasonable and can easily be justified by the extra 2.5% VAT.

So now we all know that some manufacturers recognise that this is not a kind time to raise prices for motorists whereas others might imagine they could get away with this under cover of VAT.

But it isn’t very clear at all, other than the fact that we wouldn’t have been told otherwise.

FOXY Steph

Women should seek advice about fair prices and how to negotiate a real deal for their next new car.

It’s New Years Day and a time when our thoughts are supposed to turn to resolutions for the year ahead.

And mine has landed on the ‘imperfect but with many good bits’ motor industry that I believe can be helped towards a brighter future with a thorough makeover… for those that deserve to succeed that is.

For example, let’s say a management consultant is called in to review a struggling business’s performance and recommends that the culture of that organisation needs to be changed. You’d start at the top wouldn’t you? You’d decide where you want to be, look at the way forward, some heads would roll and chances are the consultant would be employed to facilitate the journey. Sounds familiar anyone?

Now let’s see how a struggling industry like the UK motor industry would attempt to do this.  Needless to say I am not being paid to do that consultancy job and it wouldn’t be a quick job if I was, but I am happy to start off the ‘Where We Are At’ bit at least and would welcome contributions from those better qualified in the industry…

1    In 2010 the industry is in the doldrums with some notable pockets of exceptions, such as car parts for DIYers…

2    Fewer new cars are being sold; private motorists make do and even the rich realise that it isn’t good for their image to be seen driving flashy cars when others are really struggling.

3    Manufacturers have to plan ahead so they can’t be as flexible as they’d like – their stocks and lines for 2011 were decided ages ago. So they compete for perceived unique selling points or price advantage – some bravely attempting to repositioning their brands up or down market. The electric bandwagon rolls forward quietly with the all-knowing Chinese on the brink of entering the volume market but for a few known quality issues to resolve…

4    Fleets are now contracting cars for 4 years not 3 wanting low running costs throughout.

5    Those that want a nearly new car are finding them few and far between as a consequence of recent new car supplies.

6    Because they don’t have to, cash strapped motorists are postponing garage servicing so their cars aren’t as safe as they should be and garages without a location or brand advantage are struggling to be seen as good or different.

7    Even worse, cars aren’t being maintained well, especially the new ones otherwise why would so many fail their first MOT?

8    Just as worrying, motorists who don’t know any better choose

• the cheapest used car not realising the salesman knows why it’s cheap
• DIY repairs to save money but might not buy the best parts
• garages that follow a basic motor industry code and/or are good garage scheme members not realising that neither scheme requires them to employ qualified/trained or accredited mechanics
• MOT and car servicing deals from businesses they don’t know, running the gauntlet of rip off dealers, shoddy workmanship and unscrupulous dealers.

9    Complaints are seen as the norm and caveat emptor still applies in many areas. In 2010 a Which? undercover mystery garage shopping reports that nearly 90% of sampled garages (including dealerships) missed or ignored at least one potentially dangerous fault on the cars that had been doctored in advance. Much the same as in 2007′s survey by the way. And the relentless pace of used cars and garage complaints keeps the Office of Fair Trade’s (OFT) Consumer Direct staff employed having seemingly backed away from the recent Super Complaint opportunity that might have led to regulation and quality control.

10   Shoppers are using the internet to save time and money but also to avoid stressful garage and dealership visits – including many women who account for some 50% of customers and seem to be the least happy with the male dominated  ‘too blokey’ culture that doesn’t seem to understand their different shopping needs and demands…

Got the picture?   So where does the motor industry want to be in future – from 2011 onwards?

Here’s my contribution but as I am not being paid for this , I’ll be brief.

The UK motor industry needs a better image, more ambitious quality standards, a more ethical regard for the safety of motorists and more female recruits because women matter and need a voice.

This all demonstrates the need for joined up motor industry thinking in all these areas with higher level, better, specialist and totally independent public communications for all motorists. This needs to include unbiased, whole picture and down to earth information and advice about cars, garage services, insurance and finance products so better shopping choices can be made.

A good example of unhelpful in-fighting in the industry is the looming ‘Trust My Garage’ launch in 2011.  Looking at this from the motorists perspective (which a trade body is not best placed to do), like it or not, we already have the still fairly new Motor Industry Service and Repair Code and the imaginatively titled Good Garage Scheme so what good will a third one be, run by another trade body and reserved for their members, when none of the three equate to or promote qualified or accredited staff.

Which is what FOXY Choice does, by the way, and why an independent organisation like FOXY will always be a more trustworthy arbiter than one funded by interested parties.

What the UK motor industry needs to do instead is

• explain this and a lot more to the motorist who deserves this knowledge
• identify the genuinely better than the rest schemes and
• empower her/him to make the right buying decisions based on quality, value for money and informed feedback. Yes feedback is important in many instances but when I am told a garage is friendly based on their sunny receptionist, how do I know that their mechanic isn’t selling me new tyres/brakes/engine flush washes I don’t need for pecuniary advantage? Or not even doing the job I’ve paid for?

Happy New Year to all the good businesses we work with and may 2011 be the year for positive thinking and debate; so you get your just rewards without being confused with second-rate others.

FOXY Steph

Hyundai’s stylish cars, low CO2, low costs and depreciation and 33,000 new customers as testimony to all this during the scrappage scheme (which is rapidly coming to an end by the way)…

But never fear, Hyundai is continuing their own kind of scrappage scheme, offering £2000 in part exchange against seven to ten year old cars in Britain.

And all because they know that foxy lady drivers do not want to have to haggle for a good price when we go out to buy a new car. It’s to do with trust and Hyundai is busy building this relationship.

And they haven’t forgotten their recent customers either.

All the 33,000 customers will get a Hyundai voucher to give to family or friends to save money on a new Hyundai and if they themselves want to upgrade to a 10 registration they can do this for £499 for an i10, £599 for an i20 or £749 for an i30.

Once more, this is what women like to do; assuming feedback is favourable, they are natural networkers and happy to share their good fortune with others.

Women drivers in the Bristol area especially can also look forward to a visit to female friendly Hyundai dealership Berkeley Vale; they have signed the FOXY Promise to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell customers anything they don’t need or want’ so that is an added bonus for women drivers looking for reassurance when they go to buy a new car.

FOXY Steph

Find out more about a specialist motoring life assistance association for women drivers including information and advice about buying a new car in 2010…

I read in today’s Insurance Times that the FSA is concerned about insurance brokers failing to disclose financial relationships with insurers. Apparently this is having an adverse impact on consumers, as you might expect.

For example, broker A could receive contingent commissions from insurer B if he placed a certain amount of business with it, thus making him more likely to place that business with that insurer, whether or not it was in the client’s best interests.

The FSA is looking at forcing brokers to make a full disclosure of all commissions to put the spotlight on potential conflicts of interest.

Keep going FSA and perhaps the same open and accountable business values might enter the car showroom arena. Too many women motorists feel vulnerable here and I think it is appalling that there is clearly one price for those that don’t haggle but a lower one for those in the know.

Only a matter of time before ‘fair for all’ becomes a regulated selling norm, surely?