Tag Archives: Alfa Romeo

road safety

Better than buying a Baby on Board car sticker…

If you’ve a new baby on the way or have any queries about car seats for children make a point of finding out about this subject during Road Safety Week.

More than half of new parents have never been shown how to correctly choose or install a child’s car seat, according to new research.

According to Mamas & Papas and Alfa Romeo working together for the SAFER SEAT campaign, one in 10 parents choose car seats based on price alone, rather than the correct fit or function for their specific vehicle.

They found that almost two-thirds (61%) of parents did not know that different car seats are suitable for different types of vehicle – installing a car seat that is wrong for the vehicle can severely compromise the child’s safety apparently.

Furthermore a third of survey respondents didn’t know that the safest direction for a baby of up to at least 13 kgs is to face rearwards in the car seat.

Despite 80 percent of new parents admitting to driving more cautiously with a baby on board, the survey results indicate a worrying over-reliance on advice from friends and family, rather than getting professional guidance about transporting children safely.

The result is that a large proportion of child seats are being fitted incorrectly, or the wrong car seats installed perhaps. Or seats being passed on by friends we find…

Tackling this problem, Mamas & Papas has come up with the SAFER SEAT initiative, supported by Which? And in partnership with Alfa Romeo.

Motoring mums and grans can find out more in Birmingham (Saturday 17 November, Birmingham Gallagher), Nottingham (Sunday 18 November, Giltbrook Retail Park), Manchester (Saturday 24 November, Manchester Fort Retail Park), and Edinburgh (Sunday 25 November, Edinburgh Fort Retail Park).

SAFER SEAT information will also be available in Alfa Romeo showrooms. To locate your nearest Alfa Romeo dealer please see www.alfaromeo.co.uk.

FOXY

car dealerships, women drivers

A female friendly lifestyle choice in Leicester

Female friendly Sturgess Motor GroupNo matter your lifestyle, there’s a genuinely female friendly garage choice for women drivers in Leicester.

We first met Sturgess Motor Group when they organised a Women in the Driving Seat evening event for local female motorists. It was a popular feature in their calendar and their Marketing Manager, Nichola Moore, saw this as a way to show women drivers how much the Group cares about their motoring welfare not just the value of their business.

It was only a matter of time before this Motor Group would subscribe to FOXY Choice’s female friendly approved UK garage network as further evidence that they really do care for their female customers long after the car has been sold.

Sturgess operates seven franchised car dealership operations in Leicester covering Toyota, Nissan, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Volvo and Land Rover brands. The dealership name and logo will be familiar in the city with branches in Narborough Road, Aylestone Road, Almond Road and Walnut Street.

All locations are ATA employers (Automotive Technician Accredited) which means their staff are accredited to repair all makes of cars not just their franchised brands. They also subscribe to the Motor Codes Service and Repair code which is working its way towards full OFT Code of Practice approval. These are both signs of superior standards in an industry with too many garage/dealership complaints and where women often feel ill at ease and on their guard.

This female unease is precisely why Sturgess have signed up to the FOXY Promise to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell women services they don’t need or want’ AND have appoined Debbie McIntyre, Gill Clifford, Trish Blaber, Sheena Tegg, Rebecca Hill and Jessica Watts to be Female Business Ambassadors as part of the FOXY Choice female friendly approved garage network.

Sturgess of Leicester is one of the UK’s oldest family operated motor dealers and was founded in 1897. Women shopping for a new or nearly new car to suit their lifestyle and budget will find they have a genuinely female friendly choice here, whether it’s a 4×4, a prestigious executive car, a sporty convertible, something for the family or a stylish and environmentally friendly supermini.

We look forward to working with Sturgess in future.

FOXY

motoring, women drivers

Calling all Motoring Juliets

If you are a Motoring Juliet in love with her Alfa Romeo whether on your drive or in your memory, you can now add your personal photos and memories to Alfa’s archive for your associated motoring fame in future.

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

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

female friendly, garage services

Congratulations Kinghams of Croydon

Kinghams of Croydon are a franchised Daihatsu, Ssang Yong and Piaggio dealership as well as an authorised Alfa Romeo & SEAT garage repairer – what with all this expertise they also service all makes.

They are now the first winner of the motor industry’s Golden Garage award 2010, as a 5-entry dealership subscriber to Motor Code’s service and repair scheme.

What we like about them is that this is a family run business with father, son and daughter involved, and whilst there will be some (envious) independent garages that can undercut their prices, they clearly do care about customer service, have some impressive customer feedback to report and, we assume, will easily meet FOXY Choice’s female friendly standards with Keith’s daughter a potential Female Business Ambassador of course…

It goes to show that it isn’t just the lowest price that matters when you publish a clear servicing price menu so everyone can see exactly what it costs and what you get.

Well done Kinghams.

FOXY

Find out about other female friendly FOXY Choice garages in the UK…

buying a new car, female friendly, garage services, women drivers

Female friendly Alfaman garage coincidence in Harrow

2 Comments

We have just been discussing her choice of new cars with a member near Harrow who was looking at a new MiTo Alfa Romeo among other models on her shopping short list. She liked it when we told her that the name was a combination of the two northern Italian cities Milano and Torino, which explains a lot…

If she buys new she will have a warranty of course and we discussed the whys and wherefores of getting this serviced at a manufacturers dealership and we made sure she understood her choices here. Despite the excellent work done by the Right To Repair campaign many women drivers still think they have to have this work done by a main dealer which is not the case.

In reality sometimes the female motorist chooses the dealership because she wants to take it back to the business she bought it from and, rightly or wrongly, she might decide to pay a bit more for this thinking that it might add value to the resale value of her car when she came to sell it. Which it doesn’t but that’s up to her to decide.

This is anathema to the ears of Eddy Mann who runs Alfaman Services in Harrow opposite Rayners Lane Underground station. Alfaman specialises in Alfas (which can be tricky for some) but services and repairs all makes by the way. One thing that Eddy hates is the reputation the motor industry has for being unfriendly and, too often for either of us, for charging women drivers more for doing less. Perhaps offending businesses think we won’t know any better and clearly some women do retire hurt from these garages, suspecting they have been ripped off some way.

But Eddy is well known for putting the motorist first – for saying what needs doing, what doesn’t need doing yet and what can be fixed cheaply but safely. Alfaman Services is in effect an honest garage in Harrow who has signed the female friendly FOXY Promise and is a FOXY Choice subscriber because of this –  which is how we know him.

Which is where this blog started because having talked about Alfas and then finding that the member lives in Harrow she happens to have a readymade garage solution on her doorstep which can save her money in the long term if she decides to buy Alfa.

As always, the choice is hers and we don’t try to tell anyone what to do of course. If any woman driver wants to know where the female friendly garages are and what the membership deals are, she can now ask FOXY Lady Drivers Club and visit FOXY Choice, that’s all.

FOXY