Tag Archives: Parker’s

buying a new car

Company car features for women

Sophie Business 1People who know about cars and their value include Parkers who publish a leading UK car buying guide. So if they say Ford cars offer the top-10 ‘must-have’ features for a new company car, we’re sure FOXY ladies will want to take note.

The new Ford Focus Titanium Navigator, for example, comes with five of the 10 options fitted as standard, and is available to order now with the ‘International Engine of the Year’-winning 1.0-litre EcoBoost.

With all 10 options selected and at an all-in, 40% benefit-in-kind payment of £83.37 per month – the Ford Focus certainly seems to offer a lot for a company car driver.

Focus_13_ecoboost

Parkers’ suggested TOP TEN company car essentials are:

1          Keyless entry and start
2          Bluetooth
3          Satellite navigation
4          Digital in-car audio (DAB)
5          Cruise control
6          Lane departure warning
7          Blind spot warning
8          Park assistance (Active Park Assist)

9          Emergency city braking (Active City Stop)
10        Climate control

Satellite navigation is offered on a variety of Ford cars as standard, including the new Ford Mondeo Business Editions and Ford Kuga Titanium X Sport, while Bluetooth connectivity is available across the entire Ford range and is standard on Kuga, Mondeo, S-MAX and Galaxy models.

ford_navigator

Digital in-car audio (DAB) is standard on the majority of Ford vehicles.

Other company car essentials identified by Parkers are lane-departure and blind-spot warnings, both of which are available on the options list for Focus, C-MAX, Kuga, Mondeo, S-MAX and Galaxy models.

Also listed is emergency city braking – and Ford’s Active City Stop is widely available across the Ford range, including the award-winning Ford Fiesta.

Ford’s Active Park Assist removes the stress of parking in tight parallel spaces, keyless entry is also available on a number of Ford models, including the Kuga.

Certain models also offer the Hands-free Power tailgate which means you can easily open a car boot remotely, when carrying boxes of promotional materials or overnight bags, for example.

buying a new car, car dealerships, women drivers

Women car buyers get a better deal

I am not surprised that the nice people at  Parker’s are finding that most car buyers know they can negotiate a better deal outside the new car scrappage scheme than from within its confines.  We’ve known for ages that women drivers can get much better new car deals when they know what prices to aim for.

I think this is because the industry has talked up an industry rescue package, imagining that what has worked in Germany will work here, but without doing sufficient elementary customer research to find out who is buying and what they need or want.

Isn’t that a bit patronising, to imagine that they know better than us?

Yes it sounds exciting for showroom staff in new car dealerships with few sales to celebrate for the moment. It’s also human nature for ambitious perpetrators to want to see their names in lights in trade and business news pages but this scheme wasn’t road tested on motorists first and we aren’t daft, whatever they might think!

My anecdotal evidence for this is based on a Homer Simpson-like conclusion of some simplicity –  anyone trading in an old car worth iro £2k in a recession is much more likely to be a used car not a new car or even a nearly new car buyer.

If members of  FOXY Lady Drivers Club can read the Which? car Spring 09 magazine and know to look for the likes of 28% off a new Ford Focus, for example, pre any trade in, why would they be bothered with the scrappage scheme – this promotion isn’t talking to them.

Just imagine the amount of wasted time taken by all the top industry jollies talking this one up, plus trade publication editors and our politicians.

No point sitting on the fence any longer – this hasn’t been looked at from the motorists point of view.

However I fear that some trusting female motorists might settle for a lesser deal in their local car dealerships than they could have negotiated if they had known better.

I can almost hear the salesman telling the woman driver…. ‘I know you aren’t eligible but we will discount the trade-in deal to the tune of £2k and match the scappage deal’ when there is a better discount to be had.

Unless she picks a female friendly new car dealership that has signed the FOXY Promise, chances are she’ll be none the wiser about whether she got a good enough deal or that foxy ladies like her knew how to do better.

FOXY