Advice & tips

According to motor industry figures, in excess of 12,000 vehicles are sold at motor auctions in the UK each week. It’s also reckoned a significant chunk of those – around 10 per cent – are snapped up by private buyers eager for an auction…

A flat battery can be a massive inconvenience, especially on those dark winter nights. However, a flat battery can be avoided by regularly maintaining it, as you would with many other standard car components. A flat battery means that no…

We've all seen those extra fuel pumps they have at the petrol station. Next to the nozzles for regular unleaded and diesel, you'll find additional pumps supplying higher octane (and usually more expensive) fuel. It will be branded things…

In the not-too-distant past if you were in the market for a new car you would have been faced with two choices when it came to the gearbox – manual, or automatic. These days though there’s another choice of transmission to be considered,…

You’ve probably seen containers of AdBlue stacked up for sale at your local petrol station, but unless you’ve owned a diesel powered car or van fitted with SCR – or Selective Catalytic Reduction – you’ve probably not had cause to buy or use…

Torque is a word freely bandied about by car manufacturers, advertisers and reviewers, and it's every bit as important as the other headline figures you'll come across suce as horsepower. The advertisement of torque wasn't always a given,…

The latest batch of double-cab 4x4 pick-ups is larger and tougher than it has has ever been before, making them ideal workhorses for tradesmen and those professionals who genuinely need off-road capability. But the latest batch of…

The London Congestion Charge now costs £15 a day and operates every day of the week between the hours of 7am and 10pm. The new, increased charge and hours of operation are said to be a "temporary" response by Transport for London (TfL),…

Buying a car from a private seller should not be something to cause you undue worry; in fact, it should save you money compared to buying from a dealer which has bills to pay and profits to secure. The classifieds are rife with privately…

The meaning of the abbreviation CVT is Continuously Variable Transmission, and it is a type of single-speed automatic gearbox. The CVT gearbox has been used in various different cars, but you'll usually find it fitted to a small car. Its…

What a nightmare! You've received through your letterbox the dreaded 'notice of intended prosecution for a speeding offence'. Or perhaps you've been stopped by the police and received a speeding ticket. Unfair, right?Sure, it might have…

Electric cars may be the future but they remain quite the novelty to most people, and knowledge about the technology, how to use it and what the big brands are offering can for many people be hard to come by. The first step to buying an…

If you buy a new car, chances are it will have a snazzy set of alloy wheels as standard. But these shiny (often) silver rims can soon start look grubby, mainly due to the fact they're perfectly positioned to collect more dirt than the rest…

There are an increasingly large number of hybrid cars on the market these days, from hatchbacks to SUVs, and more and more buyers are making the switch from conventional petrol and diesel cars to a hybrid of one sort or another. Acting as a…

When it comes to vehicle defects, official figures suggest that illegal, defective or under-inflated tyres are the second biggest cause of crashes after dodgy brakes.So it’s no surprise that safety-conscious drivers put in the effort take…