Ford Motorcraft Ev-274 Pcv Valve. Ford Escape on 2040-parts.com

Revealed: the popular city cars that FAIL a new crash test

It’s fair to say that drivers are pretty well protected in just about any new car on the market today. It’s rare for cars to get anything below the maximum five stars in the Euro NCAP crash tests, and even the most basic of cars come with equipment like ABS and airbags as standard. But America’s Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has devised a new test, which involves a “small overlap front crash” – similar to a head-on crash but only the front corner of a car collides with a solid object.

Used car sales hit record high

USED CAR SALES were at their highest in five years in 2013. There was a 0.9% increase in used car trades, with more than 6.8 million exchanges of ownership recorded, though this is still some way behind the previous record high of 7.8 million used car sales in 2008. Analysis from Experian shows cars aged nine years old or over were among the strongest performers in the used car market, with sales up 6% in 2013 compared to the previous year.

Skoda launch EIGHT Black Edition models – CitiGo, Fabia, Roomster, Rapid, Octavia, Superb & Yeti

The Skoda Octavia Black Edition – just one of 8 new Skoda Black Edition Skoda’s marketing department has had a bit of a brainstorm and decided what the UK needs – really, really needs – is a Black Edition of every car in the Skoda range with extra equipment and styling tweaks. So that’s what they’ve done. So we get the option  of a ‘Black Edition’ of every car in Skoda’s UK range suddenly with an extra option to punt and all with prices that offer great value compared to speccing a regular model up to the same level.