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Used cars top consumer complaints list

SECOND-HAND cars bought from independent dealers topped the list of the 10 most-complained-about consumer issues between April and June. Citizens’ Advice consumer service dealt with 12,000 complaints about such vehicles, which equalled 8% of all cases it dealt with. The number was three times as many complaints as those made about used cars bought from private sellers and franchise dealerships.

New Hyundai Test Centre at the Nurburgring revealed

Hyundai’s new test centre at the Nurburgring If anyone had said, just a few years ago, that Hyundai would develop a test centre at the Nurburgring to help shake-down their cars, they’d have been laughed at. But Hyundai – and Kia – have come so far in recent years that it makes absolute sense for them to develop a full-time testing facility at the Nurburgring to test their cars for the road, along with just about every other car maker of note. James May may object to the Nurburgring factor in the suspension set-ups of many road cars (and we do have some sympathy for his point of view), but the sometimes extreme nature of the Nurburgring’s surfaces – and its endless twists and turns, uphill and down – do offer car makers an easily accessible place to test cars in the (almost) real world.

Call for reform over road repair funding

FUNDING patterns mean most road maintenance is being carried out in "less-efficient, cold and wet" times, a report from a Government spending watchdog has said. The current pattern of funding, combined with the need to spend money within the financial year, means that most maintenance work goes on between September and March, said the report from the National Audit Office (NAO). It went on: "Although this is less disruptive for road users, it is less efficient than carrying out the work at other times of year because materials can be more difficult to handle in cold and wet conditions, and daylight hours are shorter." The report went on: "As a result of the additional funding for emergency repairs, which is made available at the end of the financial year, almost all highways authorities need extra capacity from the market at the same time, which makes it less likely that they will get value for money." The NAO report said there was a "lack of predictability" over road spending adding that historically, local highway authorities spent more revenue on maintenance, but were now carrying out fewer routine activities such as clearing gullies which are essential to preventing water seeping into roads' sub-structure.