Car road Tax

digitalfailure said:
so if your going to buy a thirsty car
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The problem with that statement is it is just too black and white.

What is a "thirsty car"? A 4x4? Many in The UK automatically think of 4x4s when they think of thirsty cars. If you look at just mpg then, yes, large engined cars don't look too good but surely you need to look at the whole life of the car, from when it was first manufactured to the day it dies and is scrapped. Some of the 'greenest' cars around if you look at them in this way are the same large engined 4x4's 'everyone' hates and small fuel efficient cars are much worse............

The other thing is this: who is to say who can drive what? OK, the cliche 4x4 driver is mummy driving two miles in rush hour traffic with a child in the back. Should she drive a much smaller car? Yes. Should she walk instead, Yes. Is taxing her going to stop her from driving that big 4x4? No.

Here is a big suprise: most 4x4 drivers drive a 4x4 because they need them, not because they are a fashion statement. Taxing a shiny Range Rover off the road sounds good, until you consider exactly the same amount of tax is going to be payable on post 2001 versions of this:

defender-big-meg.jpg


I just bet farmers are going to love to pay £440 per year for their workhorses.

Farmers, landowners, village dwellers, rural people all over the UK (and I bet there are a damn sight more of them than posh mummy in central suburbia) are now going to have to pay huge amounts of tax on motors which are not a whim but a real daily necessity.

Who is worse? Posh mummy doing that school run, or a person living in the sticks driving a small car to get to work where there is no public transport? I'm sure you'll say the former. OK, how about a family of seven living rurally without public transport and where the roads are not gritted in winter in their seven seater Disco, or someone living and working in a city with good public transport on their doorstep who instead chooses to drive instead of walking/getting the bus? Now would you say the latter? All of a sudden the 4x4 is the good guy :)

I have three 4x4's, and I need at least two of them where I live/work I do (and when the third gets used, I'm not using either of the other two!)

The point is, it is not the car, big or small, which is the issue here, it is the situation it is used in. Is there an answer? Dunno, not my job to work that one out :D but I do know taxing larger cars as a group is just simply wrong, not green, will not address the issue and is just a money spinner for the Gov.
 
What is 'properly'? And if that is the case, why tax all of the large 4x4s so heavily regardless of where they are used?
 
but its really got nothing to do with "the environment" or common sense. Its just a way for a government to get more money from the population whilst playing to the media hype by putting a popularistic twist on it so as to maintain enough popularity with as many voters as possible so they can stay in power. Any discussion of the woes and illogic within the car tax system also has the benefit of distracting attention from all the important issues.
 
Ewan said:
I really hope you're joking.
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no I am not joking.

I get fed up with people telling me what to do.

I have no interest whatsoever in the environment.

Most people who say they do are jumping on the bandwagon and dont really do anything to make a difference
 
I don't use plastic bags, i don't leave the tap running when i clean my teeth, i don't leave lights on in the rooms i'm not in, i wash my clothes at 30 degree's, i'll put a jumper on instead of put the heating up, i recycle my bottles/cans/papers, i turn my computer off when i'm not using it.

I do enough. Now tell the government to p1s5 off and let me drive my car in peace!!
 
jolsterj said:
no I am not joking.

I get fed up with people telling me what to do.

I have no interest whatsoever in the environment.

Most people who say they do are jumping on the bandwagon and dont really do anything to make a difference
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Doesn't sound like you know much or anything about it to be honest :)
 
If that were true.
We would not even have been born our grandparents would of been dead by the time they were 35.

I bet if everybody here was HONEST most people do leave he tap running dont take bags to the supermarket.
Turn the heating up when cold and dont always re cycle

thats if they were honest.

because if most people did do these things there would not be a problem
 
We are never going to solve the mystery of climate change in the next 50 years by just turning off lights and taking a bag to tesco, but thats not the subject of the thread.

The new and slightly daft car tax scheme is under discussion here.

Now, 4x4's are fine IF they are going to actually go out into the mud, but the vast majority of luxury 4x4's are bought to mount speed bumps in a city center and as such I say fine......tax the back out of em on the grounds of pedestrian safety.

IF you have a genuine need for a vehicle with off road capability for work I'd have thought it more sensible to prove it and earn a reduction in the tax.

The whole scheme is a media coup to draw in more money that won't be spent on improving the road infrastructure or public transport while putting the fear of God up people about climate change. The evolving world is spewing out more CO2 in a year than this tiny rock will in a decade.....but as CT said, we are always the ones to wave a flag about doing our bit.

New traffic systems would be a far better way of reducing emissions. A car will produce far more CO2 when accelerating away from a standstill than it does when traveling at a steady 30mph.....so do they turn traffic signals off in the small hours when the road use is light? No.....we've all sat frustrated at a red light while no other vehicles emerge from a junction. What about roundabouts? The city where I live has at least 4 sets of lights on each main roundabout.....can we not abide by the highway code after rush hour and drive courteously round it to our destination? ....No we have to stop start our way around it.

And that doesn't even take into consideration the power station burning fuel to keep the lights working :shrug:

New traffic management stratergy requires cash.....but the Govt. doesn't want to spend it on transport.


I wonder how much CO2 a cruise missile produces.......they don't mind chucking them things around :eek:
 
Many good points DF!

Seems like a system where you have to prove you NEED a 4x4 would be a lot better. Most the ones I see are brand spanking new and have probably never been off road - just boost their driver's egos I guess.
 
many 4x4s are run by enthusiasts, like me. We usually have older vehicles because we keep them on the road way past the point when businesses would keep them, many are ex-business vehicles (ours had done 70,000 miles as a waterboard van). So taxing based on business use would reduce the lifespan significantly, with quite a high environmental cost in the premature scrapping of vehicles.

Why do we need a 4x4? we have them for a variety of reasons: because we like them, we like vehicles that do not have to be scrapped after a few years service and can be user maintained relatively simply (mid journey if necessary), because they're safer and less stressful to drive (field of vision in traffic is fantastic, no panic braking, no stupid tailgating and sudden death brakelights), because the roads are narrow & hedged and visibilty over the hedgetops is important, because we dont like vehicles that corrode rapidly with winter salt, because the local roads flood frequently or snow up or are just badly made or muddy from field runoff and tractors, because of an interest in greenlaning and our ancient roads heritage, because we enjoy the countryside and exploring it (responsibly), because we like to be able to parkup in the countryside on the verge, go for a walk without the vehicle sinking and needing a tractor to get it out, because we don't want to go fast everywhere, because they are versatile vehicles with massive load capability even with passengers at the same time, because they'll take a lot of passengers (ours seats 6 PLUS a payload of near another tonne), for roof load capacity for large objects (boats, furniture, building materials), for towing a family sized caravan, for long distance travel in comfort (yes, really, the old landy is comfortable) with capability for travelling untarmacced roads safely and reliably, for competitive trials and the excitement of driving off-road in extreme conditions, because we do recovery or rescue duty for motorsport or support for local civil disaster planning, . . . there's quite a long list, and "normal" vehicles just dont achieve it.

Many of the enthusiast 4x4s (but not all, why have a second car when one 4x4 can do everything you need well?) are run alongside normal family vehicles as the second car, they dont do high annual mileage, but for the mileage they do they are irreplaceable.

so why dont we have some proper taxation based on green and safety issues:

- lets start with vehicle life, say £15,000 for scrapping in the first year after registration, reducing by £1000 per year.

- or a tax on top speed of vehicles, lets face it, the emissions and excess fuel consumption from vehicles exceeding the legal limit on motorways must far exceed the environmental impact of a few 4x4s, so an annual £100 tax for every mph that a vehicle is capable of achieving over 70mph.

- acceleration, is it really necessary to be capable of doing 0-60 in less than 10 seconds? so we'll have an annual tax based on bhp/ton as well.

- now anybody who can afford to buy a vehicle with a purchase price over say £8000 must be rolling in unnecessary dosh, so we'll have a purchase tax of £500 per £1000 purchase price of any vehicle new or 2nd hand over £8,000

- and a big tax on replacement vehicle components, for items that are scrapped instead of reconditioned.

discuss :D
 
If you're using it for all those things, I'm sure it's very useful and justified. My argument is that most people dont (which is why a special license would largely solve the problem)
 
A woman journalist recently wrote a piece in one of the national tabloids about the new Road Tax. She lives in London and drives a large 4WD. It's CO2 rating is twice that of a Toyota Prius. But she only does 4,000 miles a year in her 4WD. Now the average mileage a motorist covers per year is 12,000 miles, so a Prius owner who covers 12,000 miles per year will be pumping out 1/2 as much again compared to the 4WD. So surely it would have been fairer to put the tax on petrol, then we pay for it as we use it and it is all done fairly.
Our government has no interest in the enviroment, they just use it as a means to take more money off us.
Besides the highest producer of CO2 emissions in the world is cows not cars.
 
I dont really NEED a 4x4, its useful, its fun to drive (I'm wierd, I like vehicles that have character), its cheap to repair and maintain, doesnt depreciate and I can find all sorts of uses for it that I also enjoy.
Can that be justified? really?
Is it any different from having a bashed up old builders transit van or VW camperwagon (you can sleep in the landy too) or a Morris Minor?
All perfectly justifiable for many of the same reasons, but not necessarily justifiable to other people.

how about a special tax/licence for people with big lenses too? do they all really need them? Can they all use them? Are they not dangerous in the hands of terrorists or paedophiles?

[insert smiley throwing a little bomb with a burning fuse]

what's the big problem with 4x4s?
- they're as uneconomic to run as reasonably powerful saloon cars with similar seating capacity (the Landy gets 24-26 around town or towing to about 30mpg solo on the motorway, just about the same as our 2 litre 5 seater Fiat Marea saloon)
- the older ones have the same pedestrian unfriendly features as delivery truck, artics, vans, dustbin wagons and ambulances.

so

its down to a personal hatred of the concept of a small number of mummies with lots of money in expensive areas buying flashy vehicles that they dont need for their perceived status . . . and that's something you won't change.

If they've got money to burn they'll burn it, and they'll wave it under your nose so you can choke on the stink.

4x4s are the current fad as the chelsea tractor, so what?

There's a few 4x4s at the (normal local) primary school here each day,
- most days I try to walk but I'll use the landy if the weather is bad or I'm off out somewhere, or me/kids arent 100% healthy. Be fair, the school's only about 3/4 a mile but its a big hill and can take me alone 15 minutes to climb back on a good day, lots more with 2 tired whinging kids and shopping.
- theres another enthusiast, calls in on his way home from the garage he works in,
- there's 3 or 4 from the outlying villages
- and one that I'd be prepared to call a Chelsea Tractor. The Porsche Cayenne. Yes it is overkill, but is it really any worse than them picking up the kids in the MASERATI, which is their other car.

who won't feel the cost of a special 4x4 tax?, whose chelsea tractor is paid for by the company? who'll buy something equally showy and expensive and fashionable within 3 years?
 
Wookie said:
- acceleration, is it really necessary to be capable of doing 0-60 in less than 10 seconds? so we'll have an annual tax based on bhp/ton as well.

discuss :D
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Some fair points - but do behave! 10 seconds to 60? - I'd be asleep before I got there! :tumbleweed:

I did run a diesel 4X4 for a few years, purely for shooting excursions into the Welsh hills and it was fantastic for that purpose - used to come back with mud halfway up the doors and took forever to clean.

Unfortunately, there are a hard core of users now who'll never go in long grass, never mind off road, and purely use them as a perceived status symbol. Manufacturers are actually producing more and more glitzy looking 4X4s many of which would probably be as useful off road as an ashtray on a motorbike!

The BMW X5 is a good example, and the Porsche Cayenne is another. Manufacturers are now pandering to people who not only want the big 4X4, but sports car performance to go with it.
 
I have three 4x4s because a/ I need them b/ I want them and c/ they are greener than small throw-away cars.

Ewan said:
My argument is that most people dont (which is why a special license would largely solve the problem)
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This has ben suggested before elsewhere, maybe basing road tax on your post code, but............think of all those people in the South East with second homes in the South West. All that would happen is these motors would be regisitered at the second home address.
 
let people buy what they want.

the goverment will charge what they want.

if you can afford it want to do it then DO IT!!!!
 
CT said:
Unfortunately, there are a hard core of users now who'll never go in long grass, never mind off road, and purely use them as a perceived status symbol. Manufacturers are actually producing more and more glitzy looking 4X4s many of which would probably be as useful off road as an ashtray on a motorbike!

The BMW X5 is a good example, and the Porsche Cayenne is another. Manufacturers are now pandering to people who not only want the big 4X4, but sports car performance to go with it.
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That's what I meant ;)

jolsterj said:
let people buy what they want.

the goverment will charge what they want.

if you can afford it want to do it then DO IT!!!!
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I really can't believe how much you have missed the point.
 
Yet again the motorist bears the brunt. Getting really ****ed off with this.:bat:

This is really going to help reduce all those untaxed vehicles as well, numptys!!!

Minimeeze has the right idea :thumbs:
 
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Well we have a 110 defender TD5 for the business but its a 2000 so we will be ok there and we also have a 2000 freelander for running about in (total bargain and only 23k on the clock) so wont pay any more tax on either of them.

I dont fully buy this global warming due to car emissions etc, the planet has always warmed up then cooled down then warmed up etc etc. Perhaps we are just getting to the end of the last real ice age? There has been evidence that the uk once housed tropical plant and animal species, so the theory is not without some evidence.

I think its time we, the people of the uk sttod against the government and demanded that we have a say. We didnt vote in our current prime minister so I dont see why he should dictate to us.
 
arronbarnes said:
... We didnt vote in our current prime minister so I dont see why he should dictate to us.
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We never do. The point of our democracy is that we elect a local representative who we feel best supports the interests of their constituency. It all went horribly wrong with the introduction of the whip system. Whereby our representatives betray our interests in favour of the party line. Even if that is just to make a failed and unpopular administration look like they still have some credibility.

The car tax hike was going to happen. There will be lots more tax hikes to boot. Because the treasury has lost more stamp duty because of what they have done to the housing market than they've gained by fleecing us for our petrol. They are broke and will need to get revenue from wherever they can. Road tax and new vehicle tax & vat this week.
 
Theres a wider point to make to, some companies will need 4x4 i.e getting to power poles in the middle of a muddy field in the country side, now if althese vehicles are suddenly costing double the price to tax then what do you think will happen? Cost passed to consumer? vehicle cut backs meaning fewer engineers to attend faults in storms? less maintence due to fewer vehicles?

Something will have to give as electricity supply companies wont run at a loss so if they cant reclaim the reveune then expect the service to suffer.

Sure there be plenty of other areas effected too, which will all add to ever increasing prices, all they seem to be doing is increasing the taxes in curtain area's for a quick fix, but as people cant afford they stop, then they need another fix. In the current light of things alot of people that would have been approved credit for a new car a couple of months back are finding they are now not able to resulting ing fewer car/motorbike sales, house extensions etc the construction industry is about to completely collapse in very soon if we not carefull, again these taxes wont help as the tax bill on larger vans has a major jump too.
 
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the government has completely ****ed up with this, not only have these tax brackets hammered a large percentage of 'normal cars' (i.e those with 1.8-2litre engines built between 01-06 such as focus', astras etc) and they say the tax is to persuade people to go green, now ive been thinking about this

as one of the people that owns one of these dangers on wheels (a 1.8 focus which will go up by £80 to around £260 next year) i could consider 2 options, selling the car and getting something greener OR foot the increase in tax per year, the first option is a no go because NO ONE wants these cars anymore because the government has classified them as bad as terrorists, peadophiles and rapists under the new scheme so the value of the car is reduced dramatically, so basically im gonna have to foot the £80 a year regardless of the environment, stupid t***s, you can see they havent thought about it, and no i wont be voting for gob***** brown and his bunch of retards at the next election, infact ill probably vote for some dribbling idiot party as lets face it they cant be much worse.

certain groups of people need big cars as mentioned by russ, for example a family with small children couldnt fit 2 sprogs, 2 adults, a pushchair and all related parafinalia into an ecobox, so the government are basically taxing the poor *******s they have already hit with removal of the 10p tax bracket etc


anyone got a ticket off this s***hole?
 
i'm quite happy to get rid of my car (much that i love it) and get something greener. The only trouble is that now the tax is going to be £420 and a tank of petrol is £75 the value of my car has dropped so much that i cant afford to trade it in for something greener.
So I have no choice but to carry on poluting the atmosphere even though i dont want to.
 
I love this thread. It sounds like the conversations that we have at work all the time.

I think the main issue with the goverment is that they KEEP moving the goal posts. A few years ago they set out new car tax bands, so lots of people duly went and changed cars to fit around that amendment. Then a few years later they change the bands again, hammering the people that have invested in cars they thought would be cheaper to run in the future.

There is an article on Parkers website

http://www.parkers.co.uk/news/Road-tax/Family-cars-made-worthless-by-road-tax-changes/

This basically says how many perfectly good cars will become worthless due to the road tax hike. So in the next few years there will be huge amounts of cars that should be on the road being scrapped or even dumped, thus costing more money to clean up!
 
MG TF 135 said:
I love this thread. It sounds like the conversations that we have at work all the time.

I think the main issue with the goverment is that they KEEP moving the goal posts. A few years ago they set out new car tax bands, so lots of people duly went and changed cars to fit around that amendment. Then a few years later they change the bands again, hammering the people that have invested in cars they thought would be cheaper to run in the future.

There is an article on Parkers website

http://www.parkers.co.uk/news/Road-tax/Family-cars-made-worthless-by-road-tax-changes/

This basically says how many perfectly good cars will become worthless due to the road tax hike. So in the next few years there will be huge amounts of cars that should be on the road being scrapped or even dumped, thus costing more money to clean up!
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ill most definetely be cashing in my road tax in febuary to ensure i can get a full year in at the lower tax price.
 
whitewash said:
the government has completely ****ed up with this, not only have these tax brackets hammered a large percentage of 'normal cars' (i.e those with 1.8-2litre engines built between 01-06 such as focus', astras etc) and they say the tax is to persuade people to go green, now ive been thinking about this

as one of the people that owns one of these dangers on wheels (a 1.8 focus which will go up by £80 to around £260 next year) i could consider 2 options, selling the car and getting something greener OR foot the increase in tax per year, the first option is a no go because NO ONE wants these cars anymore because the government has classified them as bad as terrorists, peadophiles and rapists under the new scheme so the value of the car is reduced dramatically, so basically im gonna have to foot the £80 a year regardless of the environment, stupid t***s, you can see they havent thought about it, and no i wont be voting for gob***** brown and his bunch of retards at the next election, infact ill probably vote for some dribbling idiot party as lets face it they cant be much worse.

certain groups of people need big cars as mentioned by russ, for example a family with small children couldnt fit 2 sprogs, 2 adults, a pushchair and all related parafinalia into an ecobox, so the government are basically taxing the poor *******s they have already hit with removal of the 10p tax bracket etc


anyone got a ticket off this s***hole?
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Depends whether you beleive they are really trying to improve the environment or just rape everyone for taxes.
Where is the sense in no taxation on cars pre 1972, standard taxation on pre cars, and tax hikes on cars everyone knows are cleaner than those pre 2001.
Road tax should be incorporated fairly into the price of fuel. The more you drive the more you use the more you pay.
What has higher emissions a gas guzzler that does 6,000 miles per year or a Toyota Prius (Fugly) which covers 15,000 miles per year.
 
Its just about getting money, if there was an evironmently aspect then my 2.0 TDCI Mondeo kicks out more environmental harming particulates that effect astma smog etc then some of the cars that will now be hit. Mine remains unchanged under this scheme. Plus they'd tax anything brought after 2008 so that people could make the choice, and as mentioned not all cars are massive 4x4 as some MP's have tried to lay it on.

they need money plain and simple

I suppose they never planned for the 'credit crunch' and id say that is partly due to emmergration (sp) which had a massive effect on the construction side of things, most of the guys i knew/know/met from Europe sent 90% of there wages back to there homeland therefore taking money from econemy then not giving anything back. Yes we have a shortage of some trades (well did) but why was that? no bloody investment in proper apprenticeship schemes.

But i suppose thats another subject really.
 
Anyone want to buy a 14yr old Rover 214? only costs £140 to road tax :)

/edit - or is it 180?
 
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