Last year I shopped around using the usual comparison sites. I was offered a cheaper premium, through the site, from my current insurers.

When I tried to take up the offer I had to contact them directly, after a short negotiation they honoured the reduced rate.

However this was not LV=.. It seems that not all insurers are so venal!

I think that some insurers think you won't move, especially if you're a long-standing customer, and thus put their quotes up. I noticed this with mine (esure) after I'd been with them for 10 years.

The problem is that if I leave and go with a cheaper alternative (they are THAT much cheaper, mostly a max of £30pa), I'll have a lower amount of coverage (most will insist on higher excesses and lower amounts of coverage of belongings with no upgrade available), and I get preferential treatment if I want to change my policy mid-year - as a long-standing customer, I don't get charged the £25 admin fee for doing so (e.g. for upping the mileage when changing jobs, or when I changed the alloy wheels [even if that was changing down a size and using the manufacturers alloys inline with the manual in that case]).

Besides, many firms will, after you change, ramp up the price a LOT on the first renewal date, as the RAC did with my first car, upping it by 33%. I couldn't change because I was still a relatively new driver and only had 1 years NCB at the time, and besides, they still were cheaper than the others, but the shock of that and the subsequent next 3 increases (from £330 to £650) was huge, given I wasn't earning that much at the time. This was in the late 90s when premiums were low realtive (including accounting for inflation) to today's for younger drivers.

Saying that, whilst I now only pay about £250 - £300 for my current Mazda3 1.6 petrol, this was an almost identical quote(even from my current insurer) than for new cars I was looking to buy about 2.5 years ago, including a VW Scirocco 2.0 (180PS) GT petrol, which DID stagger me.

2) I would have thought you'd have had much chance of getting redress for accident damage after this amount of time.

Sorry typo in point 2 above. It should read:-

2) I WOULDN'T have thought you'd have had much chance of getting redress for accident damage after this amount of time.

Edited by FiestaOwner on 03/08/2019 at 11:23

Oh here we go again. I applaud HJ for attempting to make our roads safer but we always have those who refuse to accept that anything other than their own lazy ways are right or better. Left foot braking is actually very easy to adopt if you just try the same way as heel & toe and double de-clutching - skills that were once taught but now ignored to get people through the test. Sadly few want to learn new skills and make the roads safer. That's fine but please don't criticise those that do.

I always assume it is a coded message"Give up driving". Many correspondents seem to be in their later years, perhaps the real question should be do you really need your car?

"Grip Control coming soon, which is actually better than 4WD in snow." Wow - a traction control system that magically makes tyres grippier - must be voodoo - or you could be talking out your behind...

It's an enhanced tranction control system that these cars are fitted with. Don't forget that quite a lot of proper 4x4s use a slow speed version for hill decents in poor traction conditions.

I'm sure HJ and his colleagues have tested cars fitted with it sufficiently to know whether it works or not, which it seems to. Only time will tell whether its a reliable feature for the long term - hopefully so, especially as it could be a much needed boon for Vauxhall if they adopt it with the PSA engines, given how Vauxhalls tend to be bland as regards adopting of new tech. It wasn't so bad when that meant boring but reliable, hardy cars.

Let's hope (especially for their workers sake) things improve in that regard (as Pugs seem to) after the recent PSA takeover and soont-be fully implementation of PSA architecture in Vauxhall cars.

Anyhoo (no voodoo here [no John Cadogan]), I'll sticj with decent all-season tyres for the moment, which appear to do me and my non traction-controlled, 13yo Mazda3 just fine.

"Grip Control coming soon, which is actually better than 4WD in snow." Wow - a traction control system that magically makes tyres grippier - must be voodoo - or you could be talking out your behind...

I bought a Tesla model 3 last year and did some research on 4wd versus 2wd. 2wd with microsecond control of traction actually gave BETTER traction than most 4wd. Snow tires give MUCH better control than all weather tires with 4wd (the latter get you moving but don't give you directional stability or braking). I live on top of a mountain in the CAtoctins and we get several feet of snow in the winter. Practice proved both conclusions thankfully.

The model you're referring to was out for 6 years, and if you remove the diesel from the equation (especially if they are realted to use with short trips from cold, which isn't recommended), then its not so bad.

I suspect that it looks worse than it is because there's quite a few minor issues reported by the likely older, (righly, given the price) more demanding buyers, and thus will likely complain more, whereas the VAG cars with problems tend to have more people with the same problems, e.g. the DSG auto box. People buying the 'premium' (engineering-wise) Japanese makes expect high levels of reliability and tend not to put up with problems.

I would say though that Honda have had their problems in the last few years, perhaps trying (incorrectly) to 'keep up with the Joneses' (or is that the Jansens?) from Germany in adding in new tech to their cars, including the engines.

I think they may have (IMHO) tried to catch up rather too quickly on the small capacity petrol turbos after leaving it late to start down that road, although it's weird as regards their diesels, which previously were very reliable and highly praised by HJ many times, including for resilience towards usage in short trip urban driving, at least compared to other makes.

My CRV is a 2014 diesel. 100% reliable without a single fault or non service part replaced. Hopefully it will be as reliable as my 2009 CRV in which I covered 100K miles without any faults. My sister has a 2006 CRV which has sofar done 140K miles and has only required two new calipers in twelve years. Even my neighbour bought one on my recommendation.I will stick with CRV's