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Simply fantastic product and fantastic people. I had been suffering from white exhaust smoke and burning oil. I came across lots of symptoms on forums and came across the dreaded swirl flap issue. Needless to say I was very concerned and got in touch with PMW. There help, advice and expertise was invaluble.
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Some new info from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) provides interesting reading - basically showing that roughly one fifth of young drivers in the UK are currently driving uninsured. In essence, this equates to around 250, 000 17-20 year-olds who are technically driving illegally. Now as far as I see it, even with the most effective and well-deployed policing (i.e. lots and lots of random checks) it would be highly improbable that you could really catch more than a few hundred of these each week - leading me to think that maybe a different approach might be more appropriate here…
The problem is in the perfectly rational (if slightly unethical) reasoning of these young people, who basically see no point in paying £2,000-£3,000 for annual insurance, when the value of their car is often far less than this. If caught, all that will happen is that their vehicle is confiscated, which means that if such a lawbreaker drives a £250 old banger - then he/she must have roughly 10 or more cars confiscated per year - before paying for the insurance makes financial sense.
The added risk of losing a license to drive will hardly bother someone who is happy to do so illegally without insurance anyway - so this can be considered irrelevant in most cases. So the core issue which must be addressed is that such drivers have very little to lose in driving illegally without insurance, and paying £2k-£3k for the peace of mind just isn’t worth it (or possible) for many.
Now i’m not going to go suggesting ridiculous solutions like jail terms for such people - instead we should look at the other end of the problem and try to make insurance more affordable for such drivers. If, as has once again been proven to be the case, thousands of young people will happily drive without insurance - then the only feasable way around this is to make insurance more accesible and affordable. Extra road policing, or even harsher punishments cannot ever solve the problem simply due to its widespread scale (though of course such policies do curb it somewhat).
Now, as to how we go about reducing the cost of car insurance for young people, i can only offer one possible solution - which, for those who read this blog a few weeks ago, will ring a bell. We must introduce a consideration of the value of the car driven into the pricing structure, as only then can we avoid the case where a young Ford Escort driver for example pays thousands of pounds in insurance due to the risk posed by him/her to all the wealthy porsche and mercedes drivers out there (for more on this see last month’s post here).
Either way, unless something radical such as this is done soon, i expect the MIB figures for uninsured drivers to be more or less the same this time around next year…
Dejan Levi
Offering increased engine power, lower weight, shorter transmission ratios and a chassis optimised to an even higher standard, the new Porsche 911 GT3 RS sets the foundation for homologating the racing version of the Porsche 911 GT3.
The Porsche 911 GT3 RS thus provides the key ingredients for extending the unparalleled racing record of Porsche and continues the series of absolute, uncompromised, motor sport-oriented editions of the Porsche 911 that are homologated for road use and which can trace their roots back to the classic Porsche Carrera RS 2.7 of 1973.
The heart of the new Porsche 911 GT3 RS, the power unit, is based on the proven flat-six cylinder ‘boxer’ engine already featured in the Porsche 911 GT3. Like the latter, the RS power unit now displaces 3.8 instead of 3.6-litres, but in this new model is tuned to deliver even more power and rev even faster and more dynamically.
Read more over at Carpages
When it comes to wealth, you can’t take it with you to the grave, as the cliché goes, so why not spend it on Porsche’s new Panamera and instead take a trio of mildly bemused companions along for what will likely be the joy ride of their lives.
The Panamera represents the second four-door model to invade what was once a strictly two-door-maximum lineup. Despite world-ending protestations, Porsche has achieved considerable success with its Cayenne sport utility vehicle that arrived for the 2003 model year. And if history is any judge, the same will hold true when the Panamera (the name recognizes the German automaker’s participation in the Carrera Panamericana road race staged in Mexico during the mid-1950s) reaches our shores this fall.
Article continues at Las Vegas review journal online
From early 2010, Mercedes Benz is launching the Estate version as another highly distinctive member of the Mercedes Benz E-Class family. Like the Saloon and Coupe, the Estate combines its own, elegant design with leadership in safety, comfort, quality and practicality. A number of technical innovations have entered series production in the Mercedes Benz E-Class which no other car in this class is able to offer - from drowsiness detection to automatic emergency braking when an accident is recognised as imminent, and from Adaptive Highbeam Assist to the active bonnet. Naturally the Mercedes Benz E-Class Estate also features all these innovations. Air suspension with self-levelling at the rear will be standard as will unique new load compartment management features, including an EASY-PACK automatic powered tailgate and EASY-PACK Quick Fold rear seats.
For more info and photos, visit Carpages
There’s an interesting debate currently going on over at Guardian motoring about whether or not it’s fair that younger women drivers should pay less for their car insurance than their male counterparts. The topic is controversial and is attracting quite a few opinions in both the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps. However one thing bothers me about the whole question - and it’s that nobody seems to be highlighting the fact that most of us are paying far, far too much regardless of our sex.
Stats show for example that the average insurance bill for a 17-year-old driver is around £1,800 for a female, and £3,800 for a male. Over the years that gap will get smaller and smaller, until the age of around 40, when the price for men will actually be slightly less than for women (though it is a matter of only a few pounds rather than the 4-figure difference seen earlier).
Now, despite this gap, for me the overwhelming problem is not one to do with sexual inequality - but rather a general shock at the ridiculous sums in question for both sexes. Why is it that even if a young sensible person drives a car worth £900, he or she must still pay between 2 and 4 times that (per year) to be on the road?
After all, most young drivers will be aware of this frustrating paradox of paying more for their insurance than their actual car is worth - and this problem is getting more acute each year as average insurance costs for new drivers increase. It is of course a reflection of the fact that other cars on the road are worth far more than the cheaper older ones driven often by the youngest and poorest drivers.
And whatsmore, this absurd disparity gets worse once more and more drivers buy cars worth upwards of 40, 50 or even 100 thousand pounds - forcing young drivers’ insurance to reflect the insurance companies’ increasing anxiety about the prospects of having to foot a repair bill for a brand new Porsche or Mercedes for example.
Is it not grossly unfair that young (and often poorer) drivers should have to be squeezed for such extortionate amounts - just because there are others out there who can afford extremely expensive luxury cars?
Is there not a more sensible way of structuring insurance that simply takes into account the value of the car which you drive - or in other words, the extent of the financial risk you pose to the system? That way we wouldn’t have the absurd situation that the youngest drivers are forced to cover the risk to the insurers posed by increasing numbers of high-end vehicles.
Ultimately such a pricing structure would correctly place the added cost of expensive liabilities in the overall system at the door of those who choose to introduce them to it - rather than those who are simply judged to be most likely to damage them due to their unavoidable driving inexperience.
Dejan Levi
The new 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo combines far-reaching innovations in technology with fine tuning and supreme refinement in design. All key features of this high-performance sports car have been significantly improved, the new 2010 911 Turbo combining a substantial improvement in fuel efficiency and lower weight with more power, even higher speed, and enhanced driving dynamics.
Porsche’s new top model will be presented to the public for the first time at the Frankfurt Motor Show from 17 - 27 September.
Full story continues at InAutonews online
Today it seems to be the day of BMW concept designs. Just a few minutes ago, we have posted an article on the BMW M1 Hommage, a prototype that pays tribute to the original M1. Now, we are ready to show you the BMW M-Zero concept, a design by Maël Oberkampf. This is an independent project and Maël is not affiliated with BMW, just so we clear all the speculations from the beginning.
The direction the designer was going with this design was towards the Audi’s R8, but the car has a lot of elements borrowed from the Aston Martin DB9, Mercedes-Benz and even the BMW 6 Series.
For more info and some great photos head over to BMW blog
We can’t say we’re the biggest fans of Porsche’s decision to charge into the truck segment, but if you actually like driving and absolutely need to have an SUV—and can afford it—the Cayenne is among your few choices.
Co-developed with Volkswagen, the first-gen Cayenne has two sister models in the Volkswagen Touareg, with which it shares a ton (or two) of components, and the Audi Q7, which is a more distant relation. The Audi is bigger to accommodate three-row seating, but it’s also less complex, as it eschews all of the Cayenne and Touareg’s robust off-road equipment, which owners of the Porsche and VW rarely use anyway.
Read more at Car and Driver online
