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Hi Aidan,

No, the new NOx tax is only applied to Category A vehicles — which means private passenger cars — from Jan 1st onwards. 

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Hi there,

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Hi Clare,

A Hilux has a 2.4-litre engine (well, the current one does, but remember that older versions had 3.0-litre units) so if you want to tax it as a private vehicle that’s going to be €1,034 per year for motor tax. I’m pretty sure you can’t register and tax a horse lorry for private use as it’s over the 3,500kg limit for private cars. The tax therefore would be the commercial rate of €333 per year. As for insurance, that’s probably more down to you and your own driving record than it is to the vehicle, but the good news is that there are specialist horse lorry insurers, such as Wexford Insurance, who would probably be able to give you a good quote. 

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Hi Barry,

I think this sounds more like a tyre issue than anything else. Is there a possibility that the car is on cheap, aftermarket, tyres? If so, get them replaced with a set of something decent — Michelins or Bridgestones. Going for xDrive would help, of course, as the extra bit of traction is never a bad thing, but it does add (slightly) to your running costs because of the weight and the extra frictional losses.

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Hi Andrej,

It all sounds a bit dodgy to us, to be honest. I’d tread very carefully, as if the seller has already brought the car into the country, and made an original appointment to have it inspected for VRT, then Revenue is already aware that the car is in the country. Given that there’s a 30-day limit from the date of arrival for VRT to be paid, I’d say that there’s not just an overdue payment, but possible penalties too. I think your best bet is to walk away — plenty of other cars available, from reputable sources, so you don’t need to be messing around with this sort of carry-on. 

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Hi Tahir,

The first thing we'd check is the condition of the battery. It sounds like the system is turning off the engine as normal, but then sensing that it needs to go back on right away. That's unusual, to be honest, as most systems just won't turn the engine off if an issue is detected. I'd advise you bring the car to a good mechanic or auto-electrician to have it looked over.

Our feature, Why won't my car's stop-start system work?, is worth a read as well.

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Hi Sinead,

Bit of an odd one for that model, but for cars built up to July 2012 and registered up to that date, the interval is every 240,000km or 10 years, whichever comes first. For cars registered after that date, but with the same build period, the interval is 180,000km or 10 years. Either way you still have some time to go before your car needs a change.

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Hi Anne,

Is that a 100km round trip every day? Or 100km each way? Either way, you could potentially get away with a fully-electric car, assuming that you can charge at home and charge again at work. Either way, though, you’ll have to spend big and go for one of the latest electric cars with a  50kWh or 62kWh  battery, such as the Hyundai Kona Electric or the new Renault Zoe. What could well be an easier (and much cheaper) option would be to go for a hybrid. There’s only one hybrid-engined car in the Polo-size class at the moment, and that’s the Toyota Yaris. The current version is pretty good, but there is an  all-new one coming next year, so you might be best off waiting for that to appear. By then, the new Honda Jazz, also a hybrid, should be available. Or, you could keep it a lot simpler and go for a new Polo with the excellent 1.0-litre turbo petrol engine. It'll be tough to beat your diesel Polo for outright economy, though.

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Hi Eleanor,

I think, in general, you’re being given a decent trade-in against your Passat, assuming that the cars you’re looking at have a new price tag of around €35,000. I think of the cars you’ve mentioned, the Skoda looks like the best deal (surprise, surprise) as it’s basically identical to the Tiguan underneath, and just as good to drive. Just as well-made, too. Obviously, going for a demo Tiguan makes a lot of sense too, but just remember that it’ll technically be a two-owner car once it comes to resale time. One final wrinkle is that the new Passat (not entirely new but with some significant updates) is just arriving in dealerships now, so would be worth checking out to see if you prefer that to an SUV.

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Hi Shane,

No, not just yet. The new NOx tax (which could add a significant amount of extra cost to importing a car, especially an older one like that 2014 Focus) won’t take effect until the New Year. It will be applied to all new cars and imports from Jan 1st.