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Hi Seamus,

I'm afraid we don't have experience with different scissor jacks or buying aftermarket spare wheels. Just make sure you buy a good-quality jack with a sufficient weight rating. Your Hyundai weighs about 2,000kg for reference and, while you obviously don't lift the whole car on a jack, you should always apply a safety factor.

There are plenty of options on MicksGarage and Halfords Ireland.

Finding a suitable space-saver spare wheel may not be so straightforward, again because of the car's weight. There are people offering such things for sale online, but we can't vouch for any of them. Perhaps pop into your nearest Hyundai dealer and talk it through with them in case they have a solution.

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Hi John,

The Leapmotor B10 could be a suitable choice as a taxi as it has quite good levels of rear passenger headroom and legroom, while still retaining a useful 525 litres of boot space.

The 67.1kWh capacity battery is capable of 434 kilometres of range, and we found it to be quite close to the official energy consumption when we drove it.

Also, being an LFP battery, it is happier to be charged to 100 per cent regularly. Speaking of charging, it has a peak DC charge rate of 168kW, so 25-30 minutes will add an almost full recharge, though obviously charging up at home would be more affordable.

We did find the driver assistance features to be overbearing, but Leapmotor does provide a way of creating shortcuts to mute these, but it must be done every time the car is turned on.

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Hi Lee,

That generation of Kuga is generally quite dependable, certainly with the diesel engine. Just make sure that all the warning lights are working when you switch on the ignition and that they go off quickly when the engine is running. You want to make sure that the DPF isn't clogged, as that's relatively low mileage for the year.

For the same reason, make sure you take it for a decent test drive and ensure that there's no hesitation in the acceleration or in how the engine runs. Top tip: try to test drive other examples of the same car from other sellers so you get a feel for what it should drive like.

It isn't quite due a timing belt change yet, but no harm trying to get the seller to do that for you before you make the deal. Our data shows it's due once the car is either over 10 years old or has done 200,000km.

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Hi there,

As the car you're looking at has been in use all its life in the North - and I presume you can prove that - then there should not be any import duty or VAT payable on its importation south of the border. You will have to pay VRT of course. 

Always check your facts directly with Revenue before committing to a purchase.

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Hi Vicky,

Actually that car's engine uses a timing chain instead of a belt.

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Hi Brendan,

It certainly sounds like electric power would suit you, though if you decide against, the Skoda Octavia is an excellent car.

I'm assuming the cars listed mean a budget of nearly €40,000. There are better options out there than the ID.4. You could get a nearly new Cupra Tavascan, for example, or the smaller Cupra Born if you want to keep the price down or stay away from SUVs altogether.

The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is an excellent car as well, as is the Ioniq 6, though the latter's styling is not to all tastes. The Kia EV6 is along the same lines and it's more a crossover than an SUV.

You could also afford brand-new examples of the Peugeot E-308 and MG4, both conventional five-door hatchbacks.

Come back to me with your thoughts on all these and we can discuss it further.

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Hi Leif,

Every garage will have a different hourly rate or fixed price for such a job, and the price of the parts will even vary from place to place so we can't hope to definitively say how much that would cost.

We can tell you that the job is a solid three hours of work.

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Hi Safak,

This engine uses a timing chain and does not have a separate belt drive for the oil pump.

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Hi Leif,

Yes it does - whether it's the 1.5 or 2.0.

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Hi Laura,

No, this engine has a dry timing belt.