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Hi Philip,

Every gearbox is different and our advice would be to follow the manufacturer advice. For life means for life, with no limit on mileage, odd as that sounds.

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Hi Roy,

You haven’t said whether this is a BMW 420i (petrol) or a 420d (diesel), so we’ve checked both. For a 420d diesel, the VRT charge is going to be in the region of €3,900 depending on the specific spec of the car. For a petrol 420i, it’s going to be pretty similar — around €3,500. There will be NOx tax charges on top of that, but thankfully even the older 4 Series diesel models were very NOx-efficient, just 23mg/km officially, so that’ll only be an extra €115 onto the VRT for the diesel. Oddly, the petrol 420i was actually a little worse off for NOx (28mg/km) so that’ll cost you €140 extra.

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Hi Len,

It has a timing belt, which must be changed at least every 200,000km or 10 years - whichever comes first.

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Hi Elroy,

The only 1.6-litre engine fitted to the 2014 Kuga was the petrol-fuelled EcoBoost unit. It uses a timing belt, which must be changed at least every 200,000km or 10 years - whichever comes first.

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Hi Tamas,

Well, it depends on which version of Zafira each one is. From the detail you’ve given there on the tax costs, I’d suspect that the 141 car has the 2.0 CDTi diesel engine, the 129g/km of CO₂ emissions of which would put it in Band B2 for a €280 tax cost. Is the 161 car a 1.4 turbo petrol? Because that version’s 156g/km emissions put it just into the €570 Band D. Or the discrepancy could be down to one having an automatic gearbox, instead of a manual. Without more details, I’m afraid, we can’t be sure. 

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Hi Patrick,

We have indeed reviewed the A-Class Saloon and you can read our thoughts on the car here. As for whether it’s good value for money, it kind of depends on how you look at it. Compared to other similarly-priced cars — Volkswagen Passat, Skoda Superb, or Opel Insignia for example — it’s not good value as you’re paying the same or more for a smaller car, probably with less standard equipment. That three-pointed star on the bonnet costs a fair bit… On the other hand, viewing the A-Class Saloon as a slightly smaller (but not that much so) alternative to the C-Class saloon — an entirely valid point of view — it’s actually really good value. Models available range from the basic A 180 petrol and A 180 d diesel versions, through A 200 and A 200 d, all the way up to the slightly rabid 300hp A 35 AMG model. 

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Hi Paul,

Basically, rocking up to an inspection with a Lamborghini is a licence for Revenue to charge you whatever it fancies… I wouldn’t be surprised to see a VRT bill of more than €30-40,000 for this one. 

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Hi Tony,

The second-generation Octavia launched in 2004, which means you're most likely looking at two completely different generations of the model. There will be some small number of parts potentially shared across both, but not a lot at all, especially as the engines are also different.

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Hi Pat,

We certainly have noticed this trait in all Volkswagen Group DSG-based gearboxes (that's what the S tronic transmission is) and their attendant engines of late. The only explanation seems to be that VW’s various brands have trimmed back both engine power and responsiveness at low speeds, and especially at idle or when waking up from a stop-start cycle, in order to optimise their figures in the new WLTP emissions and economy tests. VW is certainly not the only one to do this, but it does seem to be more obvious with VW Group models than with some other manufacturers. Shifting the gearbox into Sport helps a bit, but it’s not a total fix.

One cure might be a total vehicle upgrade — we’ve noticed that the new ‘Evo’ versions of the 1.5 TSI petrol and 2.0 TDI diesel engines are noticeably less sleepy. Or, alternatively, trade in for a version with a manual gearbox — that is the simplest cure of all.

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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.