Car VED band

kippermanbike

Hi, I have a small Vauxall Agila 1.2. It does around 45mpg. However the VED tax band is: G (156 co2) How can this be? The car is tiny, with a small eco tech engine. All the following cars have bigger engines, but lower CO2? How come? Ok thier MPG is higher, some are diesel.

Citroen Nemo Multispace 1.4 HDi 119g/km VED Band C 62.8mpg
= Fiat Qubo 1.3 Multijet 119g/km VED Band C 62.8mpg
= Nissan Note 1.5 dCi 86 119g/km VED Band C 62.8mpg
4 Renault Modus 1.5 dCi 86 120g/km VED Band C 62.8mpg
5 Citroen C3 Picasso 1.6 HDI 90 125g/km VED Band D 60.1mpg
= Volkswagen Golf Plus 1.6 TDI 90 S 125g/km VED Band D 62.8mpg

Is there anyway to challenge the VED band?

whatmichaelsays

kippermanbike wrote: »

Hi, I have a small Vauxall Agila 1.2. It does around 45mpg. However the VED tax band is: G (156 co2) How can this be? The car is tiny, with a small eco tech engine. All the following cars have bigger engines, but lower CO2? How come? Ok thier MPG is higher, some are diesel.

Citroen Nemo Multispace 1.4 HDi 119g/km VED Band C 62.8mpg
= Fiat Qubo 1.3 Multijet 119g/km VED Band C 62.8mpg
= Nissan Note 1.5 dCi 86 119g/km VED Band C 62.8mpg
4 Renault Modus 1.5 dCi 86 120g/km VED Band C 62.8mpg
5 Citroen C3 Picasso 1.6 HDI 90 125g/km VED Band D 60.1mpg
= Volkswagen Golf Plus 1.6 TDI 90 S 125g/km VED Band D 62.8mpg

Is there anyway to challenge the VED band?

Don't confuse emissions with MPG - the two are very different. I think the emissions data is provided by VOSA (although I stand to be corrected on that) and these measurements are how the tax bands are forumlated.

What you may find on many of the models you have quoted is that they include features such as stop/start, which significantly bring the readings down through testing. If you're driving an auto, this will also have an effect.

I'm also going to assume that's it's an old-style Agila as, according to this, no 2008-on edition Agila is in band G. The highest is band F and they are all automatics.

Bongles

How old is your Agila? I've just done a brief bit of googling and it looks like the pre-2008 1.2 models had CO2 figures around your 156. Current 1.2 models are lower. Emissions reduction is always moving on and if, for example, you're comparing a 5+ year old car with today's cars then you're not comparing like with like.

kippermanbike

Ok true, my Agila is 2003

almillar

So these are all far newer cars than yours, and they're all diesels rather than petrols, and diesels don't put out as much CO2 as petrols anyway. Now that cars are taxed based on CO2 emissions (since 2002?), manufacturers have been working hard to get them down, but your car will have been left out of that.

mattyprice4004

You're comparing a 9 year old PETROL Agila with brand new, diesel cars?

Seriously, you have to be kidding. Of course they're lower CO2, it's nearly a decade further on!

:wall:

Hintza

1.2 Agila (with manufacturing date)
Registration Date VED Band 12 months First Year Rate CO2:-
3 May 2008 - 3 Apr 2009 Band E £120.00 131 g/km
3 Apr 2009 - 15 Nov 2010 Band D £100.00 129 g/km

Time for a new car?

forgotmyname

Manufacturers have learnt howto and its in their best interest to fiddle the figures now.

Bongles

Hintza wrote: »

Time for a new car?

The OP's car is in band G. Some of the car's they were comparing to are in band C. That's a difference of £140 a year - almost certainly a minor part of the running costs, and trivial compared to the cost of changing the car. They're not doing too badly with 45mpg, and I expect a 9 year old Agila has finished depreciating by now. Sounds like a pretty cheap car to run to me. Unless it's starting to rack up the maintenance bills, a new car doesn't sound like a good Money Saving decision.

All this VED banding is nonsense. I don't understand why anyone would even look at VED bands when choosing a car. Looking at fuel consumption I understand (and of course there will be some correlation between lower fuel consumption and lower VED).

Joe_Horner

whatmichaelsays wrote: »

Don't confuse emissions with MPG - the two are very different.

CO2 emissions and fuel consumption are exactly the same thing, just expressed in different units.

Whenever you fully burn one litre of petrol (without added ethanol) you produce 2310g of CO2. That's a simple matter of chemistry and has nothing to do with the design of the engine.

If your car does (say) 45mpg that's approximately 10 miles, or 16km, for every litre of fuel burnt. So it will produce 2310 / 16 = 144.3 grams of CO2 per kilometre.

Bear in mind that the official figures for CO2 (which VED is based on) are based on the official figures for fuel consumption*, which may bear no relation at all to what a car gives in real life!!


The result of that is that any car that does, say, 45mpg in real life will be producing the same amount of CO2 (and so be equally "green") regardless of whether it's a 1970 Morris Minor or the latest model. But the VED bands have nothing to do with green credentials really, that's just a handy hook to hang them on!

gilbert_and_sullivan

On the other hand, those who save the money on their VED by running these Diesels will be needing it.

By the time they are 9 years old, they will be likely be looking at DMF/DPF replacements, injector or high pressure fuel pump replacements etc.

They'll need that 1k ish saving and a fair bit more to fix those problems, thats if any of the latest stuff is still running at 9 years, which i doubt, they'll have spent considerably more servicing the things over time anyway.

Keep that simple handy little car of yours going as long as possible.