The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

CKhalvashi

vivatifosi wrote: »

Same here. We have three cars between two of us, costs £650 a year for all three. They are significantly cheaper. And they still allow us to bargain with them. We also have gap insurance on the same cars. Both of us have full no claims.

My dad's car insurance rocketed the insurance year he was due to turn eighty. Massive increase, about 40-50%.

Not on a multicar policy, but I did notice that mine dropped from around £1500 to below £1000 when I hit 30, before levelling out at about what it is now a few years later.

Just a year can play a huge difference in insurance prices for some reason, probably related to statistics in some way.

chris_m

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Aye, there's some insurance madness going on at the moment.
I pay £220 a year for Mrs McT's much more expensive and much higher performance car, versus £650 for Mother McT's bland automatic saloon.
Both are the same German manufacturer. Neither of them have any claims or convictions.
Don't understand this at all.

God knows how they work it out, my Dacia Duster (1.5 diesel) costs over 50% more than my Merc A-class with the same 1.5 diesel engine did - same driver, same parking, same insurer, etc., etc. I'd have thought the Duster plodder would have been a lower risk than the rather sportier Merc.

About the only thing I can think of which could do it, assuming they include it in their risk analysis, is that the Duster has a lower NCAP rating - not that it is less safe but when the model was tested some safety features weren't included which are now so the official rating is lower and will be until or if it's retested.

Unless, of course, they just use a finger in the air approach - Hmm, what are people likely to accept? OK, double it.

michaels

PasturesNew wrote: »

Home alone. Turkey for one on a laptray

Well you would be very welcome to come and have lunch with us, it would be nice to have someone else in the house as it might calm the kids down a bit to reduce the amount of screeching to only being one at a time rather than all 3 simultaneously - sometimes it gets so bad we have to send them out front to play basketball, I would ask them to take care as they play on the drive where you would be parked.

Pyxis

michaels wrote: »

Well you would be very welcome to come and have lunch with us, it would be nice to have someone else in the house as it might calm the kids down a bit to reduce the amount of screeching to only being one at a time rather than all 3 simultaneously - sometimes it gets so bad we have to send them out front to play basketball, I would ask them to take care as they play on the drive where you would be parked.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Ooh michaels, you are a caution!

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

Home alone. Turkey for one on a laptray

It was going to be that for me too - but, instead, I'll be doing a 700 mile round trip and spend Christmas Day with my sister & family and an aunt & uncle who are visiting them

GDB2222

Car insurance with CIS was £400 last year, going up to £490 this year if I simply renewed with them. Aviva is charging us £230, instead. That's less than I have paid in living memory. This is for a car weighing nearly 2 tons, ie capable of doing loads of damage to third parties, and in London, which is fairly high risk. The insurers appear to be pretty desperate for my business.

CKhalvashi

chris_m wrote: »

God knows how they work it out, my Dacia Duster (1.5 diesel) costs over 50% more than my Merc A-class with the same 1.5 diesel engine did - same driver, same parking, same insurer, etc., etc. I'd have thought the Duster plodder would have been a lower risk than the rather sportier Merc.

About the only thing I can think of which could do it, assuming they include it in their risk analysis, is that the Duster has a lower NCAP rating - not that it is less safe but when the model was tested some safety features weren't included which are now so the official rating is lower and will be until or if it's retested.

Unless, of course, they just use a finger in the air approach - Hmm, what are people likely to accept? OK, double it.

Yes, I did notice that the current XE is more expensive to insure than the previous XF. The former was a 3.0, latter a 2.0.

I don't know if it's anything to do with the former being badged as 'Portfolio' and the latter as 'R-Sport', but it makes no sense at all.

Overall the XE is much cheaper to run though (around 30% less on fuel which is my biggest expense), so the extra insurance premium is worth it. Not sure if you've noticed similar with the Dacia or not.

SingleSue

I think I have finished my Christmas shopping. I didn't think I was going to be able to manage it this year and the amounts have reduced a fair amount (£25-£30 per child) which I feel awful about but the boys have reassured me that it is ok as they understand that money is rather tight.

Makes me feel like the poor relative though when ex hubby is proving a point (after we have always agreed an amount we are each going to spend to avoid one upmanship) and has gone mad on the presents this year. He somehow thinks this makes him the better parent.

I had a few black days over it which left me a little down but thank goodness the boys are not materialistic.

vivatifosi

You can't buy love Sue. A spot of materialism will mean nothing in the long run. He can buy them everything, but still won't see that the grounding, love and support that you've given them is what is actually priceless. Throwing money at the problem of his poor relationship with his kids isn't a quick fix, but he seems to see it as such.

Mind you, after many years of consistently poor parenting strategies, he has run out of options.

chris_m

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Overall the XE is much cheaper to run though (around 30% less on fuel which is my biggest expense), so the extra insurance premium is worth it. Not sure if you've noticed similar with the Dacia or not.

No - despite being the same engine, the Dacia does use more fuel than the Merc did. Because it's the 4x4 version, it has an especially low 1st gear for off-road use. Unfortunately that means that all the gears are correspondingly lower, I estimate that 6th on the Dacia is roughly the same ratio as 5th was on the Merc so it's less economic when cruising at above around 50mph. The aerodynamics of a very slightly smoothed breeze block don't help, compounded by the high ride height which allows turbulence and wind drag around the running gear - the Merc, being the ECO model, was lowered compared to the rest of the A-Class range and some of the running gear designed to be more aerodynamic.

Oh, and I have to pay VED on the Dacia - the Merc VED was zero.

However, for my needs on the Cumbrian roads, the Dacia is far better. The high ride height means I can see over walls and hedges, plus get a slightly earlier view of oncoming vehicles when cresting a brow. The suspension is softer (although still firm enough to not wallow) so it soaks up the bumps and potholes without loosening my fillings. The gearing is better suited to all the ups and downs too.

For most of my driving, on roads where trying to do more than about 40mph would be stupid to say the least, I seem to be getting around 52-54mpg which is about what the Merc was giving on the same roads and traffic conditions.

It'll be interesting to see what the Dacia returns when I go to Southampton on Sunday, then back on Monday - the Merc usually gave 60-65mpg depending on traffic and did give me 72mpg on one trip from Preston to Southampton, more traffic and road works making a lot of the journey only 50-60mph.

If the Dacia gives me 45+ mpg on that 700 mile round trip I'll be reasonably happy, I didn't get it for long journeys anyway.