Upset dealers
The Help Desk is in trouble! A few weeks ago the response to a query about buying a used Mercedes-Benz car was that it should be bought from an authorised Mercedes-Benz dealership. An innocuous enough piece of advice maybe. But there are highly honourable people who deal in quality used cars and work outside the frame of the Mercedes dealer network - indeed all dealer networks - and we want to acknowledge that fact.
Jer Lambe and Cecil O'Connor - whose company is Lambe and O'Connor at Annesley Bridge, Dublin 3 - are two such people and they are upset. A note to us says that the company has been supplying luxury and sports cars including Mercedes, BMW and Jaguar to satisfied buyers for over 20 years.
Michael Cullen is an upset man. He is a dealer principal in Rathmines, Dublin 6 and his dealership, as well as having the Hyundai franchise, sells BMW, Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati, Aston Martin, Bentley "and other nice cars that we do not have a main agency for". With a Mercedes C180 and C200 in stock, he asks: "Do I presume from your article that Mr Coller would be ill-advised to purchase one of these vehicles?" Des Donnelly of Des Donnelly Cars at Old Kilmainham, Dublin 8 feels our comment was negative towards his business. He isn't an authorised dealer but sells quality used cars with prestige badges including Mercedes-Benz.
We can only recant and say that the advice was perhaps too restrictive.
Geoff Coller, or indeed anyone shopping around for a good used Mercedes-Benz, should include these locations where you will see quality products in a quality environment.
Warning light
Barrie Manders, managing director of McNamara Bosch Fuel Injection Services, thinks that the price quoted to Sean Masterson of Galway is very high. He wrote to the Help Desk about his 1993 Toyota Carina E when the engine management warning light remained on. The dealer advice was that the exhaust emissions sensor had failed and that it would probably cost more than €500 to repair. "They are hopelessly incorrect on the price," says Barrie Manders. "The retail price of the item concerned is €190.50 plus VAT and a reasonable fitting charge. Fitting takes about 20 minutes."
VRT display
Conor O'Sullivan writes on the iniquitous VRT issue. As a car driver and motor cyclist, he wonders why he is paying VRT on a bike. "Am I not helping the Government by reducing congestion?" We concur while insisting that it shouldn't be there in the first place. Conor O'Sullivan also points to something we haven't noticed, that some motorcycle dealers are listing the VRT element in their price lists. What about the idea catching on in the car showrooms, he asks. We don't think it will.
Most retailers would view showing the tax element as putting potential customers off. But there is a precedent. When turnover tax was introduced in the 1960s, car advertising did carry, for a period, and in parentheses, the actual amount of the tax.
Christopher V.S. Doyle, Clontarf, Dublin 3, wonders if the EU office in Dublin is formally reporting back to Brussels to tell the Commission there that the Government is fleecing car owners totally contrary to the idea of European free trade. "After all, the EU Commission is not slow to censure Ireland about the way some of our national budgets or national environmental programmes have been managed in recent years, so why the reluctance of the Commission to address the inequality of the VRT?"
A good point, but the Government is insistent that it controls taxation and VRT, yielding twice as much as VAT from new car sales, is a vital part of that control. Christopher Doyle thinks it is such a source of revenue that it would be difficult to implement any alternative tax providing the same income. He wonders what the alternatives might be, like a significant rise in income tax or road tax.
We hope not. A bad tax that is against the whole ethos of the European free market shouldn't need a replacement. VRT, after all, replaced import duties and it was specifically created for new motor sales.
Poor tyres
John Ryan from Dublin isn't happy with what some of our minor roads are doing to his low profile tyres. "I have to do a lot of driving on back roads in Dublin, Meath and Kildare and they are a nightmare for my tyres which are low profile." Not much joy here until our roads get better.
Angus Smith of Semperit Ireland says the influence of low profile performance tyres is set to rise. Semperit predicts an increase of 40 per cent over the next five years. Poor road surfaces, he admits, are "a major challenge to the tyre manufacturers". Low profile tyres do more than simply look good: they enhance driving in a performance car. But John Ryan and, we suspect, other motorists, are paying a price.