Road tax band for the Beat

[Scorch]

Does anyone know what road fund licence band the Beat will be in? The bands are based on CO2 emissions per km. I just checked my last MOT readout and the units are % vol. Anyone know how they translate? Wouldn't it be great if it was down to £40 - yet another reason to own one!

[AliA]

look here for info on the banding:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4834480.stm

I'm not sure what emissions the Beat puts out. The smart car at 0.7 litre is in the £40 bracket though, so maybe some small hope :)

My other car has moved up into the £190 bracket though.

[Wh1teLeopard]

See people in their HUWGE poweful skylines might look down at our little beastie and laugh... but we'll be having the last laugh now :D

I would imagine Beat's would be band B, though there's always hope it could be band A hee hee! Free road tax anyone?

[adrianp]

I think you have all got the wrong end of this...

As far as I know, all cars sold before 2001 will still be taxed by their engine size as there probably isn't the info available to reclasify every vehicle ever made since back when ours was new, manufacturers weren't interested in how much polution a car made...

Hopefully this helps... (linked from the FTO club site)

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a24/HellboyUK/Misc/VED-2.jpg

Ady.

[Wh1teLeopard]

Yea I thought about that last night, doubt it will apply to our cars at all.

We will have to see what happens, but at the moment it looks like we are set to keep paying what we already do :rolleyes:

[Scorch]

Oh well. I should have read the small print. I've just fallen off of my cloud...

[Bruce]

Yeh, it's a really dumb system for older cars. I heard that the old Mazda RX-7 has to pay the same £110 as the Beat, as it's 1.3 litre. Bu ' a 280bhp rotary engine, which is a really efficient engine type, and the 1.3 litre measurement is completely incomparable to that of a standard piston engine. What is crazy is that this anomoly is maintained to this day on all these RX-7's. I can't understand why all new road tax rules only apply to new cars - the world is a changing place, but the old cars keep on going. This new 4x4 tax is a complete joke too - pitifully inadequate.

Bruce

[jurek]

I have 3 4x4 but i can only drive them one at a time ...its no joke.

[UltraViolet]

Unfortunately in this 'disposable society' people assume that older cars just disappear and are insignificant, so no point worrying about adapting legislation for them as 'people don't drive cars older than 3 years old do they?' :rolleyes:

So based upon engine size for older cars - is short sighted for many reasons, no differentiation between cleaner efficient cars and heavy polluters and heavy damagers.

Also, do they honestly think that someone prepared to spend £20k+ and put £80 of fuel into their huge 4x4 tank each week is going to consider a more friendly car for the sake of an extra £40 or so a year. :rolleyes:

I don't get 4x4s at all, not my thing - but if people like them and want to make use of the off road functionality, some incentive to the manufacturers to make them lighter and cleaner would be good. I live in a rural area and don't see many of them. I drove to Reading yesterday and swear it seemed I saw more 4x4s there than I did normal cars! :eek:

[Scorch]

Me and hubby have a plan re 4x4 - if they were limited to 60 mph (perfectly adequate for the purpose for which they were designed, i.e. off-road), then the BMW X5 etc would surely become obsolete?

[Paul w]

Hey, lay off the 4x4! i drive a CR-V!

(its a messy gas guzzler, doing only 35-40 MPG if i'm careful)

Ah the Cdti....another masterpiece by honda!

All X5's and porsche cayenne should be flipped onto their roofs like the helpless turtles they are!

PW

[UltraViolet]

Hey - lay off poor defencless Turtles!! :eek:

I don't target 4x4s specifically (yes we can argue most that own them don't need them, but who 'needs' to own sports cars too!) - I just think better persuasion needed to encourage the makers to make them kinder to our earth.

Car tax should be a multiplier based upon emissions, vehicle weight and life time vehicle recyclebility.

[jcs]

The whole thing is rubbish as it takes no account of the usage to which people put their cars, large or small.

I recently put a proposal together for a driver and vehicle smart ID card holding driver, vehicle(s), insurance, MOT, etc. details, to be used in conjunction with a charge for VED on a litre of fuel. That way, you only pay for the mileage you do. More miles and/or high consumption = pay more. Low miles and/or low consumption = pay less. Much fairer to all concerned.

My cars are 4,000cc / 3,000cc / 2,000cc / 660cc and I can only drive one at once, so mileage per car is quite small and I object to paying the same VED as someone who drives a big car for 30k miles p.a.

Also, with card readers at the fuel pump, if any of the authorities on your card is invalid, e.g. out-of-date (or no) insurance, you don't get any fuel and it's logged at centre - so, no driving without insurance, or MOT, etc.

I sent a copy to my local MP and he forwarded it to the Minister (Darling?), but I see it didn't feature in the budget!!

John