HELPDESK: MICHAEL McALEERanswers all your motoring queries
From Laurence McM:
Driving a car without an updated NCT will result in penalty points, as will driving a defective vehicle. My question is: will these penalty points be applied to Irish residents caught illegally driving unregistered vehicles in the State, as the cars they drive de facto have no NCT?
Or will Irish resident drivers who unlawfully continue to drive unregistered cars, in the unlikely event of being caught, be simply let off with a warning to pay the VRT owed to the Revenue, as is the case at present?
As foreign-registered cars are not required to have NCT certificates, the likely outcome will be that owners of foreign-registered cars will be required to re-register their vehicles rather than face points. However, a vehicle must carry an NCT once it is re-registered so once here the driver should indeed be liable.
The suggestion that such drivers are let off with a warning is not always the case: increasingly, Revenue officials are involved in random roadside operations where they will seize foreign-registered cars driven by residents of the Republic who have failed to pay the necessary tax. The anomalies over the failure to apply penalty points, however, is one that does need addressing.
As David Labanyi outlines in his news story today, nearly one in three motorists who are caught for penalty point offences are not being assigned their points. This situation would seem to be of more importance before we add more point offences to the system.
While such moves garner the right headlines and public attention, it’s all rather pointless – if you’ll pardon the pun – if the system if failing to penalise nearly one-third of offending motorists.
From L Pelan, Co. Kildare:
As ‘The Irish Times’ is currently looking back, perhaps you could tell me what the paper said about my 1979 Mercedes Benz 230 123 series, in the year it was born?
The review was in the edition of Wednesday, November 17th, 1976 and my former colleague Andrew Hamilton reckoned it would sell well, at least to Government ministers at the time.
He found the car remarkably comfortable and smooth, even on the roads of Ireland at the time and tested the car on parts of the route of the Gordon Bennett run. He was, however, concerned about the price of the car, given Ireland’s precarious economic position at the time.
There was also much hype from the brand about its new diesel engines and its fuel economy. However, Andrew was not yet convinced about the merits of diesel in a premium car. “I am wondering if any car buyer who can afford to spend nearly £10,000 on a car is particularly worried by the economies of a diesel engine.”
He wrote: “Mercedes Benz for long has been Ireland’s most respected (and despised) big car. The three pointed star has been an unwritten symbol of Irish business life, while for the farmer and merchant, it was the necessary imprimatur for life at the top...The prices, I feel, will test their devotion.”
The article states that the 230 four-cylinder with automatic transmission cost £9,600.
From L Byrne:
I’ve recently finished my job and am being offered the chance to buy my company car, a Ford Mondeo 2008 1.6-litre petrol for under € 20,000. It seems like a good price from what I have seen on websites but I’m only interested in it if I can sell it on at a profit. Is there a good market for such cars? I’m interested in getting a small runaround until I find a new job. Any tips for a couple that likes sport on a budget of about € 10,000? Looks less important than reliability.
I’m not sure that €20,000 is the best price you could have picked up for the 1.6-litre Mondeo. You should be looking to get it for less. Many cars on websites and in classified ads are from the trade and you won’t be able to get that price from them in a trade-in.
Nor will you be able to compete on price in a private sale, given that they can offer a year’s warranty on the car, for example.
I would either seek to get the car at considerably less or simply go to a dealer with the money you have and look for a deal on a 2006 Ford Focus, VW Golf or Toyota Corolla. It shouldn’t set you back more than €11,000.