Friday, June 1, 2012

Cheap car insurance and the insurance groups

The theory of buying a new car is always straightforward. You watch Top Gear, see something spectacular, toddle off to the nearest dealer's showroom, plonk down cash and drive away contented. Well, if that's your approach, you're either a company director who gets one of these eye-watering bonuses, or you've never tried to buy and insure a car before. Let's go back to Jeremy Clarkson and his happy band of cartoon-like presenters who often sacrifice intelligent comment for humour. Many of the cars shown are expensive to own and repair. Before you even begin dreaming of buying one of these often sleek speedsters, check which insurance group it belongs to. Remember, you're looking for cheap car insurance.

Until 2010, there were only 20 groups. This reflected a general feeling that insurers could predict the costs of repair with enough accuracy to set premiums. However, following work done by Thatcham, the motor insurance repair research centre, the groupings were expanded to 50. This is now adopted as standard by the Association of British Insurers and Lloyds Market Association. For each group, there's now an estimate of the cost of parts and labour following a crash test at 15 mph. The other factor influenced by Thatcham is vehicle security. This takes account of the locks and any other security features fitted as standard. So the car you would like to buy may be allocated to Group 18 and have an A for an adequate level of security (E shows the security provided exceeds the group expectation, i.e. the car would be shown as a 17E). For obvious reasons, it's unwise to buy a vehicle which has a D or U security classification.

The rule is that you get cheap car insurance when the car is in a low group. The majority of newly manufactured cars intended for the mass market are within the range 1-20. But do not assume that small underpowered cars will belong to a low group. Some of the Fiat Bravo range are in Group 17, the HGT is in Group 29.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Does going Green affect your Car Insurance?

Many factors affect your car insurance premium like:
  • Your Driving Habits
  • Your Driving History: number of violations and accidents
  • Your average yearly mileage
  • Your number of claims filed
  • Your neighborhood
  • Your Credit Score
Insurance companies rate the risk of all of these factors and follow trends to set your premiums. A recent trend in the automotive industry is the introduction of green car or hybrids. Several types of automobiles are labeled green or hybrids. There are two types of combination hybrids series and parallel. The combination hybrid uses both a battery driven electric motor and a gas engine. The electric motor allows for a smaller, lighter more fuel efficient gas engine. In a parallel hybrid the electric and combustion motors both the transmission together. In a series hybrid, the combustion engine is only used to recharge the batteries, and the electric motor does all the work of driving the transmission. There are PEV's (plug in electrical vehicles like the Nissan leaf) that use battery as the only power source; not to mention automobiles developed around natural gas as the fuel source are available on the market.
Most green cars on the road today are combination hybrids (gas and battery). They average between 45 and 55 mpg. With today's volatile fuel prices that can add up to considerable savings at the pump, and the most popular models have good safety ratings. So does going green save you on car insurance? The answer is yes and no.
Many of the green cars are higher end, and higher price tag automobiles. The higher the initial cost of the car, the more expensive your car insurance. Don't lose heart if you want to go green to save the environment, or just to save money at the pump. Most automobile manufacturers are rolling more moderately priced green machines off the assembly line. While the sticker price is still a bit higher than their non-green models, the range of models is opening up. There are green versions now offered in most price ranges. You can now buy a mid priced 4 door sedan version that is not only limited to the luxury line. If you want to go green the mid to compact size models will save you on car insurance and at the pump.

Car insurance and winter driving

For example, did you prepare your vehicle for facing bad weather conditions? After all, it's predictable there will be snow and ice in winter. So did you fit new tires so you would have the maximum possible traction in slippery conditions? Or did you remember to put chains in the trunk so that, when the snow gets deeper, you can still drive reasonably safely? We all know the risk of sliding or skidding out of control. Why then do we fail to take action to protect ourselves and other road users? There are probably several reasons, not the least of which are that this means spending money on buying the chains, some think it inconvenient to fit them, and you cannot drive fast when you have them fitted. The fact local governments may require chains to be fitted as a condition to using the roads in some areas is not considered a reason for action (curiously, there are no chain laws in Florida and Missouri - strange oversight).
Then we come to all those routine maintenance tasks like adding antifreeze and retuning the engine so it's more likely to start when the temperature drops. Did you fit new blades on the windshield to give you better visibility when there's snow fall or a blizzard? And then we come to all the steps to protect you should your vehicle break down or be involved in an accident. Do you have an emergency bag packed with warm clothing and blankets should you need to keep warm while rescue comes? You did remember to charge your cell so you could call for help? If you are making a trip cross-country where signal strength may be low, did you tell people when you were expected so they could send out search and rescue teams?
All these things are basic common sense yet, when the first snows hit, we seem to have forgotten to prepare. If accidents are more likely because of this failure and it's shown to be a regular failure, your car insurance rates will rise. If you have been making claims, the car insurance quotes coming in from other insurers will not be welcoming. No insurer wants to take on someone who fails to prepare in the face of obvious dangers. That's why insurers in the states where the weather is worst offer discounts for drivers who go on defensive driving courses and learn how to drive more safely. Your choice!

Auto insurance and driverless vehicles

In the movie Minority Report, Stephen Spielberg has an extended sequence showing cars of the future being assembled and how they drive themselves. It's pleasing how well a film made some ten years ago has been predicting the future. The multitouch computer interfaces are here as are the retina scanners. Facial recognition software is routinely used at airports and other safety-critical locations, and we are now carrying pads around on which we can read the latest newspapers and books. Strangely enough, the driverless vehicles are also on our streets being tested. That might surprise you. Except the states of California and Nevada have already passed laws making it legal to have these vehicles drive you. So what's the problem?
In a sense, we have most of the technology already available off-the-shelf. Cameras can be fitted to give 360 degree vision. Radar can tell the vehicle when anything else is moving nearby. GPS transponders tell the vehicle exactly where it is. Computers can easily be configured to talk to each other so that each vehicle can be told when there's something else nearby on the road. We have voice recognition software which will allow owners to input the desired destination and route preferences. Many of the standard vehicles are already drive-by-wire, i.e. electronic rather than mechanical links to the accelerator, brakes, and so on. All we need are the software packages to interpret all this data and translate it into instructions for the vehicle. For the record, in March, Google announced that its driverless car has traveled over 200,000 miles on roads in all types of traffic conditions. There has not yet been an accident. Indeed, so confident is Google that it has begun discussions both with government and the insurance industry.
The theoretical advantages are enormous. A computer never takes its "eyes" off the road to answer a cell phone or comb its hair. It never drives too close to the vehicle in front. There's no reckless overtaking or speeding. If this technology was adopted across all our roads, the number and seriousness of traffic accidents would be significantly reduced. Given that more than 30,000 people are killed on our roads every year, this would be a major improvement. With the number of accidents falling, insurance costs would fall and premium rates could be reduced. Except we all know technology can break down. There's a world of difference between trusting the PC on your table at home to keep your personal information safe and allowing the same PC to drive you at 70 mph down a busy interstate.
It seems the discussions with the auto insurance industry have been going well because Google recently announced a more positive testing program for the software. Instead of this being ten or more years in the future, it has lost its speculative nature and could be approved in the next two or three years. The question for you as individual drivers is whether you will surrender your hands-on control to a computer in return for significant reductions in auto insurance rates. It's actually a very good deal and only dangerous if a few reckless people insist on continuing to drive themselves or it amuses hackers to take over vehicles and stage crashes.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Importance of Timely Windshield Repairs and Replacements

Driving around with a broken windshield can be a danger to your safety. Getting windshield replacement right away is important and can protect both you and your loved ones.

A broken windshield is something that everyone may have experienced once or twice in their lives. Although some windshield problems might not seem like a big deal, even the smallest crack in a windshield can be a danger to your safety, to the safety of others in your vehicle, and to those on the road with you. If you don't want to take risks, then dealing with broken windshields right away is imperative.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

How to Avoid Car Repair Disasters

One of the main reasons people complain about car repair companies is that what they thought would be a very cheap repair ends up costing much more than advertised, or taking longer than expected. In most cases, this can be avoided by choosing the right car repair company and ensuring that all the work done is documented and agreed before anything is done to your car.

Let's start with selecting a car repair company. Unless you are in an emergency situation, like your car engine giving up in the middle of a road trip, chances are you have plenty of time to choose a good and legitimate mechanic professional to call on when needed. It's always better to ask for referrals, as few people would recommend a mechanic they didn't have a very good experience with.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Fuel Injection Systems

All gasoline-powered engines require only two basic elements to run - the proper quantity of fuel for any given rpm and throttle opening, and spark from the ignition coil at the right moment. A carburetor's fuel-delivery system is compound of distinct fuel circuits, each with a specific job to comply. During startup of a cold engine, the choke circuit adds supplementary fuel and air to maintain engine from stalling. When the engine reaches operating temperature, the choke circuit shuts down. At idle (as the throttle is opened), the idle mixture from the screw and transfer port circuits allocates extra fuel as needed by the engine. As airflow into the engine raises, the main fuel circuit regulates fuel flow related to the proportion of throttle opening. If the throttle is opened unexpectedly, an accelerator pump circuit squirts fuel straightly into the intake manifold.

Even though carburetors have supplied fuel delivery services for well over one century and have always basically worked pretty well, there are several things they simply can't handle. A carburetor is fundamentally a hunk of aluminum with a number of holes drilled into it. As air pressure within the carburetor changes, fuel and air flow through the diverse holes and into the engine. However, a carburetor's capacity to deal with constantly changing operating environments is restricted with regard to reactions to modifications in altitude and compensation for engine temperature. They also lack accurate fuel control for emissions purposes and produce overall excessive fuel consumption pending steady-state engine operation and acceleration. In brief, carburetors are just too dumb to continue being helpful for providing accurate air/fuel mixtures in present vehicles. What is required is a fuel delivery system with some brains.