How to recognise Ev-optimised tyres
Says
Whereas winter tyre sidewalls are marked with the ‘three peaks mountain snowflake’ emblem, there’s not yet a universal emblem to distinguish tyres designed specifically for use on EVS.
However, Continental’s Ev-suitable tyres are marked with a ticked EV logo (as seen in the image to the left), and other brands are following suit with logos that confirm that a tyre is suitable for use on EVS.
The best option for EV drivers is to stick with the tyres that were fitted as original equipment, because these are often developed alongside the car to provide the best braking, handling and range. However, if you’re on a limited budget, you can save money by opting for an alternative, as long as its specifications are suitable.
The key to picking the best tyres is to ensure they adhere to two important criteria: they need to have high ratings for wet braking and fuel efficiency, and these are shown on their EU tyre labels. Good news, too, is that buyers will only have more choice in the future, with more brands introducing Ev-optimised tyres.
TYRE LABELS PROVIDE useful information on tyre performance in three areas: fuel efficiency, grip in wet conditions and noise levels.
The fuel efficiency rating is based on the rolling resistance of the tyre and is graded from A to G, with A being the best performance and G the worst. Friction from a combustion-engined car’s tyres can account for around 15% of its fuel consumption, and it follows that it would have a similar effect on the efficiency of an EV.
The braking rating relates to the stopping distance from 50mph in wet road conditions and is again shown on a sliding scale from A to G. The difference between these two extremes can be around 30%, or one to two car lengths, so it’s important to pick tyres with a good rating, no matter what kind of car they’ll be fitted to.
There are two ratings for external noise. The first is a decibel (db) reading that tells you how much noise the tyres generate, as measured in laboratory conditions. There are also up to three sound wave arcs, and these denote how noisy the tyres are compared with the industry average. One arc means the tyre is relatively quiet, while three means it’s relatively loud.
Although it’s unusual for a tyre to gain the highest ratings in all three areas, we’d advise picking one with an A rating for wet braking and either A or B for fuel economy.
IN THE FIRST half of 2023, criminals stole £580 million from consumers through scams and fraud, and a growing number of those fraudulent transactions were for second-hand cars or car parts.
Automotive scams are proving highly lucrative for fraudsters. And the worrying news for car owners and buyers is that scams such as these increased by 74% between January and June 2023, compared with the same period the previous year, according to data released by Lloyds Banking Group.
The most costly vehicle scams are ones where criminals advertise fake cars for sale at temptingly low prices, get buyers to pay for them up front and then disappear with the money. The used Ford Fiesta is the model most commonly reported as being the subject of a scam, followed by second-hand examples of the BMW 1 Series and Volkswagen Transporter van. The Fiesta is also the UK’S most stolen car.
There’s a thriving trade in fake ads for car parts and accessories, too, and the average loss to consumers for vehicle-related scams is £998.
So, what are the most common car scams, and how can you avoid falling victim to them?
Online scammers set up fake car sales websites for dealerships that don’t exist, and populate them with extremely cheap cars to lure buyers into paying for them, thinking they’re getting a bargain.
Criminals create car sales portals, often with names that are similar to genuine used car dealerships, and fill them with photos and information of real cars that are for sale elsewhere, offering them at big discounts – sometimes half the price they would usually cost. When buyers phone or email to get more information about the vehicles, they are encouraged to pay for them in advance of seeing them to secure the deal. The criminals promise to deliver the car once payment has been made, but the cars are not delivered, and the fake dealer becomes uncontactable once they’ve got the money.
What Car? and Car Dealer magazine found one fake dealer in Scotland that claimed to have 79 cars for sale. It advertised them to buyers in the south of England, knowing that few would travel hundreds of miles to view a car; most would be more inclined to just pay online.
The old adage that if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is, is appropriate here. If cars are being advertised for far less than the going rate, be wary, and investigate the seller before getting involved with them.
Only pay a small holding deposit up front, and whenever possible make sure you see the car in the metal before you pay in full. If you’re interested in a vehicle but aren’t sure about the legitimacy of the seller, ask them to send you a photograph of the car’s V5 registration document as proof that they have the vehicle and are entitled to sell it. It’s also worth checking for online reviews of the company to see if any mention scams.
this never happens. These online fraudsters will interact with buyers and sometimes even provide fake documents and information in order to get people to part with their cash.
If you’re interested in a car but the seller isn’t keen on you going to see it, be suspicious. Don’t pay up front; insist on seeing the car first. If it’s too far away, ask the seller to make a video of the car so you can see that they have it. You can also check that the registration number tallies with the DVLA’S vehicle information service.
If you think you’ve spotted a fake ad on Facebook, you can report it to the Facebook vehicle scam alerts group. It has more than 5500 members, all sharing information about vehicle scams they’ve spotted on the platform.
When you advertise your car for sale, you might be contacted by a foreign buyer offering the full asking price or even more than that.
The scammers lure sellers in by offering unrealistically high prices for cars. They might ask you to contact a shipping agent on their behalf and offer to pay by banker’s draft, which can be forged and might be rejected when you come to deposit the money in your bank account, potentially leaving you heavily out of pocket. Once the criminals have your car, they’ll disappear.
If you’re contacted by a buyer from abroad, or someone who’s offering more than the asking price for your car, think carefully about accepting. If you suspect they’re out to con you, don’t reply, but do advise the administrator of the site on which your car was advertised.
Never hand over your car or any paperwork until you have been paid the full agreed price. Only accept payment via the electronic CHAPS/BACS method or a direct money transfer system such as Paypal, because these are safe and you can see the money as soon as it’s in your account. Be wary of anyone who wants to pay for an expensive car (more than £10,000) in cash, because they might be attempting to launder money.
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has been battling scam messages pretending to be from the department for years. But this type of scam remains persistent due to its simplicity: fraudsters often send emails in the style of genuine DVLA letters, duping people into thinking the payment for their road tax has failed or that the car is no longer taxed. There has also been a spate of text messagebased car tax scams.
The scam relies on people not checking the validity of the email or text and not checking that the payment from their bank account has actually failed, instead hurriedly making payment. The emails are given convincing titles and have their sending addresses altered so they appear to have come from the DVLA, with ‘gov.uk’ at the end.
The email or text has a link to the scammer’s bank account so you end up paying them instead of the DVLA. Some scams also collect bank account and card details and use them to extract more money from the victims.
The DVLA says it will never send emails or texts that ask you to confirm your personal details or payment information, so you can ignore any such messages that purport to be from it.
Fake emails that pretend to be from any government department can be reported to the National Cyber Security Centre by email (report@phishing.gov.uk). The fake websites they link to can be investigated and removed.
Fake government websites ensnare consumers when they’re trying to do tasks such as renewing their road tax or registering themselves as the new owner of a car, by charging for services that are usually free, or signing them up to fee-based subscription services they don’t want.
Con artists set up websites with names that are very similar to official Government ones for car tax and other services, so they appear next to the real ones in online searches. This means it’s an easy mistake to click on the fake website instead, and then you could end up paying them for a service you don’t want or need.
We’ve recently found websites that ask for your vehicle’s details and then, instead of letting you renew or buy your road tax, they sign you up to a monthly subscription for car information costing up to £10 a month.
Make sure you only use the official gov.uk websites whenever you want to do anything via the DVLA online. The website for car tax is https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax. Double-check that the website you’ve chosen ends in ‘gov.uk’ every time you visit it, because there are many misleading third-party websites that charge extra fees in order to ‘help’ you apply for a driving licence or tax your vehicle.
Scammers stick their own QR (quick response) codes onto car park pay machines, tricking drivers into sending them their bank details while they think they’re paying for parking. Around 1200 scams relating to fake QR codes have been investigated by the police’s Action Fraud national reporting centre in the past three years.
QR codes are used to enable people to pay for parking in many locations, including train station car parks. Criminals create their own QR codes and stick these over the legitimate ones on car park payment boards. When you scan the fake code with your mobile phone, you are directed to a website where you can enter your card details to pay for parking. The details are then used to take money from your bank account.
One woman in Teesside lost thousands of pounds to QR code scammers. Although her bank initially blocked the payment to the scammers, they phoned her, posing as bank staff, and took £13,000 from her account.
A growing number of railway car park operators are removing QR codes from their payment machines to protect people from this type of fraud. If you find a site with a QR code and it looks like it has been tampered with, see if there is another way to pay.
The design of the QR code should match the business’s branding. If the branding or logo appears to be different, be suspicious. If you can peel a QR code sticker off, this might suggest it is fake. If the QR code is located somewhere other than on the actual metre or machine, it may also indicate it is fake.
If you do use a QR code to pay for parking, ensure it takes you to a legitimate website. Check the website address (or URL) and ensure that it matches the name of the car park operator. Also check that the website’s URL starts with ‘https://’, because the ‘s’ in that part of the address means it’s a secure site.
If the car park provides payment via a specific parking payment app, download this from your app store and pay via this instead, because it’s far more secure.
In its most common form, this type of scam involves people deliberately causing an accident, usually by crashing their vehicle into another one, in order to make a fraudulent insurance claim.
The fraudster creates a scenario that will cause an accident, such as slamming on the brakes on their car unexpectedly to make the car behind drive into it, or flashing their headlights to let you proceed and then driving into your car. Sometimes they use two vehicles, with the one in front driving erratically so the driver of the one behind it can blame the first driver for causing the crash.
Another tactic is for two criminals to stage a crash for their own cars, enabling them to make fraudulent claims for each vehicle.
There is also a variant of this scam known as clip for cash, in which the criminal will create a fake smashing sound and then claim that your car has damaged their vehicle, for example by knocking off a door mirror, and demand money and intimidate the victim if they refuse to pay.
As well as the trauma of being involved in one of these incidents, the victims are likely to have increased insurance premiums as a result of the claim against them.
Keep a good distance between your car and the one in front, and if the driver starts driving erratically, increase this distance or consider taking a different route to get away from them. Also be wary at junctions if someone flashes their lights to let your car pull out.
If you think you’ve been the victim of a crash for cash scam, don’t confront the criminals there and then. Act as you would in a real accident, gathering the other party’s details, taking photos and getting statements from any witnesses. Then report the incident to the police and your insurer, stating that you think it was a staged accident. You can also call the Insurance Fraud Bureau’s Cheatline on 0800 422 0421.
Ghost car insurance brokers sell invalid car insurance policies to drivers at unrealistically low prices. The victims only discover they’ve been scammed when they try to make a claim on the policy.
The City of London Police has recently issued a warning to young drivers about the danger of being conned by a ghost insurance broker.
The scammers search for victims via social media or word of mouth, offering car insurance deals that are far cheaper than legitimate policies. After making a sale, the scammers send their victims fake insurance documents, or take out a real policy but falsify important details, such as the driver’s age, address and driving history, to bring down the premium.
Only buy car insurance from bonafide companies, not via social media sites. Use online comparison websites to see which providers are offering the cheapest cover, and try some of our money-saving car insurance tips, such as buying cover up to three weeks before you need it to begin, in order to get lower premiums.
P H O T O : G E TT Y I M A G E S