puntofan01 said:

I would go for power output. Turbocharging a 1.6 to producing as much power as a N/A 3 litre would put a car in the 3 litre tax bracket.

Click to expand...

So, you then make cars more powerful than they are during a test.

Why is it that none of your rather questionable methods for car taxation has ever been suggested let alone implemented?

puntofan01 said:

For me personally, the Scirocco is a triumph of pure styling. I get the impression from motoring mags that all on the whole, VWs are designed to be as technically "perfect" as poss, but without any form of flair, whereas when I see a Scirocco, I get the sense that the designers were allowed to let their hair down for that car.

For want of a better way of putting it, as someone who appreciates cars for their aesthetics and character, I find the majority of VWs leave me very cold.

Click to expand...

Triumph of pure styling? Wow! If a Golf with a fat ass does it for you then I guess you're easily pleased

JimbbobW1977 said:

VAG group pay a lot for advertising - the current Golf for example is 37% cheaper to make, it's comes with a torsion beam suspension on lower models, does without the the nice accelerator pedal of the old model and engineered door hinges of the old one.

Many years ago, VW did well with lovely opening cup holders and soft touch dashes that it made the public think they are so well engineered and we will look posh and the neighbours will twitch the curtains looking, and they did engineer decent enough cars back then.

Roll on 2015 they got greedy. Customer base is in their hands running on old reputations to sell cars.

The Scirocco is nothing special at all - it's looks okay however underneath it is the Golf from 2004, with less space.

Click to expand...

If I was going to buy any VW products, I'd buy a Skoda or Seat.

With regards to the Scirocco, it looks fantastic, and looks are generally what a lot of people judge coupes on.

puntofan01 said:

Very funny, lol!

Click to expand...

You do realise that your Punto is just a Corsa underneath right?

puntofan01 said:

For me personally, the Scirocco is a triumph of pure styling. I get the impression from motoring mags that all on the whole, VWs are designed to be as technically "perfect" as poss, but without any form of flair, whereas when I see a Scirocco, I get the sense that the designers were allowed to let their hair down for that car.

For want of a better way of putting it, as someone who appreciates cars for their aesthetics and character, I find the majority of VWs leave me very cold.

Click to expand...

You know that the the scirocco is basically just a rehashed mk5 golf, the interior had some minor design changes but is largely the same. The running gear is the same, the engines are the same, wing mirrors, fog lights and electronics are all the same, essentially all VWs use generic parts out of the parts bin, with a few minor body work differences. They design their cars to be modular meaning minimal changes and lower R&D costs. This applies across brands too so vw, skoda Audi and seat could all use the same door handle for a multitude of different cars, basically you've fallen for VWs main marketing strategy which is to make a large choice of models to cater for lots of different people. They definitely haven't gone to town just tweaked a mk5 3 door golf, doesn't matter to them that there is only one model that you like, it's more important that there is one model you might buy.
It's not even a very good seller for VW but because of the cross over in parts use and that they can make it on the golf production line it doesn't cost them much to make.


The scirocco is to the golf, what the Tigra was to the corsa or the puma to the fiesta.

"Oh I hate the golf but I like the scirocco" vw giggle to the bank knowing they're the same car.

306maxi said:

You do realise that your Punto is just a Corsa underneath right?

Click to expand...

I am very well aware that Fiat and GM worked together to design that platform, and to be completely honest, I really don't care, lol!

AndyRKett said:

You know that the the scirocco is basically just a rehashed mk5 golf, the interior had some minor design changes but is largely the same. The running gear is the same, the engines are the same, wing mirrors, fog lights and electronics are all the same, essentially all VWs use generic parts out of the parts bin, with a few minor body work differences. They design their cars to be modular meaning minimal changes and lower R&D costs. This applies across brands too so vw, skoda Audi and seat could all use the same door handle for a multitude of different cars, basically you've fallen for VWs main marketing strategy which is to make a large choice of models to cater for lots of different people. They definitely haven't gone to town just tweaked a mk5 3 door golf, doesn't matter to them that there is only one model that you like, it's more important that there is one model you might buy.
It's not even a very good seller for VW but because of the cross over in parts use and that they can make it on the golf production line it doesn't cost them much to make.


The scirocco is to the golf, what the Tigra was to the corsa or the puma to the fiesta.

"Oh I hate the golf but I like the scirocco" vw giggle to the bank knowing they're the same car.

Click to expand...

Yep, this is all stuff I'm well aware of. When you say about the Scirocco being to golf what the Tigra and Puma were to the Corsa and Fiesta, you can go further still, and liken it to the Calibra, Brera and GT: swoopily styled, less practical versions of the Cavalier, 159 and 147 respectively.

puntofan01 said:

I would go for power output. Turbocharging a 1.6 to producing as much power as a N/A 3 litre would put a car in the 3 litre tax bracket.

Click to expand...

So the 360hp BMW i8 would have a much higher car tax than your grande, despite producing only 49g/km of CO2 only 36% of the CO2 output from your old punto.

Reading back over your ideas of what people should or shouldn't pay they all point towards your car being the cheapest car to tax and everything else more expensive, you even say electric cars shouldn't be free !!!

306maxi said:

Nope, as usual you're missing the point..... If you want to tax based on engine size then why should anyone try to make their cars efficient at all?

Click to expand...

That's what CO2 emissions targets exist for...

puntofan01 said:

Yep, this is all stuff I'm well aware of. When you say about the Scirocco being to golf what the Tigra and Puma were to the Corsa and Fiesta, you can go further still, and liken it to the Calibra, Brera and GT: swoopily styled, less practical versions of the Cavalier, 159 and 147 respectively.

Click to expand...

And the reason they make these cars is specifically for people like you. You think you're getting something classy but you're still buying the same thing you claim to hate, it's win win for the manufacturers

puntofan01 said:

That's what CO2 emissions targets exist for...

Click to expand...

CO2 emissions "targets" don't exists. Basically a car can produce as much CO2 as you want as long as you pay the appropriate tax group it doesn't matter

Take that away and as maxi rightly points out with your power out put/ engine sized system and people won't give a stuff about CO2 anymore

AndyRKett said:

And the reason they make these cars is specifically for people like you. You think you're getting something classy but you're still buying the same thing you claim to hate, it's win win for the manufacturers

Click to expand...

Well not really, because I personally wouldn't buy any of them.

AndyRKett said:

CO2 emissions "targets" don't exists. Basically a car can produce as much CO2 as you want as long as you pay the appropriate tax group it doesn't matter

Take that away and as maxi rightly points out with your power out put/ engine sized system and people won't give a stuff about CO2 anymore

Click to expand...

I think you're wasting the electrons that your reply is costing you.

puntofan01 said:

Well not really, because I personally wouldn't buy any of them.

Click to expand...

No I appreciate that, you've already stated you can't afford to buy a newer more efficient car.

AndyRKett said:

CO2 emissions "targets" don't exists. Basically a car can produce as much CO2 as you want as long as you pay the appropriate tax group it doesn't matter

Take that away and as maxi rightly points out with your power out put/ engine sized system and people won't give a stuff about CO2 anymore

Click to expand...

But how many people truly care anyway? If CO2 emissions are of such importance to people, then why do airlines do so well? Why do hot hatches, SUVs supercars and large luxury cars exist? If the motoring population is so concerned about emissions, then why hasn't demand for anything other than hybrids and eco-models rendered normal petrol and diesel engined cars completely and utterly redundant?

306maxi said:

I think you're wasting the electrons that your reply is costing you.

Click to expand...

I've already got the gist, basically he thinks anyone with a car different to his own should have to pay a lot of tax and his largely inefficient polluting old punto should be cheap to tax because it has a small engine and poor power output

puntofan01 said:

But how many people truly care anyway? If CO2 emissions are of such importance to people, then why do airlines do so well? Why do hot hatches, SUVs supercars and large luxury cars exist? If the motoring population is so concerned about emissions, then why hasn't demand for anything other than hybrids and eco-models rendered normal petrol and diesel engined cars completely and utterly redundant?

Click to expand...

Errrrrrr because the technology is nit quite there yet, plus diesels are dirty.

People will always travel, you won't stop that.

puntofan01 said:

But how many people truly care anyway? If CO2 emissions are of such importance to people, then why do airlines do so well?

Click to expand...

If CO2 emission and other emissions weren't of importance then this whole thread wouldn't have any reason to exist........

You've clearly now reached the point of digging yourself out of a hole.

puntofan01 said:

With regards to your 1st comment, I never said that people should have to justify their choice of car, all I said was that if they choose to buy what can very reasonably be classed as a luxury car, then they should expect to pay more to tax it. What, may I ask, is wrong with that?

With regards to your 2nd comment, yes: the vast majority of cars will indeed be scrapped or banger raced when they become old and worthless. And yes, a certain amount of 4x4s will die on farms rather than going to a scrapyard when they fail their mot. However, this has no relevance to road tax.

With regards to your 3rd comment, please don't take this the wrong way, but you come across as someone who is rather comfortably well off financially, so you can't seem to grasp the fact that some people quite simply cannot afford a "clean" car, be that 1 bought outright or a monthly repayment for 1. A lot of people can only afford to run an old banger and these people shouldn't have to pay an arguably excessive amount of tax, purely because their car is of an older design. As much as anything, you argue that people shouldn't have to justify why they drive a huge car, so therefore, why should people who struggle financially have to justify why they drive an old "unclean" car?

Click to expand...

Just to address this comment as if missed it.

1. You didn't say people had to justify but until I did justify my neighbours reason for having a Range Rover your refused to believe their was a justifiable reason to have one.

The working life of a car has a huge impact on its overall carbon footprint, a small car that gets scrapped after 10 years will have a huge carbon foot print compared to a big 4x4 that gets scrapped after 30 years, you basically have to produce 3 cars compared to the one big 4x4.

Finally though I might finally have a little money for the last 15-20 years I've had more than my fair share of crappy old cars non of which were very green but they needed to do a job, however all of them had a higher tax rate than the majority of modern cars. The most efficient was my 1.3 diesel punto which I bought specifically because it was very cheap to run while I went back to university and was living on a monthly income of about £500 to pay all my bills and food and fuel. So I definitely have a very good idea what it is to not be able to afford an expensive or new car. What I don't agree with is while the rest of the world has to pay tax based on CO2 emissions, why should people who can't afford to buy a newer car be exempt from the same restrictions as the rest of us. So no one has to justify what car they drive as far as I'm concerned but they need to suck it up and pay the costs the rest of us have to and if they don't like the costs or can't afford to pay them for what ever reason, they need to get a different cheaper car or get the bus.

AndyRKett said:

I've already got the gist, basically he thinks anyone with a car different to his own should have to pay a lot of tax and his largely inefficient polluting old punto should be cheap to tax because it has a small engine and poor power output

Click to expand...

Erm, nah.