Seek info about road tax

Oct 17, 2009 40 Replies

I'm trying to choose a car for about £3,000 to 4,000. (Something reliable and not expensive to own like a Ford Focus or a Japanese). I need to know how road tax is calculated for second hand cars.



Problem is I haven't owned a car for many years, so all I know is from headlines about about engine size, exhaust emissions, age of car and so on. It's confusing. Some sites talk about various theoretical emission figures which I can't translate into actual car models.



(1) Can someone point me to where info about road tax for second hand cars explains the sort of things I'm trying to understand.



(2) Does the road tax legislation go back to cars made in previous years or is it only for cars made after the legislation?



First Google hot for "road tax":

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Chris

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Select the "Vehicle Enquiry" link (left hand side of the page) and enter details of the registration and make of car to get specific information from that vehicle. Note that some imports are exempt from the current stupid levels of tax so it's worth cheking the specific vehicle - you may find the tax to be much less than you would think for the class of car.

The difference between expensive and cheap is so insignificant as part of the total cost of car ownership as to be not worth bothering about.

2001 is the cutoff date. Prior to that, its a single tax bracket.

Indeed. Wife's V6 FTO is on "old banger band" and also only has to pass the basic CAT test as well despite being a 95 model. Means she can run a de-cat and fly through the emissions tests.

Unless the engine is below 1450cc or thereabouts, when the single tax bracket suddenly isn't so single.

Didn't know. Haven't had an engine that small for about 2 decades. Anything below 2L is driven by people who don't care about driving.

IIRC, the 4G63 engined Mitsubishi Evo was 1997cc! You have something more potent up your driveway then? ;-)

Conor gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Lousy bait, Conor, lousy bait.

Sorry, didn't actually target it at anyone. Should I rephrase that as:

Anything below 2L, not modified, super or turbocharged or a Wankel Rotary engine is driven by people who don't care about driving.

???

What do you think of the Toyota Pious? ;-)

Conor gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

In that case, you've only excluded one of our fleet of six cars.

Strangely, the one you've excluded is _possibly_ the least fun to drive - and even that's an absolute joy.

Conor gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Two litres is 2000cc.

1997 is less than 2000.

Hang on, that excludes Mini drivers, MX5 drivers, Lotus Elan drivers, Caterham drivers, Alfa Duetto drivers, in fact a lot of Alfa drivers, etc., etc...

I had a big argument with a garage chain about that once - they did services for 'up to 1999cc' for one price, it cost more for larger than that.

They did mine then tried to charge me the higher price because it was a 2 litre. I pointed out the sign - they said it meant 'under 2 litres'. I then pointed out (after a long drawn out argument) that because they had used 4 significant figures on the sign and mine was actually (IIRC)

1993cc then either it qualified for the lower price OR they were guilty of false advertising.

They gave me the lower price and told me never to come back. Fine by me. If they can't understand that then I don't want to deal with them again - maybe they won't understand the servicing details either...

Dose that cover bike engined kit cars like the Megabussa?

About as much as you by the sound of it.

When I was at school I was told that 1997 was less than 2000? 1997cc is still less that 2L to me (regardless of the rounding conventions of others).

Just curious but, why is having a big, heavy engine a sign that someone cares about motoring? I have a 2993cc..er..sorry 3L engine..does that mean I must care a lot or just a little?

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