Winter SORN and insurance

[Fanwheel]

Hi all

My Puma is tucked away in the garage whilst there is salt on the roads for the next few months. Up to now each winter ive just kept the tax and insurance going as it's useful if the family bus is out of action, and to avoid the paperwork hassle.

Just curious as to what others do re: insurance if you SORN your car over winter? Do you SORN but keep insurance going, or stop the insurance too? My insurance is quite cheap and as a 2nd car on the policy it's still totting up a no claims bonus, so I'm not sure if it's a good idea to stop and start it each year. Plus I suppose it's still covered if the garage caught fire I guess.

Keen to hear what others do

 

[tuonokid]

I just SORN mine and leave the insurance alone as it's my third car and is still accruing no claims. If my Fezzer goes pop in a big way I can always put it back on the road.
Barry

 

[redexr]

I sorn anything I take off road over winter. Its especially easy to re-tax now online so no trips to the post office, just hit a few keyboard buttons and your car is taxed in minutes. They stay insured though as that is a right pain to cancel and restart,.. and the insurance companies don't give much if anything back on policy refunds so you lose out every time.

 

[Fanwheel]

Thanks guys. I may well SORN it for the winter and just keep the insurance going.

Interestingly, last year, having re-taxed another car which had previously been SORN, I got pulled over by a police car the next day as their ANPR system was still flashing SORN! He was a reasonable bloke and after we'd showed him the email confirmation from DVLA he was happy - apparently it can sometimes take a few days for their system to update.

 

[yippeekiay]

I should do this if I knew how long I was going to be a hermit. Not used my car for over 2 months now so I could have saved over £80 on rfl but if I needed the car then I'd be buggered. I suppose as above I could just go online and pay tax for the current month.
I should get myself a motorbike or even a scooter. Better still would be a car that costs no tax but most are pants and the cost of buying one would be way more than years & years of unused tax on the car I'm not using lol.

 

[yippeekiay]

Wow, as if by magic, my tax reminder turned up this morning. £515!!!
The cheek is it's £283.25 for 6 months if I pay by debit card or cash or a £2.50 surcharge for Credit card and it's £270 by DD, neither being half the full price as it should be. Government profiteering for no reason whatsoever!

Tossers!! Time to move the car on despite how much I love it :fists:

 

[red]

Ouch, you could nearly tax two Pumas for that!

 

[Dal]

Or you could tax 17 little A2 like mine.

My tax demand turned up the other day too. £30 p.a.

 

[red]

Same as my Focus.

 

[yippeekiay]

yup, it's all a crock of poo!. I'm sick of moaning about it but it really winds me up as I am currently doing less than 500 mile a year but someone in a 'non-polluting diesel' can do infinite miles tax free...and I'm apparently the polluter.

 

[red]

It's the 'well you own it so we guess you drive it' stance I suppose. They don't care if you do or don't but you could!

It's just as barmy as insurance or if you have a 1.7 Puma from 2000 it's different to tax than one from 2001.

 

[yippeekiay]

It could all be sorted easily by adding it to the price of fuel, then everyone pays their pollution tax exactly for how they pollute and government safeguards their funding meaning they don't have to keep changing the rules over and over. I believe a new one comes in only next year as they are losing so much with the current ones.

 

[Pkp]

As we digress into Road Tax, fuel duty and Pollution, why is the government not fining VW a sum equivalent for all of their cars which have been paying minimal tax based on their fraudulent emissions, when in reality, the tax should have been based on the real level of emissions ?

 

[Fanwheel]

[post]358030[/post] It could all be sorted easily by adding it to the price of fuel, then everyone pays their pollution tax exactly for how they pollute and government safeguards their funding meaning they don't have to keep changing the rules over and over. I believe a new one comes in only next year as they are losing so much with the current ones.

Yep. Or introduce automated road pricing tolls so that those who use the roads most, pay the most. I'd be happy with that just as long as the RFL itself was abolished..but that probably wouldn't happen: the dartford crossing toll was supposed to stop once the cost of the bridge was paid off + a set number of years. But it never did cease and its just another tax revenue earner now. Annoys me every time I go through, £2.50 each time.

 

[zinc2000]

For years now various motoring bodies have put forward the idea of "you drive you pay" by adding cost to fuel, guess there is less money in that option than the current "you own therefore you pay" which is why it never gets anywhere

 

[yippeekiay]

It would be so easy to implement and work out the cost against loss of RFL. Simply divide the current sum they get by RFL and divide it by the amount of fuel sold.

Quick google and I found...
£5.93B from tax and c35B litres of fuel sold = 17p a litre....seems quite simple to me :lol: