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Mike Joenn's Blog. 

Some words of wisdom from an old hand in vehicle servicing & all things "Motor Vehicle"

April 2024

Be wary of cheaper prices... You don’t always get what you pay for.

I’m not an avid social media follower. In fact, I don’t generally do social media at all, but once in a while, one of the kids or even the grand-kids will plonk their phone in front of me and tell me I should have a look at ‘this’ or ‘that’.

One of these came up last week and the kids thought it might interest me... A local businessman (who, I am told, is very active on social media and has lots of ‘friends’) posted an invite to his followers to share their stories about the “massive differences in charges for certain things in certain areas.” He’d noticed these differences himself and then used an example in the motor trade where a bill came to almost £250 in Caerleon but exactly the same repair bill was only £135 in Cwmbran. So, the kids were right, that did interest me.... not least of all because we are in Caerleon. Could it be us in this example... [No, it’s not!]

I should also say here and now that I applaud his community spirit. It’s a big job and I can image he’ll have plenty of materials to work with from the local facebook community. I am constantly reminded how ‘active’ it is in our local area. Although he used the motor trade and an auto repair bill as his example, I am assuming that he’ll be looking at a range of business sectors – including his own.  We look forward to future instalments.

My contribution is by a more general observation. I’d like to encourage our new Consumer Champion to consider the contributions very carefully and ensure we are comparing apples with apples, oranges with oranges and not apples with oranges.... You get my drift. At face value, the auto repair example looks like a straight comparison, but I can see an explanation for the differential... Are both jobs truly ‘identical’? The differential is not really likely to be geographically important (Caerleon v Cwmbran) However, more importantly: Did the more expensive bill include manufacturer’s branded parts (e.g. oil & pollen filters) or were those parts sourced from after market suppliers – or even on-line from China. Was the expensive bill from a franchise dealer?  (Prices are almost inevitably higher from a vehicle franchise dealer – you are paying for that franchise dealer’s brand guarantee.) And perhaps most importantly... is the less expensive bill from a garage which is not VAT registered. (The £250 bill could include over £40 in VAT) A franchise dealer will almost certainly be VAT registered, whilst a one-man-band in Cwmbran may not.

I can also contribute to the debate with many stories of where a customer has been duped, conned or mis-lead in the motor trade. For example, a year or two ago, we were asked to undertake a service on a new customer’s ford.   As you’d expect, we went through the 52 point industry approved check list – which included a change of air & pollen filters. According to the customer’s service book, the vehicle had been serviced by ‘another nearby garage’ numerous times but that garage had not changed the filters... ever!  (The filters that we removed were (without doubt) those which were fitted to the vehicle before it left the factory. (We have ways of telling!). Without getting stuck-in under the bonnet, your average car owner simply would not know. Needless to say, this customer didn’t appear to have gotten a full service previously and we believe he may not have got what he paid for. He might have even got a cheaper bill at the other garage. Tip: Ask your servicing garage for their Service Check List.

We wish the new local consumer champion well, but implore him to make sure he IS comparing apples with apples and service providers that are truly comparable... especially in the motor trade. At our garage, customers are given fully detailed explanations of the work carried out and itemised parts & labour breakdowns.  We also boast a wall full of accreditations & approvals.

Make sure you get what you pay for and make sure your garage is properly accredited.

Happy motoring

Mike Joenn 

 AJ Garage Services 

March 2024

The road tax keeps rising and the state of our roads & highways is deteriorating

I’m from a generation that remembers when we used to refer to the “Road Fund Licence”.  We paid the fee at the Post Office and got a “tax disk” to stick on our windscreen. Most people held the misconception that all the revenues that were collected in this way were designated to building and maintaining our roads and highways.  In fact, there are still a few deluded vehicle owners out there that believe the road tax is still directly related to the maintenance of roads and associated infrastructure.

In fact, the direct relationship between the Road Fund Licence/Road Tax/ Car Tax ceased way back in 1936. And here’s where I introduce you to our word of the month... “Hypothecated”.  A Hypothecated tax was a tax which was raised money from a specific group of people to meet a very specific need. In the case of Road Fund Licence, it was raised from Vehicle Excise Duty and dedicated to the building & maintenance of roads for those vehicles.   The term “Road Fund Licence” stuck and remained in use long after the tax ceased to be used specifically for the roads. So, for the avoid of doubt, let me just be absolutely crystal clear... The money raised by the government through road tax is not related in any way to how much the government spends on the roads & highways.   Road Tax is NOT Hypothecated!!!

Now to be honest, I wish it was, because the government (and local government – our councils) are simply not spending enough on road maintenance. Something that I feel sure all my readers will agree on.  I am prompted to write this blog today after whacking my suspension on another series of pot holes between Malpas and Ponthir over the last month – and it seems to be getting worse. So it’s at this point that I hit the internet and start looking for the supporting data and believe me, it doesn’t take long to find.  There’s plenty evidence to support the apparent fall in road investment and of course the associated rise in pot holes and road maintenance. Local newspapers just love a pot hole story !

Much of the reports relate to England where stats are more readily available, but there is little to indicate that Wales is fairing any better. The RAC are reporting that road maintenance activity has dropped a staggering 45% over the last five years. In 2017/18, 7510 miles of English roads received maintenance, but in 2022/23, that dropped to just 4,144 miles. Meanwhile, the office of national statistics estimate that the government will raise over £8+ Billion from vehicle exercise duty (VED) in the year 2023/24. That £8+ Billion goes into the same pot as your income tax, corporation tax and multiple other taxes to fund all government and local government spending. Many organisation (including the RAC) acknowledge that it is very difficult to see how much of the taxes raised  finds its way back to road maintenance.

The picture in Wales is further complicated - our should I say the water in the pots holes is further muddied because the Welsh Assembly is allocated a grant from Central government and the Assembly allocates some of that fund to “Highways and Transport” as it sees fit.  Highways and Transport allocate money to local authorities for the maintenance of local roads, but needless to say, the budgets are squeezed all the way down the line and the upshot is that there simply isn’t enough money getting to the “highways” part of Highways & Transport to fix all the pot holes between Malpas & Ponthir... and of course many other roads.

Let’s just conclude with a plea.... Local Council, Welsh Assembly, Central Government.... Please fix more pot holes. We are the UK, one of the most advanced economies in the world with local roads that you expect to see in 3^rd world countries.

Happy Motoring – and watch those pots.

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

February 2024

From the Stock Market to car rental companies, the Electic Vehicle love affair might be cooling

Any concerns that we may have had a few years ago about our business model becoming out-dated in the face of rising Electric Vehicle sales is fading fast, if not actually well and truly quashed. 

Whilst Tesla are suggesting that sales of their EVs were up 38% in 2023 (that’s LAST year by the way), their 2024 outlook and forecasts are not quite so encouraging. On the US Stock market,  earnings per Tesla share are well down on 2022 returns and the company is suggesting that 2024 results won’t be as “robust” as in 2023.   The problem appears to be that potential customers are worried about EV performance, reliability and of course... cost.   In truth, it’s not all Tesla’s fault. The world and his dog knows that long distances present a challenge for EV drivers with insufficient charging stations and the range of existing vehicles being less than adequate.

However, the supporting circumstantial evidence also tells a story. I read last week that Hertz are selling 20,000 electric cars because of the high repair costs that they have been experiencing. This and other indicators have spooked the ‘city money men’ and Tesla shares are down almost 15% in the first two weeks of 2024.

Motoring periodical “Fleet News” also report a sharp decline in EV Fleet purchases in December 2023. EVs were down over 30% on previous months.  Hybrid & Plug-In Hybrid vehicle sales however are still growing and together, now represent about 20% of the UK market. I guess this seems reasonable, given that hybrid vehicles have conventional engines to offer an alternative to batteries. (well... sort of!) 

I don’t feel I can ignore the fact that there are inherent problems with EVs that simply do not arise with conventional cars & vans.  Hardly a week goes by these days without another report of an electric vehicle (or bus) bursting into flames because of a battery fault and those fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish. Faulty EV batteries have also resulting in ships actually sinking in the Atlantic ocean after the EV cargo on board burst into flames in the holds as a result of over-heating batteries.

The EV manufacturers are quick to blame the government for the poor uptake in EVs – citing the lack of an adequate charging network across the country. They also repeatedly urge the government to incentivise the public to buy EV with scrappage schemes and tax breaks for EV owners.  Not sure if that’s going well !

Don’t get me wrong... EV Sales are still rising, but not as the government intended and the upshot is that internal combustion engines still represent the majority of new car purchases. From our point of view, we feel our business is secure for the future generations of our family. We consider ourselves to be specialists in internal combustion engine maintenance and repair, but there’s more to a road-worthy vehicle than the engine (or electric motors). Brakes, steering, lights, safety equipment and much more still needs qualified vehicle technicians to test, maintain and repair systems. Our garage is already heavily invested in EV service equipment & technology (and training), but petrol & diesel engine vehicles remain our bread and butter for the time being. We are also well aware that conventional vehicles will be around for many years after 2035. Just to remind you... The Government’s mandate requires that 28% of new car sales are EVs in 2025, 52% are EVs in 2028 and 80% are pure electric in 2030. Then, by 2035, 100% of new vehicles sold must be emission-free. When and IF the tide changes and we see more and more EVs, we’ll be ready.

Happy Motoring whether you are Petrol, Diesel or Electric powered !

Mike Joenn 

 AJ Garage Services 

January 2024

Come on customers... be honest !



An Extract from a Blog Post By Mike Joenn, Founding Director of AJ Garage Services, Ponthir.

I’m not sure if it’s the cold that gets to people and makes them loopy at this time of year or whether it’s just another indicator of this ‘post-truth’ age we live in. Everyone is quick to accuse the motor trade of ripping off their customers, but sometimes, there’s more to disputes than meets the eye. Here’s this week’s story...

Lady customer: “Can you fix my suspension?”  AJGS: “Yes – Sure! Bring it in and we’ll have a look at it.”

We take a look and identify that she needs a new shock absorber and a top mount for the off-side front suspension. We are instructed to proceed. We carry out the work and bill her for the labour and list the parts we use. Those parts were: a shock absorber & top mount for that specific vehicle. We did a good job and we invoiced her accordingly.

Whilst carrying out the work, we noticed that the timing chain on her car was rattling and would almost certainly need to be replaced. Purely as a courtesy, we told her this in a note on her invoice under “Advisory Notes”. With this advice, she tootles off to the vehicle manufacturer’s franchise dealer – presumably to seek a second opinion on our timing chain comment – and maybe she’s thinking that we were just trying to hoodwink her into having more expensive work done. (Not so!)  A day or two later we get an email in which she tells us that her vehicle has undergone a full diagnostic health check at Renault – who have advised her that the off-side front spring was incorrect and didn’t match the other side of the vehicle. She is clearly unhappy that the incorrect part has been fitted on her vehicle and she’d like us to refund the money she paid for this as soon as possible.  

Needless to say, we hadn’t fitted the spring. We had simply supplied the shock absorber and top mount and re-assembled it with the existing spring.  Neither was there a ‘spring’ in the parts list on our invoice. Never-the-less, this lady was adamant that we were only garage to have worked on the vehicle for the last few years, so it must have been us. She even posed the question: “Are you saying that Renault is lying?” To which our answer was “No – but you clearly think that we are”.

What many of the public don’t know is MOT stations (like AJ Garage Services) have access to MOT records for all vehicles, including MOT test failures & remedies. A quick search by our Customer Service team revealed that her vehicle had failed an MOT test last year because of a faulty off-side front spring. Well, Well, Well!  The garage that carried out the MOT test replaced the spring so that her vehicle could pass the MOT but clearly installed the wrong one... and that garage was not us! We pointed this out to her & we hope she was embarrassed, but we can’t be sure

So, the take away & moral of the story is “be careful about your facts – particularly when it comes to MOT histories and test failures.... and PLEASE... Don’t blame the garage because that was the easiest thing to do at the time.

We were rather disappointed that we didn’t get an apology or even an acknowledgement from the lady that she’d had work carried out elsewhere. It also saddened us because she’d have told Renault that we’d fitted the wrong part to her car – which was of course untrue.

We live in hope that 2024 will bring a new era of honesty and kindness – particularly in the motor trade... and that goes for traders and customers alike.

A very Happy new Year to all our readers, customers,  friends, and critics!

Mike Joenn 

 AJ Garage Services 

December 2023

As the Chinese might say... “We live in interesting times.” Another year – another challenge

Before I starting writing this month’s blog, I thought I’d have a quick look back at the nonsense I was spouting at this time last year... and it has been quite a revaluation for me. Reading the opening paragraph from December 2022’s blog, I would be making exactly the same observations this year... Here’s what I wrote... We’ve had an interesting few months here at the garage.  Setting aside the major issues facing us all (Impact of Brexit, Impact of Covid, Impact of Ukraine War,  Impact of global warming and of course the cost of Living crisis) everything else still seems to pale into insignificance. It’s hard to find something positive to focus on – but find it we will. I could well have written that very paragraph for the first time today. We’ve had an interesting few months here at the garage, The cost of living crisis is still biting, the Ukraine war continues, the impact of global warming has – if anything – been worse this year than last and Brexit STILL hasn’t been ‘Done’. This year, we can add a 2^nd war in the Middle East. So, once again, we head off in the general direction of Christmas and once again, it’s hard to extract the positive stuff... but again... We Will.

Despite the global negatives, we remain extremely positive about the progress being made at our garage here in Caerleon. Our overall business is UP on last year and we can now boast over 4,250 customers in our database. Like last year, we can see the trend toward folks holding onto their cars for an extra year or two – which means more servicing and the need to take more care of the vehicles we have. Motoring remains an expensive business for everyone.

In order to remain relevant, we continue to invest heavily in the business - adding new equipment to keep our service at the leading edge of garage technologies. 2023 has seen the garage expand the number of ramps and lifts in daily use, but just as important we have continued to invest in our workforce. This year, we welcomed Dave Winter to our customer service & support team, joining Chris Lawrence & Simon Morris. Their objectives are crystal clear... to be in a position to deliver the best possible customer service & communication. A strong team of support staff makes a noticeable difference to the work-flow at any garage, making it easier for mechanics and technicians to concentrate on vehicle repair & servicing work rather than administration and non-productive chores.

This year we have also lost a member of staff – which it must be said – doesn’t happen very often at AJ Garage Services. Our staff retention is superb, with little or no turn-over. Once we get the right person, they tend to stay. So, it’s with a degree of sadness that we will be saying goodbye to Darrell. We are also comfortable sharing this news, because Darrell isn’t jumping to another job in the motor trade. He’s off to become a trainee Train Driver. (Cue all the banter about “Thomas the Tank Engine” and Darrell going to work for the Fat Controller.) Not sure it’s PC to call him ‘fat’ these days). Anyway, Good luck to Darrell we say! It also leaves a vacancy for a qualified MOT tester and vehicle/bike mechanic, so if you are reading this and know someone who might fill Darrell’s shoes, let them know that AJ Garage would like to talk with them.

Last year at this time, we were delighted to introduce our customers and the wider public to the Under 14s Ponthir Girls Football (Soccer) Team. We started sponsoring the girls last year at this time. This year, we’ve added to our sponsorship portfolio by entering into a sponsorship deal with NHSOB Boys Rugby Team. The boys were at Cardiff Arms Park last Sunday to meet a team from St. Mary’s College in Dublin. We were there to see the team wearing their new training shirts (emblazoned with “AJ Garage Services” across their chests). We wish them every good fortune in the coming season... We are proud to be associated with NHSOB Rugby.

Last but not least, it’s that time of year when thoughts turn to Christmas & hopefully happy times... Let’s try to set aside the difficult stuff and have a Happy Christmas and Peaceful New Year.

Season’s Greetings to all our readers, customers,  friends, and followers

Mike Joenn 

 AJ Garage Services 

November 2023

Social Media Reviews & Feedback takes more management time than you’d think

I think I might have said a few words on this subject in the past. When a customer decides that they can say what-ever they like in a Google or facebook review without repercussion, it all becomes a bit inflammatory – particularly when they’ve chosen to alter the “facts” or simply tell lies about their experience.

It’s not always easy to get inaccurate or untruthful reviews removed from the big review sites (facebook & Google), so from our point of view, they only way we can bolster our reputation is to respond with as much detail as we can... and it can be really frustrating and time-consuming.

We’ve had one or two recently. The problem usually starts when the customer gets bad news about their vehicle. (e.g. Failed MOT) or when they’ve just been quoted £3,000 to repair an engine. In some folks’ minds, it’s easy to blame the tester.   And the lack of understanding of an appointment system is breath-taking.  We recently failed a Taxi on its MOT and the owner decided to take it away to repair it himself. “That’s OK” we said. We’ll slot you in for a retest at 2pm. The re-test required our rolling road equipment because it was his brakes that failed the MOT. He didn’t turn up until after 3pm and ‘kicked-off’ when we wouldn’t re-test his taxi immediately. The fact that there was another vehicle on the rolling road didn’t seem to interest him. Within hours, he’d slated us on Google Reviews.

Other MOT customers don’t seem to understand that an MOT Test station must apply the VOSA/DVLA rules to the letter. The tester AND the Testing station (i.e. our business) can be penalised if we have been shown to deviate from the very exacting rules and regulations. Another recent MOT customer pitched up with an imported Toyota from Japan. (They drive on left, like us) However, the headlamp lenses for the Japanese roads have a different dispersal pattern than the lenses for British Roads and so when this particular Toyota’s headlights were lined up onto our BRITISH test gear, they FAILED. Clear as Day to our tester. He sought management review and we advised the customer. The only thing we could do was offer to consult VOSA on his behalf. Now, I’m sure I don’t need to explain that seeking a dispensation or waiver from a Government department isn’t a walk in the park. It took an hour or two to get the waiver and the authority to issue a pass. It didn’t take long for this customer to get the phone out and give us a 1 Star review and tell us that we needed to change our attitude to customers.

But the customers that really take the biscuit are those that have a repair or a service and express satisfaction with the job and then return days, weeks or even months later for an entirely different reason.... give us more work (clearly signalling that they must have been happy with our previous performance) and THEN post a review of complaint about the FIRST job having not been completed satisfactorily.   A recent such customer had £3,000 worth of engine repairs done and dusted, returned over a month later for an MOT and brake repairs and then had us recover another vehicle to our garage. After repeated attempts to have him settle an outstanding portion (£300) of his total bill and having given us no instruction regarding the second vehicle, we finally had to give a 7 day notice of our intention to charge him for storage of his second vehicle.

Within hours, we have a 1 Star review complaining of ‘shoddy work’ on the FIRST job and urging readers to go elsewhere for motor services. AND, he sold the vehicle that he was complaining about. (!?!)

And the punch line? If you are going to review a garage – BE HONEST and try other channels before reverting to Social Media. Most garages will do their very best to do a good job and fix the problem before you head off into Cyberspace. No-one likes one star reviews – especially if they contain untruths & lies.

Happy Motoring & Happy Reviewing

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

October 2023

20 mph in built up areas throughout Wales.

I am writing this blog exactly one week after the Welsh Government (Senedd) introduced the 20mph default speed limit in built-up areas throughout Wales...  and what a week it has been.

But let’s get one thing straight before I go on... I am not in the business of being controversial. No matter which side of the argument I come down on in regard to the 20mph, I’m going upset some folks with my views and frankly, I don’t want to upset anyone – especially if they happen to be one of our loyal customers.  So this blog post will become an exercise in tact & diplomacy.  Of course, tact & diplomacy doesn’t generally make for exciting reading, so my apologies if I appear a little soft on this subject. Let’s just try and stick to the outcome from the last seven days – and ask me face-to-face if you want my opinion.

It is also virtually impossible to set aside politics when considering this new law. There is little doubt that the first minister, Mark Drakeford has taken an absolutely kicking over the last week, but he remains steadfast in his commitment to the 20mpg limit in the face of concerted opposition and despite the astonishing number of objections from people signing the petition to have the law rescinded. For the meantime then, it looks like 20mph is here to stay and we just need to keep our eye on the politics. 

The petition itself has become something of a talking point.  I first looked at the Senedd’s petition page on Tuesday morning. The page made clear that the petition committee will ‘discuss’ any petition if it gains 250 signatures. If it reaches 10,000, the committee will consider it for debate in the Senedd. Just TWO days after the new default speed limit was introduced (Tuesday morning), it had reached 164,129. Ten minutes later, the total had jumped to 164,653.  Goodness me! Commentators were already saying that this is the largest petition in the history of the devolved parliament. Tonight, as I write this blog, (Sunday), the total has reached an astonishing 420,890 and it is still climbing by around 70 signatures every 10 minutes.

So, needless to say, there is a great deal of opposition to the introduction of the 20mph limit. The mainstream news media is doing a fair job finding commentators on both sides of the debate and the Rhondda village of Treorchy seems to have become an indicator of Welsh opinion. According to Wales On-Line, the dominant view in Treorchy is that the new speed restriction is causing bottlenecks on valley roads. The good folks of the village also feel that there should have been a national referendum on this issue. On the other hand, many residents seem to feel that 20mph could be a good thing – but only in certain areas (side streets and near schools) – where it could save lives and improve safety. However, in Treorchy anyway, the general consensus seems to be that it is unnecessary and costly.

“Rhondda Cynon Taf Council has unilaterally exempted 84 locations keeping them at 30mph where the statutory guidance allows – effectively contradicting the Welsh government on the selection of 20mph zones - an action which may be repeated in other towns & villages. (For areas to remain at 30mph they must fit into the criteria set by the Welsh Government.) It also proves (in the opinion of the Welsh government), that this is not a “Blanket” 20mph speed limit as persistently claimed by the Opposition.

The upshot seems to be that this debate is not yet done & dusted. My feeling is that there may be some back-pedalling to come in the light of the massive opposition and not just from opposition politicians. I see a steady rise in exceptions in other villages & towns in the coming months and the 20mph zones eventually boiling down to areas near schools and other vulnerable spaces. 

And that Petition...?  In the time I have taken to writing this article, the total has jumped to 421,256...Oops, hang on... make that 421,452. (I’ve shut the page now, because I could be here all night updating it)

Happy 20mph Motoring

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

July 2023

You just can’t please all of the people all of the time? In fact, there are some motorists who you cannot please at all.. 

We hate saying “No” and we very seldom say “It can’t be done”, but once in a while, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to give both these responses at the same time to the same person. Take the chap who had his vehicle MOTed with us about two years ago. We haven’t done anything for him since, but he has certainly given his custom to other garages since then. (We didn’t do his last MOT)   Anyway, his vehicle arrived at our workshops on the back of a recovery truck (not our recovery truck by the way) on a recent Friday morning. He’d broken down and had the vehicle recovered to us with a suspected clutch problem.  By close of business on Friday afternoon, we’d taken no less than THREE calls asking us if we’d done anything about his car. The first two responses amounted to a polite “Not Yet”. By the third call we had to lay it out for him and introduce the “N” word. “No, we haven’t been able to look at your vehicle... We are busy with booked & scheduled work for other customers... We could be working on a 5-7 day lead time for some jobs... We’re busy.”  “OK” he replied, “Then I’ll need a courtesy car.” And it was here that we introduced the dreaded “Sorry, It can’t be done”. We don’t have any courtesy cars available”.  Rightly or wrongly, we tend to think of courtesy cars as a courtesy.  Courtesy cars represent a significant expense for vehicle repairers like us and we necessarily have a limited number of courtesy vehicles available. Like most garages, we will always prioritise loyal customers – or at least customers who have booked their car in advance and given us notice and ergo the opportunity to schedule the allocation of a curtesy car. In short, the moral of the story is... You have to earn the courtesy of a FREE courtesy car. Garages – indeed any business - will bend over backwards for loyal customers. Stick with your garage – show loyalty and your garage will show you loyalty and courtesy... and a courtesy car.

In a similar vein: Here’s a question...What would you do if you were us? We have a serial “enquirer”, who, since January 2020 has sought quotations from us for various works on two vehicles. His enquiries are detailed & specific - seeking quotations for routine services and perhaps seeking breakdowns on the cost of brake repairs – splitting the cost between front & rear pads/discs. In February 2022, he also specified when he wanted the work done (Monday or Tuesday).  On each occasion, we have provided a detailed quotation THAT DAY or the following day and in regard to his choice of day to have the work undertaken... we responded positively and offered him the Tuesday. However, on each occasion that we have responded with a quote, we hear nothing... Nope... Not even a “Thank you”. 

Fast forward to last week and our serial quote seeker is having problems with juddering. His tyre supplier tells him that it COULD be warped disks and it needs investigating on a rolling road.... so can we “...have a look?” and provide a quotation for front & rear disks.

Now to be clear, we acknowledge that he and anyone else is quite within their rights to ask for as many quotations from as many suppliers as he wishes and indeed, we have no problem providing these quotations, but where would you draw the line?   You have provided FIVE detailed quotations and none of these quotations have secured the work and not once has the text conversation been closed with a “Thank you” or “Thanks, we are going elsewhere because...”. We have even wondered whether he has kept his text history and if he knows that he is asking the same garage for quotes that he never accepts. Is he using us as a stalking horse – looking for confirmation that his preferred supplier is not over-charging him? Who knows!  Andrew & the service team have reached their limit now and simply declined to respond.  I might respond and simply ask him to read this. 

Fortunately, these are unusual and normal ‘odds’ apply to securing new business. “You win some, You lose some.” but courtesy never goes amiss whether it be a “Thank you” or a Courtesy car.

Happy Motoring

Mike Joenn

AJ Garage Services

June 2023

Fuel Economy and the effect of E5 & E10 – Can the E numbers improve Economy or Performance? . 

First off, may I apologise for the quality of the font/typeface on last month’s Blog as it appeared in Community Times.  There was a slight print-setting error and the blog wasn’t easy to read as it appeared in print. We’ve had a couple of folks eager to point out that it was difficult to read and they even admitted – horror of horrors – that they gave up trying. We are confident it won’t happen again. And of course, you can always catch all blog posts (going back three years) on the AJ Garage web site at https://www.ajgarageservices.com/mike-joenn-says

About 20 months ago, I introduced E5 & E10 petrol to my readers, (with a brief mention of B7 Diesel) giving an explanation what the E’s were and why they were important. The blog was mainly concerned with which vehicles could or couldn’t use the ‘Ethanol-laced’ petrol. I didn’t examine the economic and performance issues around the introduction of Ethanol to the fuel. You may recall that it was all about the environment.

Then this week I came across a BBC Podcast called Sliced Bread. The podcast investigates a wide range of supposed “wonder products” and tries to establish – through investigation – whether the product is the best thing since sliced bread, or whether it is merely “Marketing B.S.” (ahem... Bull sh*t).    In an edition of the podcast which was first broadcast in January 2023, the host examines Petrol and the so-called Premium brands which claim to offer better fuel consumption and that they are better for the engine.

So, off goes Greg Foot (The Sliced Bread host) to find out if premium Petrol (E5) is the best thing since sliced bread and worth the not insignificant higher price. He starts by asking high mileage drivers (driving instructors) if they have noticed any difference in performance of MPG since the introduction of the ethanol additive. Without giving you chapter & verse on their wide and varied views, it quickly becomes clear that these professional drivers have noticed a drop in MPG, but not a noticeable drop in performance.  They have all tried the E5 Premium grade fuels, but this had generally not been perceived to restore the MPG.

Greg then goes off to talk with an Automotive Research Engineer who explains the worthy rationale for introducing 10% Ethanol to the fuel. And it is of course to reduce the impact of climate change. The ethanol is not a fossil fuel (it is made from Plants) and it basically releases less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than pure petrol, so on the face of it, the E10 (and to a lesser extent, the E5) is better for the planet. However, as I’m sure you’ll have already guessed, it ain’t that simple. When you take into account the climate impact of producing the ethanol from plants, the equation doesn’t balance in favour of the ethanol additive after all.

But what about using the Premium grade.... Does it improve MPG or performance? Well... again without going into the detail... No... Not really... unless you are driving a performance vehicle. The podcast host then consulted a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers who has spent 40 years in engine development. Whilst acknowledging that Ethanol can’t do a great deal of damage to a modern engine, his conclusion was that your average driver of your average car would get far more benefit from spending their money on regular maintenance and selecting the right grade of engine oil for the vehicle rather spending that money on premium grade petrol (with fancy additives). In other words, the benefit to be had from the premium grade is so insignificant that you need to be a research scientist or automotive development engineer to measure it.

As is often the case with the limited space here on the CT Motoring blog, I am merely skimming the surface of what was an extremely interesting podcast about motor vehicles and the fuels they use and where you should spend your money. My take on it was clear... Unless you are driving a performance vehicle (or a vintage or veteran car), spend your money on servicing, maintenance and high quality oil and use the cheaper petrol.

You can find the Sliced Bread Podcast on BBC Sounds.

Happy Motoring

Mike Joenn, 

April 2023

It happens at the doctor’s surgery, so you can bet your bottom dollar, it happens here too!

I don’t very often speak out on behalf of the motor trade in general and indeed, I have never claimed to speak on behalf of other garages, but I’m pretty sure they’ll all be happy about me speaking for them on this particular subject matter... 

So, You want your car/van/taxi/bike serviced and you give us a call. We book you in, take your name and your registration details and allocate space, a ramp and  the vehicle technician to do the job.  In some cases, we might even stick our necks out and order the oil filter, a pollen filter and other bits we know we are likely to need to service YOUR vehicle on THAT day... and then you just don’t turn up! I believe the expression that is in common use these days is... WTF?  (Not sure what that actually stands for myself.)

We’ve all seen those notices at the GP’s surgery... “Please keep your appointment and avoid wasting NHS funds”. It has been estimated that each missed appointment costs the NHS an average of £30 per person.

But I reckon that the NHS is pretty tolerant. They send you a polite DNA letter (No, not the building block of life DNA)... Did Not Attend. I understand that they’ll send you three DNA letters, after which they will politely ask you to register elsewhere.

Well, I’m not sure that we (or our fellow motor trade garages) are quite as tolerant. We won’t send you a polite letter because that costs too much. But rest assured, we’ll keep an eye on your registration and you are unlikely to get a warm welcome when you come back and try to re-book. So you’d better have a good excuse.

Please keep your garage appointments.... You know who you are and you know it makes sense.

Turning to more positive matters, I am pleased to report that there’s a great deal going on at our garage at the moment.  I can now reveal that we have been working very hard on expansion plans for some time now, but it has been a long slog getting all the ducks in a row. Sometimes, things don’t go quite to plan with  external factors getting in the way - obscuring those carefully placed ducks ... and so it was last month.  However, the ducks are now revealed  and a range of new developments are under way at our Star Trading Estate base.  Three new vehicle ramps are on order and due to be installed this month, increasing our servicing capacity by almost 30%. Our plans also include a much needed upgrade to our Service & MOT reception. That too is under way. We look forward to welcoming you to the upgraded facilities.

Recruitment remains an industry-wide challenge, but even there, we are making headway with a new vehicle technician/fitter joining the team this month and the prospect of another joining us soon. Never-the-less, there’s no complacency here... we are still very keen to hear from experienced motor vehicle technicians. If you know any... Let them know we are hiring!

Mike Joenn  

 AJ Garage Services 

Welsh Government announces that there will be no new road projects in Wales

Ifyou are Welsh or you live in Wales, you couldn’t have missed the news that the Welsh Deputy Minister for Climate Change – Lee Waters has announced that the Welsh Government has axed all major road building projects throughout the nation. As Deputy Climate Change Minister, it’s easy to see his objective... ‘...reduce carbon emissions’ and help the population to change the way they use the roads.   Really?

The decision follows a year-long review by the imaginatively named “Welsh Roads Review Panel” and they have decreed that all road infrastructure plans must be put on hold because the Government doesn’t want any more cars on the roads or emissions in the atmosphere. The upshot is that no less than 55 road projects have been paused or are being fundamentally re-assessed. However, it’s not all bad news (according to the panel), because 15 of them will get the go-ahead IN THE FUTURE. 

I’m surprised and I can’t really get my head around this. It’s a bit like saying “We won’t build any more schools and maternity hospitals and that will stop people having babies.” No it won’t. And what about all those electric vehicles that we are being encouraged to buy?  Don’t EVs use roads too?  Won’t they make a difference to the atmospheric pollution? 

Needless to say, this is a very hot political potato. Environmental groups have praised the announcement. (No surprise there!) The Labour controlled Senedd are ultimately responsible for the decision and its implementation, so it would be safe to say they are backing the decision – focused on reducing the nation to Net Zero carbon by 2050. However, the Welsh Conservatives are clearly unimpressed. Welsh Conservatives leader Andrew RT Davies said: “Labour ministers won't build new roads in Wales because they'll 'induce demand'.... [and] encouraging more visitors to Wales and money into our economy is obviously a bad thing.” The RAC (Not normally associated with radical political thinking) said “These proposals risk grinding Wales and its economy to a halt. Unless Ministers can guarantee alternatives to car travel, they risk causing more congestion on existing routes and making it exceptionally difficult for people in rural areas to get around easily. The Welsh Government should instead be looking at how it could help accelerate the take-up of electric vehicles to speed up decarbonisation.” I like that last sentence.

In conclusion, my view would be that it’s not the roads and the quality of those roads that present a problem. Instead it’s the vehicles on the roads where we all need focus our attention.  There have been astonishing advances made over the last 20 years with diesel vehicles polluting far less than they once did. Sales of EVs are also growing rapidly with 40% more EVs being sold in 2022 than in 2021. EVs now represent over 13% of car sales. It’s going to be hard telling people that they can’t use a car when there’s no viable alternative.

Now just to be clear, I am not a huge fan of Electric Vehicles – our garage business is still dominated by tradition internal combustion engine vehicles.  However, that isn’t the only reason. It is clear that we have a long way to go before the EV battery production is ‘Green’ enough. There’s insufficient room to address that argument here today, but for those readers interested in following up. Start here: https://earth.org/environmental-impact-of-battery-production/   In essence.... EVs and their batteries produce less CO2 over the entire life-cycle whilst Standard Petrol vehicles produce less CO2 in production.  I’ll return to this in due course.  Watch this space.

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

MOT Testers disqualified for improper practices while motorists fined for snow on the car roof

There were a couple of motoring stories in the news this month that caught my eye. The first was right up my street because it drew attention to something I mentioned here in this blog in July. Regular readers will recall that I expressed some doubt about the government’s proposal to scrap the annual MOT test and replace it with a check every TWO years. With great fanfare, it was announced that this would save the motorist over £55 per year. I need hardly say that I didn’t like the idea because it would inevitably result in more un-roadworthy cars on the road. Thankfully, the policy has not yet been adopted, but I was pleased to read that the RAC have been active in opposing the plan. They’ve been finding out what their members thought of the idea. More than 55% of the drivers they questioned said that it was a “dangerously bad idea” and only 22% though that it had merit. The other 23% didn’t really know. More than half (58%) say the changes could end up costing drivers more in the long run due to problems or defects going undetected and becoming more costly to repair, (exactly my point in July) while 44% believe it might cause garages to put prices up for other repairs to compensate for lost earnings from doing less MOT work. (Readers will not be surprised to learn that we roundly disagree with that particular observation). Whilst our MOT Centre is the cornerstone of our vehicle work, we have plenty work other than MOT testing... and believe me,  that work will increase if MOT tests are performed only every two years.

Now this is all bad enough you might say, but another related MOT story gave me even greater cause for concern. It was recently revealed that the DVSA have disqualified almost 700 MOT Testers over the last two years involving improper or careless practices during the test procedure, as well as issuing of fraudulent certificates. I am aghast! It was also revealed that this is an astonishing 49% increase compared with the previous two years. I am at a loss to understand why a garage would risk its livelihood and reputation by issuing a dodgy MOT Certificate for a back-hander of a couple of tenners. Reputation and integrity are everything in this trade these days and anyone asking us to undermine the MOT gets short shrift from us. Choose your MOT tester wisely. If they are prepared to overlook some defect just to get you through the test, my advice is drive away. You could be risking your life or the lives of other road users.

The other eye-catching motoring headline this month was weather related – it was certainly topical if nothing else.  Winter driving... and the risk of fines of up to £10,000. Let’s start with the one that always draws a laugh... The car covered in 2 feet of snow with a peep-hole the size of a credit card for the driver to look through. It might look like the ideal transport for a snowman or even amusing, but it could cost you £2,500 if the police stop you. The snow can fly off while you are driving and land on other road user, causing an accident – or at least a dangerous situation. Then there’s the visibility issue. As a driver you are obliged to ensure that your windscreen and windows are clear SO THAT YOU CAN SEE OUT OF THEM. Now admittedly, we haven’t seen that much snow in South Wales this year (yet) but it has been bitterly cold and for the first half of December, our windscreens and windows have been iced up in the mornings impacting driver visibility. The advice here is the same, and fairly obvious ... scrap the ice off ALL your windows (and lights) before you drive off. You should also ensure that your windscreen has completed demisted inside. My advice is to just plan to leave the house 10 minutes earlier than you normally would and take the time to clear the windows properly and avoid the risk of a £60 fine and three penalty points for driving with poor visibility.  

The moral of the story.... Don’t leave your driveway with your car covered in snow or ice. You might crash the car, you might hinder another road user and you just might get fined for being stupid.

A very Happy new Year  to all our readers, customers,  friends, and critics!

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

We’ve had an interesting few months here at the garage. Setting aside the major issues facing us all (Impact of Brexit, Impact of Covid,  Impact of Ukrane War,  impact of global warming and of course the cost of Living crisis) everything else still seems to pale into insignificance. It’s hard to find something positive to focus on – but find it we will.

We have been delighted - and it must be said, in light of the challenges set out above, somewhat surprised by the steady growth in our business over the year. Let’s be clear, we aren’t complaining. We may have been benefiting from folks holding on to their cars a little longer than they did in the past – or maybe more customers are knocking on our door because word is getting around about just how good we are!  In any event, it’s a good problem to have.

However, the success brings with it some new challenges. Take recruitment for example... our biggest challenge over the last year (together with many other businesses in our sector) has been growing our workforce to meet the increasing demand for our services. Finding vehicle technicians... GOOD vehicle technicians - has been difficult. We’ve had the same vacancies posted on our web site for over a year now – and we know that we are not alone. There’s been a sea-change in attitudes to work since the pandemic, with many skilled people re-addressing their Work-Life balance and electing to work shorter hours and take less money in exchange for a less stressful life. We’ve also noticed a reluctance to move jobs – perhaps because it is difficult to assess whether a new employer is any less precarious than the old one.  So the upshot – in the motor trade at least, is that we must be patient.

The patience has paid off for us this year and we have been able to recruit two new vehicle technicians to our team in the last few months. We have been delighted to introduce Kelvin & Jay to our customers over the last few months and we’ve also given due consideration to the long term future of the business by recruiting two apprentices... Callum & Oakley.

The old adage which says “If you want a good job done, then ask a busy man or a busy firm” only goes so far. There comes a point where you have to consider turning away business in order to protect your reputation and maintain your standards of service quality. Having now been successful with our recruitment over these last few months, we are pleased to report that it didn’t become necessary to make those difficult decisions about turning customers away. With a team in place that is dedicated and competent, we are managing to services our customers without having the stress of being short staffed. In essence, we are staffed to meet current demand, but we are still recruiting with an eye on continued growth next year.  If you are reading this and you are a vehicle technician, we’d like to talk to you about your plans for 2023.

Whilst we are on the subject of Positive News, I am absolutely delighted to announce that AJ Garage Services entered into a sponsorship deal to support the Ponthir Girls Under 14’s Football Team. We have always been keen to support local community events and local sports. We have supported and sponsored the Ponthir Sports & Community Club (PSCC) and the associated cricket club for many years. So we met Owen Palmer the U14 & U16 Girls’ team manager & coach back in September and have been working out the details which resulted in the Team donning a Training Top bearing the AJ Garage Service Logo. We look forward to a successful season and wish the girls the best of luck. As I write today, I am aware that “our girls” beat Whitchurch Blues in the SWFA Cup by one goal to nil. Well done Ponthir Girls.

Last but not least, it’s that time of year when thoughts turn to Christmas & hopefully happy times... Let’s try to set aside the difficult stuff and have a Happy Christmas and Peaceful New Year.

Season’s Greetings to all our readers, customers,  friends, and critics! 

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

This blog tends to concentrate on motor cars – i.e. four-wheeled vehicles and indeed, I guess that’s what most of the readers of this blog are interested in. The majority of our customer base is also domestic car owners and commercial companies operating light van fleets. Indeed, that’s generally what we are known for. Our Fleet of rescue vehicles & parts vans have MOT CENTRE plastered across almost every panel and in truth, we haven’t got enough space on these vehicles to describe the whole range of our activity & services.

I can find myself in conversion with a customer who has been coming to us for his annual MOT for years and on maybe one occasion, he walks past the MOT waiting area and gasps at just how large our operation at Star Trading Estate actually is.  And the point at which I become a little deflated is when he (or she) says... “I had no idea that you did “This” or “That”. I swear it happens every few weeks.  Maybe I should be having a word with our marketing & advertising man.

This is particularly annoying when we have car customers who also own motorcycles and have absolutely no idea that we have a fully fitted Bike Bay with a full-on MOT test station for bikes & scooters.  We even have a specialist motorcycle technician (Darrell). Not only do we MOT and repair bikes, we are enthusiastic bikers ourselves and welcome new TWO-Wheeled customers with open arms.

Which gives me an ideal opportunity to mention that Andrew and I have just returned from a motorcycle trip through France and Andorra to the Costa Brava in Spain. We did two thousand, one hundred miles in total over six days, arriving back on Wednesday 21^st. What a marvellous break. No dramas, no breakdowns, no distractions, safe in the knowledge that the team have it covered back home.   

We set off on Thursday the 15^th so we were abroad for the Late Queen Elizabeth’s funeral on Monday the 19^th.  And before it crosses your mind... We reject the suggestion that we went abroad to escape the hype and the 10 day mourning fest.  We paid our respects appropriately and recognised her passing on our social media pages.

The most striking thing that we brought back from our trip was the friendliness of the French & Spanish people AND that fact that you simply cannot go anywhere in Europe without bumping into Welsh folks. There we were in the middle of rural France, parked up for a short break when a couple of folks walk by, see the UK Reg and Welsh Flag on our number plate and declare that they were from Bridgend.    Same on the Costa Brava... Newport people eager to make themselves known to the Welsh Bikers.  Not quite sure what it is, but there’s something enjoyable and warming about unexpectedly meeting your kin in far-off lands.

Another poignant moment during the trip was pulling up at traffic lights and a vehicle pulls alongside with the driver’s  window down. Having seen our new UK Country sticker, he offers condolences for the loss of Queen Elizabeth.  It struck us then, that her passing really was a global event.  Enough said.

God Save the King!

Happy Motoring

Mike Joenn   

 It struck me earlier this week that offering motoring advice in winter is so much easier than trying to offer useful motoring tips for an extreme summer.  Doesn’t everyone know that you need to close the car windows if you have the air conditioning turned on? (That includes the sun roof by the way).  Doesn’t everyone know that you are likely to be more comfortable with the windows open if your car doesn’t have air conditioning? Perhaps you don’t know that your vehicle will use more fuel if the air-con is switched on, so if fuel economy is your thing, then maybe you need to open the windows and try to suffer the heat!

There’s really not much you can do to prepare for a car journey in extreme temperature.  Well, maybe plonk a cool box on the back seat with some bottled water in it, just in case you get stuck in a traffic jam. It’s really all about comfort rather than motoring per se. 

Whilst preparing to write this blog earlier this week, a few of us were standing around debating whether I should warn our readers against driving in flip-flops or bare feet.  Was it illegal to do so? One of the Team was adamant that it was illegal. Others weren’t so sure. When our own staff couldn’t agree on whether it was legal or not, I had to head home and find out for sure. With admirable (and arguably intentional) ambiguity, DVLA have stated that it is NOT actually illegal to drive in bare feet or flip-flops. However, doing so could result in you being landed with a £100 on the spot fine and a 3 penalty points. Really ? How so? 

The DVLA say:  Failing to wear proper footwear when driving is not a crime itself - but it does breach Rule 97 of the Highway Code and could be classed as “driving without due care and attention”. The rule states you must have footwear and clothing which "does not prevent you using the controls in the correct manner".  As with so many other motoring offences, it is possible that you could be ‘pulled over’ for some misdemeanour or perhaps you have been involved in an accident. When Plod arrives and spies the flip-flops, he could relate the dodgy driving practice or the cause of the accident directly to your inability to properly control the vehicle by way of improper footwear... and there you are...  banged to rights.

The RAC have compiled a useful list of footwear that you should and should not wear when driving. Perhaps needless to say, flip-flips and bare feet don’t appear in the ‘OK’ list. Neither do high heels make it!

I also found an article in the Manchester evening news about this very subject matter which shouted the headline that you could be fined up to £5,000. The article claimed that if the charge of driving without due care and attention gets to court, the maximum penalty could rise to as high as a £5,000 fine, nine penalty points and potentially a driving ban. Really? Me thinks that this is just a tad sensationalist and the £100 on the spot fine is far more likely.

However this month’s advice from this old hand in the motor trade is “Don’t wear flip-flops or drive in bare feet... but surely this is common sense?

The casual observer may have predicted that our breakdown and rescue department might have been busier than usual during the heatwaves, but as a testament to the robustness and reliability of the modern vehicle, we didn’t experience an upturn in heat-related breakdowns… it was business as usual. On the other hand, we can report that there has been a doubling in the uptake of our Air-Con system re-gassing service during the month of July & August. So, whilst the cars themselves seem to be coping well with climate change and the steady rise in summer temperatures, the fragile human beings inside the cars are finding it harder to cope.

Keep Cool & Happy Motoring

Mike Joenn   

Hot weather across the UK & France… But France has the better roads !

Last month’s blog had the buy-line “Hot potatoes in the Motoring world”. Little did I know at the time that “Hot” was merely a relative term and just how hot it was going to get in the coming week or two. The record breaking temperatures hit 40+ degrees on the 18^th & 19^th of July, bringing my ‘hot potatoes’ into perspective. However, we got through it without suffering sunstroke or heatstroke and from a motoring perspective, it didn’t seem to matter much as long as you weren’t stuck in a motorway queue without water for a few hours. 

Britain’s very own motoring high priest, Jeremy Clarkson got himself into hot water on twitter when he tweeted that that Brits were being snow-flakes - pointing out that the South of France was coping better than us Brits. The deluge of hot water came via twitter with literally dozens of people roasting him with news that France wasn’t coping any better than us. (14,000 people evacuated from locations in Southern France because “it’s on fire”… “France under the heat wave: 15 departments on red alert”, "a heat apocalypse scheduled for Monday across France”). Good old Jeremy! He finds it hard to say anything that isn’t controversial, but at least he’s always entertaining.

The casual observer may have predicted that our breakdown and rescue department might have been busier than usual during the heatwave, but as a testament to the robustness and reliability of the modern vehicle, we didn’t experience an upturn in heat-related breakdowns… it was business as usual. On the other hand, we can report that there has been a doubling in the uptake of our Air-Con system re-gassing service during the month of July. So, whilst the cars themselves seem to be coping well with climate change and the steady rise in summer temperatures, the fragile human snow-flakes (Jeremy's words - not mine!) inside the cars are finding it harder to cope. If you are feeling fragile and your Air-Con isn’t delivering cool air, you know where to come. 

Talking about France… Having recently returned from a short tour of Normandy, I was struck by the difference between the UK & France in terms of road conditions, motoring discipline, speed policing and general roadwork management. To say that we have a lot to learn would be an understatement. The roads never seem to be ‘clogged’. The speed cameras are fewer and further between; the road-works seem to be well managed and contraflows don’t appear to be as prevalent as they are in the UK. In short, the whole motoring experience in France is more satisfying and less stressful than it is here in the UK.  It takes just a 22 mile sea trip to bring the striking comparison into focus.

I went looking for reasons to explain France’s superiority in motoring terms.

                                  France                           UK

Population:                67.3m                            62.2m (about the same)

Passenger Cars:       32.6m                            32.7m. (about the same)

Population Density    309 people/Sq mile       727 people /Sq mile. (Ah..fewer people per Sq mile in France)

Total road Network    600,000 miles              247,500 miles (Ahh..More than double the road miles in France)

So there it is, France have more roads and fewer people (& cars) per square mile.

No wonder our roads are so congested.  From a simply personal observation, it seems to me that France has fewer roadworks, fewer contraflows, fewer Speed cameras and driving was considerably more pleasurable.  I might go back there soon!

Happy Motoring

Mike Joenn   

I have a small confession to make: When I’m getting close to the deadline for my monthly blog post – or when the editor of this local magazine starts to prod me for this month’s rant or diatribe, I will often turn to my ol’ pal Mr Google, the BBC or the motoring community (e.g. The AA & RAC) to see what’s exciting them about motoring or the motor trade at the moment.  I’ve chosen a couple of their stories this month, based on their proximity to our business.

The first directly impacts on our business, so I’m keeping a close eye on it:  Boris – on one of the days that he wasn’t partying, urged MPs to look for ‘innovative ways’ to find solutions to the challenges facing the country as a result of the Ukraine War; the threat of 25 year high inflation and the fuel cost crisis. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps came to cabinet with his contribution of a good idea... It’s a beauty!

His new proposal is that the annual Ministry of Transport (MOT) Test be scrapped and replaced with a check every 2 years.  Drivers could then save more than £55 a year. The whizzo idea was floated with senior party members last month. Needless to say, the plans have been widely criticised as it would almost certainly lead to unfit vehicles being driven on the roads and drivers would inevitably end up paying more to fix their cars every other year. A problem emerging with a vehicle will inevitably take more fixing after another year’s motoring than it would have done a year ago!  Having witnessed some very un-roadworthy vehicles that passed an MOT just 12 months previously, the prospect of waiting a further 12 months to identify and rectify a problem simply does not bear thinking about. I need not set out my view on this proposal!

The other hot potato is the much lauded reduction in fuel duty – announced in the Chancellor’s Spring Statement back in March. As you may recall, he triumphantly announced that fuel duty would be cut... Not by 1p... not by 2p, but by 5p per litre until March 2023. Hurrah!  However, what you probably DIDN’T consider is...

1.) Fuel duty is applied to wholesale fuel prices and

2.) Tax revenue from VAT on fuel is actually higher than it was a year ago. This is because the Revenue collects more VAT when fuel prices go up. The higher the price, the more VAT the government collects. The RAC delved into this a little deeper and discovered that the whole 5p duty reduction was NOT being passed onto motorists and when increased VAT was applied to the price at the pumps, the poor motorists are seeing an average reduction of just 3.59p per litre of petrol and a measly 2.43p/Litre reduction in diesel. 

An RAC spokesman said, “Had the Chancellor cut VAT, rather than duty, the motorist would have seen an immediate and guaranteed reduction in their fuel bill next time they visited a petrol station.” The RAC appears to be supporting the petition to have fuel duty further reduced. With the petition already at 100,000 signatures, it is likely that it will be debated in parliament soon.

Happy Motoring

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

Regular readers of my blog will know that I cover many subjects and occasionally, I return to a topic which I simply cannot leave alone. I feel duty-bound to raise awareness and have another go. These hot button subjects have included : The price of fuel,  electric cars and one of my favourites... Smart Motorways.

As it happens, there have been stories in the national press about all three topics over the last month. It is becoming increasingly clear that electric cars are no-where near as green as we’d been led to believe and that seems to be attracting more attention this year. I’m sure I’ll come back to this again during 2022.  

But the e-car story that caught my eye was in the Telegraph this month (It’s not as bad a paper as some people would have you believe!) The story connected e-cars to a deep sea shipping loss off the Azores in March. The ship called the Felicity Ace was transporting cars from Germany to the USA. It sank following a fire in the car deck,  taking with it to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean no less than 4,000 VW, Porche & Bentley cars. The source of the fire was a faulty lithium battery in one of the cars being shipped – which overheated and spontaneously burst into flames – and it is apparently not the first lithium battery in an e-car to have caused a loss at sea.  The increasing demand for electric cars risks causing a wave of fires on cargo ships as they are not designed to carry lithium batteries safely.  (So say the insurance companies).  Who’d have thought it? A wave of fires on ships in the Atlantic ocean, caused by faulty batteries in e-cars. You couldn’t make it up.  On a positive note, all the crew escaped and were landed in the Azores.

I’m pretty sure that I need not remind you about rising fuel prices. It is becoming not just crazy, It’s positively alarming. Diesel at our local Spar filling station hit £1.84 (OK, let’s be accurate: 183.9p per Litre) However, even more alarming is the record profits currently being posted by the oil giants. (Shell $9.1 billion in the first Quarter of 2022; BP $6.2 billion in the first quarter; Exxon/Mobile $8.8 billion.  I’m a mechanic, not an economist, but I can still tell that there’s something not balancing out here. Enough said!

And my favourite... The latest on Smart Motorways... I don’t see the point of re-visiting all their serious flaws. My views were clearly stated in my previous blog posts over the last couple of years. (You are cordially invited to check them out below on this page. (The further you go down, the older the Blog post) . The first reference to Smart (Ass) Motorways was back in October 2019.

What I did want to draw your attention to was a facebook group called “Smart Motorways Kill” (https://www.facebook.com/smartmotorwayskill) which recently posted an article which first appeared in the Telegraph on 21^st May about bosses ‘turning a blind eye to safety fears’. A little further down on the same facebook group you will find an open letter to National Highways & Grant Chapps at the Dept of Transport from Mike Rawson, a retired Police Traffic Sergeant. Mr Rawson sets out questions about safety– which I believe would prove extremely difficult for supporters of Smart Motorways to answer truthfully AND maintain their stance on Smart Morotways. The letter is too long to include here, but I urge my followers to look it up.... Like the cost of fuel... it’s scary and very alarming.

To conclude with a motoring euphemism, I expect to see a government U-Turn on Smart motorways in the next couple of years, and sooner if the death toll keeps rising.

Happy Motoring

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

Last month, I wrote remarks about the frightening cost of fuel and the measures some people feel that they have to take to cut their motoring costs. Top of that list and probably the most obvious way to save money would simply be to cut the number of miles travelled and ergo, use less fuel. 

I also mentioned in that same blog the recent social media surge revealing that some desperate folks have been turning to cooking oil as a diesel alternative. Quite apart from the fact that this is a very dodgy practice (both technically and legally) it now appears that it may have become unviable for quite another reason. I’ve been reading in the Press and seeing TV reports that cooking oil is now being rationed by supermarkets – not because they are worried about people trying to fill their cars with it – but rather as a result of the war in Ukraine because Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest producers of cooking oil.  It just goes to show what a connected world we live it. A war in Eastern Europe is responsible for raising diesel prices whilst that same war ensures that a dodgy alternative fuel (cooking oil) is kept off the streets.  You couldn’t make it up! 

Which brings me to another fuel economy story.  One of our customers – I’ll call him Charlie – came to us with his Land Rover Freelander making more noise than it should. A quick & dirty diagnosis suggested that the noise was coming from either the rear differential or the ‘transfer box’ (which transfers the power from the engine to the rear wheel s and effectively makes the vehicle into a 4x4. In order to identify the source of the noise, we proposed removing the rear coupling (prop shaft) between the transfer box and the diff. This diagnosis technique and temporary remedy is something that the Freelander lends itself to very well. With no magical computer wizardry to interfere (like most other fancy 4x4s) the Freelander operates perfectly well as a front wheel drive – transverse engine vehicle. Having now identified the problem, the bad news for Charlie was that a repair bill would be heading in the direction of £1,000 and Charlie didn’t fancy that much this month. 

Having assured him that he could drive the vehicle without risk of further damage, Charlie decided to use the vehicle solely as a front-wheel –drive vehicle and not to attempt any off-road adventures whilst he saves the money for the repair. As a parting gesture, we suggested that he might find that his fuel consumption will also improve as he’ll be driving just two wheels, rather than four. He was off to Durham to see family on the coming week-end and it occurred to him that the better mpg might be proven on the long journey. 

Well... Charlie couldn’t get back to see us quickly enough after the trip to Durham. Best mpg he had achieved on his Freelander in the past was around 37-38 mpg. On this latest trip, he was delighted to find that the average mpg was around 46mpg.  To be honest, that improvement even surprized us. 

Charlie isn’t in any hurry to have the repair completed. On his 630 mile round trip, he’s saved about £22. 

Happy Motoring 

M ike Joenn 

AJ Garage Services 

It’s hard to consider starting to write a motoring blog without noting or commenting on the alarming price of petrol & diesel at the moment. It has been heading steadily upwards over the last few months, but the war in Ukraine has given the prices an extra boost. The average petrol price across the UK is around £1.65/Litre and diesel is £1.77/Litre at the time of writing (20^st March), although our local filling station was advertising £1.79/Litre today. I mention the date that I am writing this blog because I fully acknowledge that the price is likely to be higher than that when you read this blog at the beginning of April.  Indeed, the highest prices in the country (according to Confused.com) are £1.90 for petrol and £2.07 for diesel – but their data was published on 14^th March – a week ago – so it is already out of date! Lord, Help us!

I decided to have a look at historical fuel prices and that’s when the scale of the problem sinks in... and just to make it a little more relatable, let’s consider the price PER GALLON. Petrol is currently running at about £7.50/gallon and diesel costs an average of £8.04 per gallon.  It hardly bears thinking about. The highest prices in recent years were recorded during the 2011/2012 oil crisis when fuel was around £6/gallon. But when we go back to 2002 – twenty years ago - petrol was selling at just around £0.70/Litre or £3.17/gallon. Those were the days – eh? 

So, there no real conclusion here... Let’s just hope that world affairs can get back on an even keel sooner than later and the cost of motoring starts to slip back toward something sensible soon.

In a matter not entirely un-related, I saw a post on social media last week which showed a bloke loading up his car in a supermarket car park. The only thing that he appeared to have purchased was large plastic containers of cooking oil.   The objective – as proposed by the person who took the photo – was that this bloke was planning to run his diesel 4x4 on cooking oil rather than suffer a hammering at the pumps. I’ve since seen a number of such posts. There’s even been posts on community groups by people looking for advice on whether it will work.  In a way, you can’t blame them... Desperate times call for desperate measures. People just feel that they cannot afford to buy fuel for their vehicles at current prices.

Co-incidentally, back in September last year I wrote about this very matter. I related the story of the 2003 Great Swansea Cooking Oil Fuel scandal in which local motorists were buying up all the cooking oil they could get and ASDA couldn’t keep up with demand! (You can find the blog post & the full story on our web site at https://www.ajgarageservices.com/mike-joenn-says ). HOWEVER,  I strongly advised against using cooking oil to power your vehicle  on two counts. 1.) The Tax man will have you if you haven’t declared that you are doing it because you need to be paying duty on your vehicle  fuel and 2.) You are VERY likely to require costly repairs to your vehicle if you have not made (expensive) modifications to the fuel system before you fill your tank with Mazola or Crisp n Dry ! OK! It can be done, but we strongly advise... DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!  If this blog reaches you too late and your diesel car isn’t starting... Give me a call.

Happy Motoring

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

It’s not often that I get the opportunity to be a bit smug, but this month, I am feeling a bit smug.  I’ve been reading numerous articles about the new Shell Charging Hub in Fulham in London and I am reminded about one of the first Blog posts I wrote back in September 2019.  So, why does this give me the right to be a bit smug? Read on...

Shell (the company that makes millions of pounds digging oil & gas out of the North sea) have completely overhauled the entire site of their filling station in Fulham, London. They have removing the petrol & diesel tanks, pumps and other hydro-carbon infrastructure and installing nine ultra-rapid 175Kw charging points. There’s still a big yellow Shell sign at the road side and the colour scheme is very much what you’d normally see at any other Shell filling station, but you can’t buy hydro-carbon fuel here.  This is the first one of its kind in the UK and the first one globally for the giant Hydro-carbon company – and it’s got to be said – It’s impressive.

Shell have really pushed the boat out in terms of design and building materials in order to tick all the carbon footprint reduction boxes. The canopy is made of compressed sheets of timber which used much less energy to produce than steel. They have built solar panels into the canopy – which they claim will deliver a quarter of the site’s electricity needs and the retail space is double glazed with high insulating property glass to reduce energy requirement in winter and keep the customers cool in summer.  Shell have also done a deal with an electricity supplier to ensure that all the EV charging points and the station itself uses energy only from certified renewable sources.

The customer will be able plug their Electric vehicle in and charge up to 80% charge capacity in just 10 minutes using the ultra-rapid charging point. Just enough time to make a call or use the other ‘facilities’

Then there’s the retail area. Costa Coffee and Little Waitrose are located behind the high-performance double glazing. So you have the opportunity to grab your Oat-milk skinny Latte or the Quinoa for your salad in Waitrose.  In essence, the site is now an up-market corner shop and a café with EV charging facilities.

Back in September 2019, the headline for my blog was “Excuse me, Can you tell me where I can buy some diesel?” The blog went on to forecast that the traditional filling station was almost certain to go into decline and would be replaced by corner shops which offered EV charging facilities.  To be fair, I really didn’t expect these new charging hub-come-corner shops to appear quite so soon, but I can definitely say “You read it here first”.

Happy Electric Motoring 

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

By the time you are reading this blog post, the revised Highway Code will have been introduced (29^th January) and according to recent research by the AA, only a third of drivers are even aware that these changes are taking place. The AA sees this as a failure of government and have been pleading with the Department for Transport to undertake a good old fashioned awareness campaign through public information advertising etc. targeting ALL road users and not just drivers. Given that the AA’s poll was conducted among its members (i.e. drivers) there’s a good chance that the 30% of respondents in the know will not be reflected across the general public. Knowledge of the highway code is likely to be much lower than 30%, hence the AA’s pleas for a widespread campaign of awareness... So, we are doing our bit...

My aim here today is to encourage our readers and customers to check out the changes to the code for themselves. Make yourself aware of your new responsibilities as a vehicle driver. And if you are an HGV or Truck driver – I’m urging you to pay special attention, because you will be carrying much more responsibility for the safety of other road users from January 29^th.

The principal aim of the revised highway code is the protection of vulnerable road users... and just in case you are not entirely familiar with who is represented in that group, we are talking about pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders. Having had a good look at the changes, it seems that the main beneficiaries are cyclists and indeed one of the more controversial new rules is aimed at protecting cyclist from drivers who open drivers’ door into which the cyclist could crash. The new rule requires drivers to open their door (assuming that you are in a Right Hand Drive car) with their LEFT Hand.  By leaning across your body to open the door, you automatically turn your body and head to the right and in doing so, you are far more likely to look over your shoulder and check that there are no cyclists coming up on the outside. But the really controversial bit is that a driver can be fined up to £1,000 for OPENING THEIR DOOR WITH THE WRONG HAND. Strictly speaking, you can be fined for injuring a cyclist by opening your door, but on the Plus side, the offence does not attract penalty points (!)  There’s even a name for this new Driver’s door opening procedure... It’s called the Dutch Reach because those safety-conscious Hollanders have been doing this for years.

Other controversial rule revisions encourage cyclists to cycle in the middle of the road in certain situations and vehicles must now give way to pedestrians at road junctions. Call me a cynic, but I just can’t see this going well - certainly in the short term when less than a third of drivers know that they will need to fall in behind a cyclist or allow a Pedestrian to step out into the road before they can turn left.

To be clear, I applaud the introduction of rules to improve road safety, but I see an increased incidence of road rage – particularly with the cyclists - a small proportion of whom appear to go out of their way to exert this right to use the road and antagonise drivers.  Let’s see !

Happy Motoring in 2022

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

So... Here we are again... Another New Year... 2022.

I offer my best wishes to all our readers, AJ customers, all our friends, suppliers and supporters.

Let’s start the new year with a story from the garage shop floor....

Mr Caerleon Motorist (Not his real name!) brought his car down to us in early December complaining that there was some sort of issue with his oil pressure. The Red Oil Can warning light was staying on and the performance wasn’t all that it should have been. Temperature was higher than normal too. Mr Motorist’s car was a 2017 Ford Focus (1 Litre) “EcoBoost” and it had a modest 33,000 miles on the clock. So, we wouldn’t really expect it to be malfunctioning like this.

Nathan was keen to have a go at it. Nathan had an idea! Nathan had seen this sort of thing on this type of vehicle before. The vehicle went up on a ramp and he drained the oil before removing the sump. The oil was black and contaminated. The sump had deposits of black solid ‘stuff’. Next, he removed the strainer that covers the oil pick-up aperture and found it completely blocked with what appeared to be small fragments of rubber, and so starving the engine of oil. The blocked strainer confirmed it. The timing belt and the oil pump belt had started to perish. The black contaminate was from the rubber backing on the belts.  The belts themselves were clearly in need of replacement. But why?

This model of car uses a fabric & rubber timing belt and it operates within the engine housing. This means that the belts are bathed in oil and the oil attacks the rubber & fabric and the belt starts to disintegrate. When I was a boy, timing was accomplished by a chain – always a chain, but as fuel emissions and economy standards have become more difficult to meet, so the manufacturers have turned to modern technologies and techniques to help improve performance. Ford were the first to introduce the technique of running a fabric belt in oil (back in 2008) but since then, many manufacturers have followed suit, including VW and Citroen. In fact, it has become fairly common. AJ Garage have done this job at least four times in 2021.

I don't usually do photos in the blog, but see the illustrations below

However, the lifetime of such a belt would normally be around 150,000 miles or 10 years, so why was Mr Motorist’s belt getting into that state after just 33,000 miles? And the answer is that motorists who have experienced this problem have cut corners on the oil they have used. The manufactures of vehicles which use this Bathed in Oil configuration are generally very specific and exacting about the type, grade and quality of the oil that must be used. Dosing the car with inferior or off-spec oil will almost certainly have the above effect.  This is why our garage orders oil from suppliers quoting the registration number of the vehicle, thus ensuring that the right grade of oil for that vehicle goes into the engine. We could source oil at half the price, but it would not be tied to the specific car by Registration and we could be accused of using the wrong oil and causing consequential engine damage. 

And the moral of the story is that you should stick to the exact specification set out in the manual for the oil you use. And if you don’t care to spend those extra few pennies on the more expensive oil, then AJ Garage Services have all the specialist tools to strip the engine front end, replace both belts & guides clean the strainer and rebuilt... And if you thought the oil was expensive, wait till you see the garage bill.

Happy Motoring in 2022

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

#December 2021

Last week, one of my acquaintances said: “If the speed limit on the M4 between the Coldra and Tredegar is set at 50mph to minimise air pollution from diesel and petrol cars, then why can’t I be allowed to drive faster in my electric car?” 

In a kind of simplistic way – he has a point. If it’s all about air pollution, then electric & ultra-low emission vehicles should get a green light to go faster. After all, some vehicles are already obliged to travel slower on motorways, so it’s not as if there isn’t a precedent for differential speed limits. And clearly, the Welsh government has considered this too. The question had piqued my curiosity, so I went looking for the official line... and there it was on the Government web site under “FAQs on the 50mph limits throughout Wales”: Does the 50mph speed limit apply to all vehicles?

Yes. We acknowledge that low and ultra-low emission vehicles are likely to emit much less NO₂, but having a separate speed limit for these vehicles would make the road more dangerous and counter the effects of the 50mph speed limit.

It’s a hot topic and somewhat political – tied up with matters of public health, traffic congestion and ergo, the pros and cons of the ill-fated relief road which was abandoned by the Welsh Assembly last year. I was tempted to dive into these controversial issues and explore the whys and wherefores, but on reflection, I reconsidered the subject matter for this month’s blog and decided to park the 50mph speed limits here for the time being.

Instead, I am reflecting on the fact that we are about to enter our 2^nd festive season in the shadow of the Covid Pandemic and I am sure that I am not alone in feeling slightly apprehensive as to what might happen between now and the Queen’s speech. We’ve already had the Fuel crisis, the Energy crisis and we’ve faced the prospect of no turkeys and limited availability of this year’s ‘must-have’ toys. It would be a brave man (or woman) who would predict that there wouldn’t be any further hiccups in our normal way of life in the coming 4 weeks.

With this bleak prospect in mind, I decided to turn my attention to less weighty matters and instead, enter into the spirit of Christmas via the medium of the Christmas cracker joke – which a focus – of course – on motoring quips. So, here goes...

What has four wheels and flies?                                                            The bin lorry

What car does a snake drive?                                                                An Ana Honda

What do you get when Dinosaurs crash their cars?                              Tyrannosaurus wrecks

What do you call a man with a car on his head?                                   Jack

What happened when the frog’s car broke down?                                It got toad away

What was wrong with the wooden car?                                                 It wooden go

Did you hear about the car made out of sausages?                              It was a banger

What do you call a Spanish man who has lost his car?                         Carlos

What snakes do you find on cars?                                                         Windscreen Vipers

Last Father's Day my son gave me something I always wanted:          The keys to my car.

I reckon that's enough to iritate everyone !

Happy Christmas and Peaceful New Year to all our reader,  customers, friends, and critics!

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

# November 2021

The big news this month for the motor trade and ergo, for the motorist is that the government is again looking closely at electric vehicles and how quickly they can get them introduced to help drive down the UK’s carbon footprint.  The announcement is timed nicely to demonstrate the UK’s commitment in such matters just before the COP26 summit in Glasgow, so let’s hope that it’s not all window dressing for COP26. (B.T.W.: Did you know that COP26 is “The 26^th Conference of the Parties”? Not quite as inspiring a title as I’d first thought for such an august occasion.)

Last week, the government announced a raft of new initiatives to help drive the nation toward greener motoring. Perhaps the most significant of these (from the point of view of car manufacturers) is that that they are likely to be required… mandated… instructed… told… to ensure that a certain proportion of their car sales MUST be Electric vehicles. Although the expected proportions have yet to be announced, it will certainly help to put thousands more zero emissions cars onto the British roads. The word is that the industry is ‘sceptical’ and worried about increased red tape at a time when they are desperately trying to get back on their feet after the pandemic. But one manufacturer – Vauxhall – seems to welcome the government’s mandate and intervention. Vauxhall’s managing director said last week that his company welcomes the announcement because it provides clarity to the UK motor industry.   He also hoped that the government would follow through on its announcement to set targets for other parts of the “electric vehicle ecosystem” – by which he presumably means that other parties (councils and transport infrastructure organisations) be encouraged to build the necessary charging points throughout the road network and on the residential streets.

To its credit, the government, also included a commitment to provide an extra £350million to be spent supporting the electrification of UK vehicles  and their supply chains. PLUS, a further £620 million to be spent on grants for the purchase of electric cars and ‘local on-street residential charge points’.

In a separate announcement, I also read that plans are currently being drafted to introduce a requirement for vehicle charging points to be fitted on all new-build homes and offices.  So, you cannot deny that the government is certainly talking the talk on greener motoring. Let’s hope they walk the talk.

On a slightly different tack, I’d just like to say a quick thank you to all those readers who have been kind enough to comment about my blog, either verbally or by email & social media. It is encouraging to know that I have such a wide range of readers, from housewives, to beverage salesmen and para-legal semi-professionals.  I welcome all the feedback and comments – even the ones which have suggested that the blog offers a sure-fire remedy for insomnia – and heaven forbid, a useful emergency back-up for paper materials usual found in the smallest room…. as long as they read the blog first, I have no objection to these ancillary uses… You know who you are.

Happy Motoring !

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

#October 2021

Regular followers of this blog will be aware that the topic we covered in the last couple of months has been motor fuel… In August, we commented on the government’s green initiative to increase the ethanol in petrol from 5% (E5) to 10% (E10) whilst the bio-diesel component in diesel was set to increase to 7% (E7).   In September, we reminded readers about a story from 2003 when a large number of motorists were prosecuted for using cooking oil as diesel fuel. (By the way: I should just reiterate, you really really should not try this. Not withstanding the potential to break the law, you could also risk breaking your diesel engine. )

If you aren’t a regular reader, we invite you to look up the blog posts on our AJ Garage Services web site. (https://www.ajgarageservices.com/mike-joenn-says) We think you will enjoy them, but more importantly, they will help you understand why I decided to discuss motor fuel for the third month in a row.

If you’ve just returned from the far side of the moon, or Tenerife  or the Greek islands – or indeed anywhere you managed to escape to for a holiday over the last couple of weeks, you may not be aware of the No.1 story dominating the news media. If, on the other hand you’ve been at home, you cannot have missed the blind panic that appears to have gripped the nation in relation to fuel supplies.

Now, it has been suggested to me over the last few days that it would be difficult to say ANYTHING about the current fuel shortage without making it about politics but I am up for a challenge and I’m going to stick with the core objective… This is a motoring & motor trade blog and I’ll try to avoid it appearing political. The fuel shortage has all the components of a political bun-fight with Brexit being proposed as the root cause by some commentators. However, dig a little deeper and we find many indicators that there’s more to this than meets the eye. By all means exercise your right to believe that Brexit is to blame, but also consider the other contributing factors. To be clear, there is a crisis, but I’m not sure that we can agree what the crisis actually is. 

By Monday 27^th September it seemed to be pretty clear that that there is no actual shortage of fuel (petrol or diesel) at the refineries or storage depots. On the other hand, the fuel didn’t appear to be in the right place at the right time. So, we’ve already narrowed down the problem to “Logistics” i.e. getting the fuel in the right place to satisfy demand.  On Friday 24^th someone somewhere within BP mentioned they had a problem associated with the shortage of HGV drivers, but this comment seems to have been made with a distinct lack of context. There has been a shortage of Tanker drivers for years and it’s not just one Oil company.  Anyway, someone somewhere in the media  added HGV driver shortage to tanker drivers and fuel deliveries and hey presto… everyone is thinking that they’d better stock up. 

At this point, I’m thinking how many people are still clambering over their stocks of toilet paper in the garage from March 2020 to get to the petrol cans they now want to fill up “just in case”. 

I for one, cannot get my head around why this should precipitate panic buying of fuel. If we bear in mind that there are roughly the same number of Tanker drivers on the job this month as there were last month, then none of this makes sense.  Indeed, the more we all talk about it, the more it becomes clear that the panic buying is completely irrational – but we (the general public) just can’t help ourselves...  If the media tells us that everyone is filling their cars (and jerry cans), then I’d better do it too.

Ending on a lighter note, the award for the “Best man for the job” award must surely go to the BBC for sending their reported Phil McCann to report on the petrol shortage. (“Fill ma can”… Get it?)

Don’t Panic & Happy Motoring !

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

#September 2021

Last month I wrote about the government’s initiative to reduce the fossil fuel content of petrol & diesel by increasing the proportion of ethanol in the Petrol and Biodiesel in Diesel. Shortly after we published that blog, one of our readers reminded me of a story which did the rounds back in 2003 – nearly 20 years ago – when an enterprising motorist in Swansea came up with the idea of running his car on a common non-fossil fuel…. Ahem… Cooking Oil!  It would be marvellous to report that he did this to cut his fossil fuel carbon foot print, but it must be said, the word “carbon footprint” wasn’t widely used at the time. The truth was, he just wanted to reduce his motoring costs. The ADSA Cooking oil was about £0.42 per gallon which was about half the price of diesel at the time. Now, I’m not going to give you chapter & verse here because you can go back and have a look at the newspaper articles which appeared at the time to get the whole story – and I must say, they make very interesting reading. Here’s one of them which appeared in the Guardian…

Please DO go see…  https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jan/20/oil.business

However, I will extract a couple of facts that most folks may not actually be aware of….

1. You are only permitted to use fuel in your vehicle on public roads if duty has been paid for that fuel. The reason that the cooking oil is so cheap, is because there is no duty on cooking oil. It didn’t occur to our hero (above) that he was breaking the law because he wasn’t aware of this simply fact. Neither were the 400 odd drivers who were found with cooking oil in their fuel tanks around Swansea in 2003 by random DVLA checks. Needless to say prosecutions followed and ASDA’s cooking oil sales fell sharply.  We shouldn’t really laugh because – after all – HMRC is being deprived of much needed revenues which are needed to buy Covid vaccines, fund the NHS and maintain our Polaris nuclear deterrent. But you’ve got to admire the ingenuity – who’d have thought that Swansea motorists could run their (unmodified) vehicles on cooking oil from ASDA – You couldn’t make it up!
2. I am not aware of anyone I know currently running their vehicle on cooking oil, but almost 20 years down the line, it must be remembered that it is still illegal to do so if you do not declare it and fail to pay the duty. In truth, it is not actually illegal to use cooking oil to power your car (if you want to give it a go!?!),  but you will definitely be breaking the law if you don’t declare what you are up to and pay duty on your ‘alternative’ fuel.

A more common – and indeed a more serious tax evasion technique these days appears to be the motorists with access to agricultural diesel (so-called Red Diesel) using it in a non-agricultural/on-road application. Red diesel is significantly cheaper than standard forecourt diesel and in terms of powering the vehicle; it is no different to standard diesel. But beware, using Red Diesel on public roads in your family car or works van is tax/duty evasion – pure & simple and understandably, HMRC don’t like it. If they catch you with Red diesel in your tank (or traces there-of) you’ll be liable for serious fines and imprisonment in the case of repeated offences.

I should make myself perfectly clear here… I do not condone the use of cooking oil to power your vehicle no matter how hard up you are…. But I loved being reminded about the story. And don’t even think about bringing your family car to us for repair if it has Red diesel in the tank.

If you want to find out more about what fuel you can and cannot use and staying on the right side of the law before you think about loading your supermarket trolley with cooking oil, check this government web site. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fuel-duty

Happy Motoring !

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

#August 2021

When I was bringing up my kids in the last century (before the Year 2000), E numbers were the IN thing. Parents were encouraged to avoid E numbers in their children’s food where-ever possible. Fewer E numbers in packaged food was good. Lots of E numbers were bad. The “E” stood for Europe and the numbers identified the type of food colouring and/or additives used in the manufacture of the foodstuffs.

Well, Es are back, but this time for the motorist. E5 started to appear on petrol pumps a few years ago. E standing for Ethanol and the 5 indicating 5% renewable ethanol has been added - which helps to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions associated with petrol vehicles and tackle climate change. This year, the government has dictated that the fuel companies must further improve the green credentials of the fuel and petrol companies are now upgrading to E10. (10% renewable ethanol) Another step on the way to a healthier planet.

E10 petrol is already widely used around the world, including across Europe, the US and Australia. It has also been the fuel against which new cars are tested for emissions and performance since 2016. This means that the vast majority of vehicles will perform exactly the same, irrespective of whether they are fuelled with E5 or E10 petrol. The government believes that 95% of vehicles will be compatible with E10 petrol, with the exceptions being Classic cars, 50cc mopeds and a few very specific models from the early 2000s.* And for those vehicles, E5 will remain available but only in the higher 97+ Octane petrol (usually the staple food for performance cars and motorcycles). The thinking appears to be that the vast majority of petrol sales are 91 Octane - i.e. Standard petrol, and therefore rolling out E10 for that category of petrol will have the biggest impact on CO₂ emissions.

Now just as an aside to all this, I have also noticed that 97+ Octane (“Super”) petrol is becoming increasingly hard to find. None of the Supermarkets offer it and indeed, I visited four filling stations last week before I found one which sold 97+ Octane (E5) petrol that I needed for the vehicle I was driving. If your vehicle needs high octane fuel, your best bet is a Shell, BP or Texaco garage (other than a supermarket) of course.

Everything else about your visit to the filling station remains the same. The Petrol pump handle & nozzle will still be green in colour and the Diesel pump handle will still be Black to help you avoid that embarrassing “incorrect re-fuelling” error. Mind you, there’s no excuse these days… modern petrol vehicles have a smaller re-fuelling aperture, making it very hard or impossible to insert the diesel nozzle into the petrol vehicles. Petrol into the diesel car on the other hand, is a lot easier to do. I’m talking about E numbers and Petrol here, so I’m not giving chapter and verse on what to do in the event of mis-fueliing. Suffice to say: If you mis-fuel: Do try to notice your mistake BEFORE you put your key into the ignition. As soon as you turn that key, the diesel fuel pump will start and you will almost certainly be in for a big bucks repair. If you don’t turn the key, you’ll likely get away with a £200 fee to pump out your tank. Be warned.

I suppose I also need to mention that Diesel also has its own code B7 – which indicates 7% Biodiesel is contained in the product you are pumping… reducing the fossil fuel burn by 7% and again helping to save the planet.

*If you want to find out if you have a vehicle that might be incompatible with E10 fuel, visit the Government website here to find out. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/e10-petrol-explained#compatibility.

Happy Motoring !

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

#July 2021



A modern car is utterly dependent on its computer/s (or as we call them in the trade, The ECU (Electronic Control Unit) to get off the driveway. Forget any notion that this is a dumb black box device that makes the spark plugs light up when they are supposed to. NO! THOSE black boxes were doing electronic ignition 30-40 years ago… The ECU in a modern vehicle is a full blown computer with thousands or even millions of lines of code embedded into the chips at the heart of the ECU. It might not look like your Mac or your Windows desktop computer at home, but it is most certainly every bit as powerful. It has inputs (steering wheel, gears shift, brake pedal) and outputs (the speedo & other associated displays for Sat Nav & entertainment) and in addition, a breath-taking array of sensors. (Remember the ‘sensors’ word. We’ll come back to that in a moment.)

These devices co-operate to control everything from the door entry systems, the speedometer & heater to those spark plugs and rear-view cameras to mention just a few. In fact, most modern vehicles have multiple computers… ECM (Engine Control Module); TCM (Transmission Control Module); BCM (Brake Control Module); and so on. Some of the well-known luxury brands can boast no less than 80 ECUs throughout the vehicle requiring an army of software engineers to write the code. And let’s not forget that VW Scandal in 2019, where the software engineers programmed the cars to ‘pretend’ it had lower emissions but only during an emissions tests. ‘Clever’ if you can get away with it.  (See the short addendum below to learn how they did it.)

This week, I read about Alfred Katzenbach, the director of information technology management at Daimler. TEN YEARS AGO he reportedly said that just the radio and navigation system in the S-class Mercedes-Benz required a staggering 20 million lines of code and that the car leaves the factory with almost as many ECUs as the Airbus A380 (excluding the plane’s in-flight entertainment system).

Around the same time (10 years ago), the business research firm Frost & Sullivan estimated that cars will require 200 million to 300 million lines of software code in the near future. So, my Computer with four wheels quip to describe a modern vehicle should now start to make sense.

Anyway, back to ‘sensors’. A customer called us at about 6pm one evening last month and said “I can’t get the roof to go up on my Mercedes convertible. It’s going to rain tonight and I don’t have a garage. Can you fix it for me”. We collected the vehicle and got it under cover for the night (it did rain!). The following morning, the car underwent a detailed mechanical inspection and there were no obvious mechanical impediments to raising the roof. We connected our (very expensive) diagnostic computer into the interface port on the car and the ONLY thing that reported faulty was an ABS (Anti-Lock Braking System) sensor failure. The sensor had gone open circuit. This fault wasn’t why he brought the car to us, but we decided to fix it anyway, and guess what….?   The roof came up on the touch of the appropriate button.

Why? Well… The faulty ABS sensor was reporting to the ECU that the vehicle was under way – in motion - and the not-so-clever software decided that the roof could not/should not be raised whilst the vehicle was in motion. (despite the fact that it was stationary in our workshop). So, in short, we fixed a brakes problem and that fixed the roof problem. Who’d have known? Computers eh? Who’d have em?

Happy Motoring !

Mike Joenn   

AJ Garage Services 

ADDENDUM - HOW DID VW CHEAT THE EMISSION TESTS AND WHO DISCOVERED THE CHEAT?

Very Briefly: Volkswagen programmed its on-board software to detect when cars with diesel engines were undergoing an emissions test, using information gathered from the sensors in the steering wheel, brakes and accelerator.  This has become known as a "Defeat Device".   It then tweaked the engine settings to minimise levels of nitrogen oxides emitted from the exhaust pipe. The Defeat Device software was very clever insofar as it monitored whether the engine was started, where the steering wheel was positioned and how fast the vehicle was going and whether the brakes had been applied in a normal driving configuration. For example: the steering wheel will not be turned when the vehicle is on a rolling road test unit, so the computer notes that and adds information from other sensors to 'calculate' that the car was probably being tested rather than actually driven on the road. Having assessed that vehicle was being tested, the computer defeat device then adjusted the engine parameters to reduce the emissions. Had the vehicle been driven on the road with those parameters, the emissions would have been low, but the fuel consumption would have been very high and the VW would not have been such an attractive proposition.  It has subsequently been discovered that the VW cars were putting a staggering 40 times more pollutants into the air when the defeat device was turned off. (i.e. when the car was being driven normally.

At the end of the test, the on-board computer would detect that the test had finished (e.g. because the steering wheel was turning whilst at speed  plus other indications and the Defeat Device would revert the engine back to the "higher emissions/lower fuel consumption mode. This was no accident.  This was meticulously engineered by software people.

And how was it discovered?  Three students (two from India and one from Switzerland) were studying mechanical engineering at West Virginia University and were given a project task to study vehicle emissions for the California Air Resources Board  (who look after matters concerning air pollution in California)  The students devised road tests and drove over 6000 miles in VW & BMW cars and were baffled by the fact that the VW vehicles (A Passant 2.0Ltr & a Jetta 2.0 TDi by the way)  consistently failed the legal emissions tests whilst on the road.   They took their finding back to the California "Air Quality police" who started to take an interest in the students' research findings and some new tests were devised to compare normal tests against on-the-road tests.  It took just a few months for the California Air Resources Board to establish that the vehicle's software was specifically programmed to defeat the test situation. The rest is history.

Read more here: 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830414-800-how-did-volkswagen-cheat-in-tests-and-can-it-fix-affected-cars/#ixzz6yRQ7u27J

There's a 3 minute video here that explains all this.

https://www.eit.edu.au/the-college-students-who-exposed-volkswagen/

May 2021

Spring has Sprung and for the second year in a row, it’s a very special spring… Last year we entered Spring with the Covid Pandemic in its first wave and let’s face it, none of us really thought that we be in a similar position one year down the line. 

Not forgetting that this is a Motoring Blog, I am musing on the pandemic’s impact on the motorist last year and comparing it with the impact on the motorist this year. I’ve elected to consider just one motoring item. MOT Tests.  Last year – around this time, we were told that our MOT Tests were to be extended for 6 months. At the time and on balance, it seemed like a good idea to offer motorists this  ‘period of grace’. Everything was closing down and few cars were expected to be on the road in the coming few months. But with hindsight, I’m not entirely sure that it was either worthwhile or beneficial to individual motorists or indeed, general road users. This view seems to have been confirmed by the simple observation that the government has not implemented a similar period of grace in the 2^nd wave of the Pandemic in 2021. 

Although much of the motor trade shut down at this time last year, many service centres (like our own here in Ponthir) remained open in order to support Key Workers. (Now there’s a term that we don’t hear quite so often these days.)  If these key workers had to take to the roads, they also had to be able to access repair and recovery services. Those MOT & Service Centres that remained open continued to offer MOTs and indeed, we encouraged motorists to have their tests – if for no other reason than to ensure that their vehicles were road worthy.

There isn’t really the time and the space to go into detail here, but this issue of road-worthiness became a serious concern during the MOT extension period – particularly for HGVs and larger commercial vehicles. In short, you just have to consider the number of vehicles that may have failed the MOT Test during that six month extension period. According to Government statistics, around 28% of cars and 35% of vans normally fail the MOT Test. No matter how you cut it, that’s a lot of failed vehicles on the road during that period of grace. These vehicles may have failed on something serious (like bald tyres) or something trivial ( e.g. 'No water in the wind-screen washers' - and before you think about questioning that... YES! your vehicle CAN fail an MOT test if there is no water in the windscreen water bottle) But it's vehicles with the 'serious fails' that should worry us, because these are the vehicles that can cause accidents. With the 2020 Period Grace kicking in, there is the potential for a vehicle to be carrying a serious defect for many months.  A defect that would have normally been identified during the MOT test.

Just to illustrate the scale of the threat to road-users, consider that between July and September 2019, 7.8million cars & vans were tested and 9.1% (706,369 to be precise) vehicles failed with at least one dangerous item.  Assuming the same failure rate in 2020 during the period of grace and there is potentially 1,400,000 on the roads - untested - with serious defects.  WOW!

You have to remember that the MOT test is intended to ensure your vehicle is road-worthy and ergo, if it fails its MOT test, it is NOT road-worthy and indeed, may well be a danger to other road users.  I have been made aware of examples from elsewhere in the country which confirmed that untested & un-road-worthy vehicles had indeed been involved in ‘incidents’ and this may have been a factor in determining (with hindsight) that extending MOTs last year was not such a good move after all and indeed why the scheme was not re-introduced this year.

It now seems almost insignificant to mention that the back-log and catch-up for that six months is still going on – and has brought difficulties for the car owners and the MOT Test centres – but that’s another story. Suffice to say that some vehicles had not been tested for almost 18 months and a lot can deteriorate and/or fail on a vehicle in 18 months.

 .

Happy Motoring!

Mike Joenn,

Founding Director                                                                                             

AJ Garage Services, Star Trading Estate Ponthir. 

01633 431305 

April 2021

March was a very busy month at our garage. We’ve seen a noticeable increase in customers, reflecting the general easing of lockdown and the unquestionable increase in road traffic. Legal or not, the rush hours now seem to be getting back to normal and unsurprisingly, more vehicles are breaking down, so garages & service centres are all getting busier.

Regular followers of this blog will know that I was banging on about cheap repairs and cheap servicing last month. “Buy cheap”, I said, “and you’ll likely have to buy again” (to rectified the problems caused by the earlier cheap repair.) Cheap isn’t necessarily cheap!  With that advice still sinking in, I just couldn’t wait to tell you about a couple of ‘situations’ we’ve seen this month. As usual, no names, no pack-drill, but believe me... These little story-ettes are true. 

No.1 – A new customer arrived on a Saturday morning. He’d been to another garage in the Newport area after experiencing loud clunking and a worrying rumble coming from the front wheel of his recently purchased vehicle. The garage had done a short road test and confidently diagnosed a faulty wheel bearing. They couldn’t do the job, so the customer drove over to our place and asked if we could replace the wheel bearing. Now, as you’d expect, we don’t normally take a customer’s fault diagnosis, preferring to rely on our own inspection and tests. On this occasion, this process involved asking the customer of the tyres had been replaced recently – to which the answer was “Yes”. He’d bought the vehicle from a mate, who had replaced the two front tyres shortly before the sale. At this point, we simply tightened the wheel nuts and sent him on his way without the need to replace the wheel bearing. The moral of the story? Check your wheel nuts after maybe 50 miles following a tyre change or an operation which required the wheels to be removed. Need I say that we were not entirely impressed by the other garage’s diagnosis.

No.2 is perhaps a little more insidious. Another new customer came to us and asked us to service his Ford. Our boys went through the 52 point industry approved check list – which included a change of air & pollen filters. To our surprise, the filters that we removed were (without doubt) those which were fitted to the vehicle when new. (We have ways of telling!)  According to the service book, the vehicle had been serviced by ‘another garage’ numerous times but the garage has simply not changed the filters (presumably to save a few quid.) Without getting stuck-in under the bonnet, your average car owner simply would not know. Needless to say, this customer didn’t appear to have gotten a full service previously and we believe he may not have got what he paid for. Tip: Ask your servicing garage for their Service Check List.

Happy Motoring!

Mike Joenn,

Founding Director                                                                                             

AJ Garage Services, Star Trading Estate Ponthir. 

01633 431305 

March 2021

It’s not uncommon for our garage to pick up new customers following a bad experience with a so-called “cowboy”. In fact, it is becoming a common occurrence. I can’t lie… We are seeing at least one, and often two or more unhappy motorists EVERY month – and it’s getting worse.  The issue may be incorrect diagnosis because ‘Roy Rogers’ or ‘Rowdy Yates’  (that’s the cowboys by the way) may not have invested in the necessary training & diagnostic tools (that’s automotive computers by the way) to identify the real problem. Gone are the days when a mechanic could give an accurate diagnosis by lifting the bonnet and listening to the tappets. The modern garage needs SERIOUS diagnostic computing power. Another issue can often be the installation of cheap parts sourced via facebook or Amazon from the far East. These issues are not exhaustive, but I have a couple of issues from last month which illustrate these examples.  The first implies poor expertise & vehicle knowledge and the second illustrates the dangers of buying cheap parts from abroad. 

A lady was unhappy with the distance her brake pedal was travelling. She went back to the garage that installed new brake pads a few weeks earlier - they “checked the brakes” and confirmed that they met the required efficiency. But this was her brakes after all and a second opinion was called for. She came to us as a new customer. I won’t bother you with the technical detail, other than to say that there is a spigot on the pads which needs to fit into a dimple. The important fact is that her brakes pads were fitted incorrectly and the spigot wasn’t aligned with the dimple and the upshot being that her brake pedal was travelling too far. (This is an extract and if you really want to know the detail, check out my blog post.) We re-fitted her pads (and of course, charged her accordingly, so she was charged Twice!)

Our second example came to light during an MOT test. Darryl (MOT tester) was checking out the headlight beam alignment and it was “Way Out”. Darryl took a closer look and even called on colleagues to have a look too. It came to light that the vehicle owner had had a repair carried out at some point in the past (not at AJ Garage Services I hasten to add) and the repair included a requirement for a new headlight unit. The repairing garage had sourced the headlight unit from abroad and guess what…. the acquired unit was for a LEFT HAND DRIVE model of his car. In the UK, our headlight units dip to the left, but this unit was dipping to the right. Could this be because the repairer sourced the unit abroad? We think so.  The upshot was that the vehicle owner was facing a MOT failure and the installation of ANOTHER headlight unit which would meet UK specification. You couldn’t make it up!

And  finally, for the avoidance of doubt, it is important to recognise that there are many good servicing garages in and around Newport , but there are one or two rather more dodgy vehicle repair outfits. It’s not easy for the non-technical lay motorist to sort the wheat from the chaff, so if you do have a problem, always seek a second opinion and don’t assume that the cheaper quote is really cheaper.

 Mike Joenn

AJ Garage Services,

Star Trading Estate Ponthir. 

01633 431305 

February 2021

Back in October 2019, I wrote about Smart Motorways and it would be fair to say that I was fairly critical. In my blog, I described what a smart motorway is, I listed the Department of Transport’s objectives for these innovative road schemes and reported that there was over 200 miles of Smart Motorways in Britain already. (It’s still available to read on our web site - See below.)

I also observed that the AA had expressed serious concerns about the loss of the hard shoulder and the Emergency Refuge Laybys (ERAs – aka S.O.S. Laybys) which were introduced to replace it. The distance between refuge laybys is currently “under review” with a government proposal on the table to reduce the distance from 1.5 miles to one mile. However, the emergency laybys were initially introduced in tests on the M32 spaced just half a mile apart, but as the smart motorway scheme was expanded, so too was the distance between the refuge laybys.   1.5 miles between refuge areas is now not uncommon.

TWO YEARS AGO, the Transport Select Committee recommended that the emergency refuge areas should be spaced 500-800 metres apart, but this recommendation seems to have had little impact. The Dept. of Transport continues to defend Smart Motorways and the spacing between ERAs.

Fast forward to January 2021 and the pressure on the department of Transport is now mounting considerably. The BBC recently reported that the Yorkshire Police & Crime Commissioner had written an open letter to Grant Shapps – the Secretary of State for Transport and said “…smart motorways are inherently unsafe and dangerous and should be abandoned.” 

On January 19^th a coroner also called for a review of the smart road schemes. Coroner David Urpeth made his criticism following the inquest into the death of two motorists in June 2019, when a lorry ran into their vehicles on a “Live Lane” which used to be a hard shoulder. A Lorry driver was jailed for causing death by careless driving. But the inquest heard that deaths of the two men may have been avoided, had there been a hard shoulder. The Police concurred, as did the widow of one of the unfortunate drivers.  In delivering a verdict of “Unlawful Killing”, the coroner made it clear that smart motorways without a hard shoulder carry “an ongoing risk of future deaths”. Meanwhile, the widow of one of the killed drivers (Mrs Claire Mercer) plans to sue Highways England for Corporate Manslaughter and there have been reports in the national press that Mrs Mercer believed the driver of the lorry that killed her husband should be released.

Claims from the Dept of Transport that Smart Motorways are “just as safe – if not safer than traditional motorways with a hard shoulder” must surely now be examined and challenged. With police, coroners, the Transport Select Committee, motoring organisations & even the widows of deceased victims calling for a review, it is time for the Government to reconsider.

The promise was safer motorways, but there is clear evidence that safety was not the defining factor in the development of Smart Motorways. The underlying objective was increased capacity and the cost has proved to be increased risk of death.

And let’s leave aside (for the moment) the revenue generating function of these Smart Motorways. As I pointed out in October 2019, Thames Valley Police forecast that EACH CAMERA on the new sections of M4 and M40 Smart Motorways will generate and eye-watering £600,000 in fines EVERY Year. That’s  £600,000 for EACH camera. 

 Mike Joenn,  

AJ Garage Services,

Star Trading Estate Ponthir. 

January 2021

I have two completely unrelated stories for you this month – both concerning diesel.

The first is a brief cautionary tale which I hope will remind you not to become complacent in regard to your own personal safety when dropping by your local filling station to fill up. 

Stuart – a maintenance engineer who works in a local food production company - has just returned home after being discharged from hospital. Stuart was hospitalised with Covid-19 and he is absolutely convinced that the source of his infection was the self-service pump handle at his local filling station. I ‘ll spare you the details on why he is so sure about this, but suffice to say that as a maintenance engineer in a food production plant, his personal hygiene in these matters is highly developed. Stuart has been seeing a steady decline in the number of filling stations providing disposable gloves and therein lies the problem. We have all become so complacent in recent months that many people now don’t even bother to protect themselves. So, consider this a friendly reminder that we are not out of the woods yet, despite the promise of a vaccine in the very near future.

Let’s face it, if you haven’t realised that after the most recent lockdown on the 20^th December, then you’re probably not going to pay much attention to this gentle reminder

.

Never-the-less, here goes… USE THE GLOVES at the filling station. If they don’t have any available, use the ones that you carry in your glove compartment for emergencies. (You DO have some in the car…. Don’t You?)

And do complain to the operator when you pay. In light of the emerging new strain, assume that it’s everywhere. Don’t touch the pump handles and keep safe folks.

= 0 =

The second (unrelated) story concerns so-called Premium fuels. Now, in truth this story is really only “Part 1” of a more comprehensive report on both Premium fuels (Petrol & Diesel) but I’m going to stick with Diesel today.

I‘d persuaded one of our customers – Charlie - that he really ought to start using Premium diesel fuel in his van (he covers about 900-1000 miles a week as a delivery driver).  The main benefit of ‘investing’ in this more expensive fuel is in its ability to shift soot deposits from within engine and remove oily deposits from the fuel systems, making the engine more efficient and potentially saving him money in costly repairs in the long run. Charlie was not entirely convinced, but said he’d run some tests over the next couple of weeks. He travelled 953 miles on Standard Diesel fuel between 30^th November and 7^th December and achieved an average 38.7 mpg.  He then switched to BP’s V-Power Diesel and did 935 miles on a variety of roads including motorways and local deliveries. At the end of his test, he couldn’t get to me quickly enough to report that his mpg had DROPPED to 36.8 mpg with the expensive fuel.

The V-Power fuel was approximately 30p per gallon more expensive and he’d expected to see a noticeable improvement in range from the expensive fuel… Well folks, it didn’t happen. To be fair, there were a few anomalies in his comparative test miles and he couldn’t confirm a like-for-like comparison. In short, I don’t really think that his range really did go down (on average). At the very least, it would have been comparative to the first 900 miles and any discrepancy can be explained by the different road usage & speeds. Anyway, he has elected to run a longer series of test in the new year and we’ve agreed to look at it again. In the meantime, I have assured him that he has now given his van the equivalent of a health-farm detox by running almost 1,000 miles on Premium fuel, blowing away the notional cob-webs and clearing the arteries. We’ll look more closely at the short term benefits and talk about Premium Petrol in a future blog post.

Mike Joenn, 

AJ Garage Services, 

Star Trading Estate.  01633 431305 

December 2020



We learned last month that the government is to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. Wow! 

That’s not the full story of course. It will still be possible to buy a new car with a diesel or petrol engine installed, but it MUST be a hybrid, so it will still have ‘plug-in’ capability.

With or without hybrids, this is an ambitious target to be achieved in less than a decade, but the industry is moving on a pace. The electric car market is already growing quickly, with more than 164,100 pure-electric cars on UK roads at the end of September 2020 - and over 373,600 plug-in models in total (that includes those plug-in hybrid PHEVs). However, according to the DVLA, reporting at the end of June 2020, there were 38.4 million licensed vehicles in the UK, so there is clearly a long way to go before we stop burning fossil fuels on our roads and electric vehicle become predominant. The target had originally been set at 2040 and even that was causing shock-waves throughout the international car industry, so there must have been a few choice words in the Ford, Nissan & Honda board rooms during November when the Government cut the lead time by 10 years!

For readers looking for some light ‘primer’ reading on electric vehicles – and in particular the INs & OUTs of the batteries that they use, then I thoroughly recommend the EDF energy web site. (https://www.edfenergy.com/electric-cars/batteries) But, I must warn you that you may leave the web page with more questions than answers – particularly if you are worried about the planet. Which brings me back to the Government’s ambitious plans. There’s a lot more to this electric car thing than meets the eye and specifically, there simply isn’t enough data about the peripheral issues surrounding the sourcing of raw materials & manufacturing of the Li-ion (Lithium Ion) batteries. 

Whilst it is reported that the cost of Li-ion batteries for cars has dropped by a staggering 80% between 2010 & 2016 – and we can expect to see further similar reductions over the next decade, I’m just not convinced that the government has viewed the global impact in an entirely holistic manner. However, the debate is certainly under way – not least on-line.

I saw the following post on social media last week and thought that I’d share it just to get you thinking  

“…We need a green alternative to electric cars! Producing an electric vehicle contributes, on average, twice as much to global warming potential and uses double the amount of energy than producing a combustion engine car. This is mainly because of battery production - which uses a lot of energy - from the extraction of raw materials to the electricity consumed in manufacture. The bigger the electric car and its range, the more battery cells are needed to power it and consequently the more carbon produced…” 

Now, I am neither endorsing, nor denying the view-point, but I sure as hell will be investigating these claims in the coming weeks. Watch this space for more information about the race to introduce electric cars in the coming months.

Mike Joenn, 

AJ Garage Services,  Star Trading Estate.  01633 431305 

Here’s a motoring story of our times. 

Theresa is the mother of two children (ages 5 & 7) and lives in Caerleon. Last Sunday night, the kids weren’t quite themselves, so she was keeping a close it on them.  By Monday morning, Theresa was beginning to think the worst. The symptoms were there: Could they have the Corona virus?

Leaving aside the politically hot potato concerning how long it took to book a Covid test, (2 hours by the way) Theresa finally got an appointment for 3pm in TONYPANDY in the Rhondda – 32 miles from home.  Well, at least it wasn’t Barnard Castle!  She set off in plenty of time because she didn’t want to be late or miss the appointment. She got to within 100 metres of the entrance to the test venue and her car died.   Theresa didn’t panic! She just got the children out of the car and walked to the test centre. She’d deal with the car later.

The family got back to the car before 4pm. It didn’t take long to establish that the car hadn’t fixed itself in her absence. This was to be the start of an evening from hell. Theresa still doesn’t know if her children have Covid-19 but she does know that they aren’t well and just to add some extra pressure, one of the kids had developed diarrhoea.

Theresa calls the breakdown provider and explains the situation. They’d have someone out to her as soon as possible, but she’d have to wait an hour to 90 minutes.  Mum does her best to keep the children comfortable and stem the tide, so to speak. They all just had to sit it out and keep calm. However, a call from her breakdown company at 5.15 shattered that calm. Now, you’ll remember that Theresa did the right thing and “explained the circumstances” when she first called her breakdown company, including the fact that they were on their way to a Covid test. Her breakdown & rescue company apparently took almost an hour to contemplate this information and then after more than an hour, called Theresa to tell her that unfortunately, there was nothing they could do for her because to attend the breakdown would put their driver at risk of Covid-19.   OMG!

We (AJ Garage Services) got a call from Theresa at 5.45. The distressed lady levelled with us and ‘explained the circumstances’. It was with a heavy heart that we had to say that we couldn’t help because we couldn’t put our people at risk by having three potential Covid carriers in our Rescue vehicle. Theresa understandably hung up.  Now three of us were in the office at that time and we had already finished shining our knight’s armour, so we had plenty of time to concentrate on this dilemma. We have a courtesy vehicle sitting there – albeit, allocated to another customer for the following morning. If we take that courtesy car on the Rescue vehicle, Theresa could load the children and get home without infecting our driver. We load her broken down car onto our recovery vehicle after dosing it with CV1SHOT Coronavirus Neutraliser and before we touch the potentially risky vehicle. We called Theresa back within 10 minutes and told her our plan.

By 6pm, Steve was on the road, armed with masks and sanitiser gel. By 7pm, he’d met Theresa, handed over the courtesy car, killed off any Corona virus with his CV1Shot bomb and loaded the broken down car onto to Thunderbird 2 (That’s what we call that Recovery Vehicle). 

I would so much like to tell you which Recovery & Rescue company let this distressed mother and two young children down, but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.  After all, we NEARLY did the same thing.

And the moral of the story? Don’t breakdown during a trip for a Covid Test and if you do, be prepared for your Recovery company to decline to rescue you.

And the customer who didn’t get the courtesy car and consequently didn’t get his car fixed? We explained the circumstances to him on Tuesday and he fully understood. He said “You did the right thing there Boyo”. He’s a Sterling chap and became part of the rescue team that day!

Mike Joenn 

17th September 2020

AJ Garage Services,  Star Trading Estate.  01633 431305 

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We can all agree that it has been a very L O N G four months since the nationwide lockdown started on 23/24^th March. I think most of us harboured the hope that it would all be over in a few weeks – indeed, we were encouraged to hold that thought by the Government. But with hindsight, it has become apparent that they didn’t want to un-nerve us all by telling us on Day 1 that we’ve been in lock-down for almost four months.

A lot has happened in that four months…. and just to be clear, I am not setting aside or overlooking the death of 1,546 of our Welsh brothers & sisters who have fallen to Covid-19. We acknowledge and bow our heads to this truly tragic statistic, but I do try to focus on motoring, the motor trade and the motorist in this blog and it is in that direction I turn my attention today.

Much of what we have seen (in motoring terms) has been generally unexpected, but again with hindsight – inevitable. The first big announcement was the suspension of MOT testing and the 6 month extension. To be honest, that came as somewhat of a surprize to us and in truth, we thought that it may have been a mistake. MOT stations – like our own – stayed open, seeing ourselves as “essential” in order to ensure the road-worthiness of the vehicle which continued to use the road. The arrangement has now ended and motorists are now flooding back to their MOT testers. August promises to be a very busy month in our MOT bay.

Early on in the lockdown, we were saddened – which quickly turned to anger – about some scum bags who nicked a local doctor Tom Rontree-Carey’s catalytic converter from his car WHILE HE WAS ON DUTY in the Gwent Royal Infirmary helping to save lives. With the help of local parts supplier – Fast Parts in Cwmbran, were able to recover the vehicle and get Tom back on the road. That was a proud day for us.

We navigated the four months without illness at Ajs. That’s not to say that we got off Scot-free. Early on, two of our team self-isolated at home for 14 days after reporting possible symptoms. These later proved not to be Covid related, so it would be fair to say that we got through relatively unscathed.

We’ve seen a steady return to normal levels of business over the last month (in keeping with many other businesses) and as road traffic has increased, so too has our work-load and break-down rescue activity. I think it would be fair to say that we will be back to pre-covid activity levels by the end of August.

Then there’s the secondary impact of Covid-19 over these last few months. Fuel prices in particular have been an unforeseen bonus for the motorist. Weve seen petrol at £1.09/Litre and Diesel at £1.13/Litre in the Newport area. Not sure how long that will continue.

Vehicle sales were all but halted during the lockdown and we acknowledge that it has been a tough spring & early summer for the dealers. However, they are all now opening up again and we hear reports of brisk business of the forecourts. We wish them well in the coming months. The manufacturers on the other hand are facing massive problems and widespread redundancies are anticipated in the motor manufacturing sector as the furlough scheme comes to an end.
 
So, where do we go from here? Well, we –like everyone else in business, have adopted new working arrangements and hygiene regimes. We’ve never before used some much disinfectant, anti-bacterial wipes and hand-gel. Vehicle get a different kind of post-service wash-down and anti-bac treatment these days and there’s been a lot more collections from and delivery to the customers over the last few months. 

Our biggest fear – again like most folks, is the threat of a so-called second wave. We live in hope that the Government offers good guidance and the general public show some common-sense in the coming months and we get the virus under control. 

As they used to say in the old Esso TV Advert….. Happy Motoring !

Mike Joenn

August 2020

 AJ Garage Services,  Star Trading Estate.  01633 431305 

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