Welcome to our Autumn/Winter 2012 Trade Newsletter
Welcome to our Autumn/Winter edition of the Cartell Trade Newsletter. In this issue, we will see how Budget 2013 will impact trade. We will also be informing you of new products, new features, and special promotions along with answers to your most frequently asked questions as well as important updates and news stories in the press. Plus your FREE copy of eDrive magazine is also included! Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year from all the staff at
The latest on the street
As 2012 draws to a close, it’s clear to see that the motor trade is still suffering. Our latest statistics show that a total of 86,980 native vehicles have been registered this year so far compared with 99,417 native vehicles for the same period last year (The final end of year figure for 2011 was 104,467 native vehicles). This shows almost a 13% drop so far this year compared to 2011.
With the introduction of the new bi-annual registration system being introduced in 2013, it is hoped that this will help stimulate the motor industry in 2013. Although expected increases in VRT and road tax along with other taxes not related to the motor industry will have a huge impact on the motor industry: vehicles will become more expensive to buy and run and people will have less to spend. With used vehicles, the second hand market shows that less used vehicles are coming into the showroom, with 697,761 transactions taking place to date in 2012. A staggering 57% (398,255) of transactions happened outside of the trade. Only 18% (125,991) of transactions were traded into the trade with 17% (116,882) transactions being traded out of the trade showing that dealers are holding stock. These used vehicle sales statistics can be broken down by make/model/year/location etc. Please note that these numbers reflect actual transactions and not the number of vehicles. To help combat this and get more people into their dealerships, Cartell have been working with dealers and manufacturers using successful products such as Service-Tell which we will talk about below.
Our €50 Christmas gift to you!
Over the coming days you shall receive our Christmas card. In addition to this, we would like to offer you up to €50 FREE credit! Simply top up your trade account during December with €200 to €500 (ex. VAT), and we will give you an additional 10% EXTRA FREE! To claim your free credit, email trade@cartell.ie after you have credited your account and your 10% will be credited to your account. Please note it may take up to 10 working days for your FREE credit to appear. It’s our way of saying thank you for using Cartell and wishing you a Merry Christmas.
Budget 2013 – New Road Tax rates
Budget 2013 saw Minister Noonan announce significant motor tax increases across the board for all vehicles – encompassing both the new and the old motor tax regimes. The changes had been flagged in the run up to the budget, and Cartell had made calculations on the extent of the extra revenue the Minister was likely to yield. However, the announcement on Budget day itself still came as a shock to many motorists. Making the announcement the Government state: “The higher rate of increase in motor tax for cars taxed on the basis of Co2 reflects the comparatively lower rate of tax for these cars compared to those taxed on the basis of engine capacity”. This shows the Government are intent on rowing back significantly on advantages yielded to low Co2 emission vehicles.
Budget 2013 – VRT changes
VRT will also increase with increases broadly consistent with those seen in the 2013 Co2 Motor Tax regime: i.e. VRT Band A and B have been adjusted with the introduction of sub-bands in each while general increases apply across the board.
Budget 2013 – New registration format
In 2013, A new bi-annual vehicle registration system will be introduced. The new format will include an extra number that will be added to the year of the registration. The extra numbers indicate the first half and the second half of the year. So in 2013 a normal 13-D-12345 registration will now become 131-D-12345 for vehicles registered from January 1st 2013 until June 30th 2013. Then for the rest of the year, from July 1st until December 31st the registration will change to 132-D-12345. The speculation is that this is to avoid the superstition of the unlucky 13 registration but more practically it is being introduced to even out the sales of new vehicles throughout the year. Rather than a huge rush in Jan and Feb, it is hoped that some people may hold off until July to get the next new plate. It remains to be seen how successful this will be. Cartell will be ready for this change so you can be sure your service will not be affected.
Cartell Trade mobile a great success!
In January 2012, Cartell launched its mobile trade app for all our dealers to use free of charge. It’s not an App that needs to be downloaded from various stores; it’s simply a responsive site that will work on any smartphone. No need to download, simply go to the internet on your phone and login to Cartell trade and you will see that the site changes to fit your screen – whatever smartphone you are using. Once logged into your account you can easily carry out Cartell Trade checks when you are out and about. You can look at your balance, previous checks and top up your account on the go. This has been a great success and a lot of trade checks are now carried out on smartphones. Have you tried our mobile trade site yet?
Cartell Trade promotional material
In 2013, our sales team will be on the road throughout the country visiting all our trade customers with new promotional material. In these challenging times we know customers are extra cautious when buying a used vehicle. Cartell would like to help our trade customers by supplying you with stickers, flyers and other promotional material for your vehicles and showrooms. This will help customers be confident and assured they are getting a quality used vehicle from you that has been independently checked by Cartell.ie. A limited amount are available FREE of charge to all our current and new trade customers and will be distributed throughout the year. However if you can’t wait for our team to call and wish to have these items sent by post, you can email us on trade@cartell.ie and we will post some to you. There is a €10 post and packaging charge which can be deducted from your trade account.
Changes to Cartell Trade reports
You may have noticed recently that we have included a new section which shows how many times a particular vehicle has been checked on Cartell. Following research carried out with our trade customers, it was clear that you wanted to see how many times a vehicle was checked to help identify hidden problems. 
And from 2013, you will notice some more changes to our trade reports. Again, based on feedback from our trade customers, we will be introducing a summary Cartell report. You will be able to print a summary report to display in the windscreen of all your stock. The summary report will contain basic information about the car and that it’s been fully Cartell checked. It will also include a Co2 chart so customers can easily see the efficiency of the vehicle as it will include the fuel consumption for that exact vehicle. These summary reports are FREE of charge once you have carried out any Cartell Check. There will be an extra option to print your summary Cartell report as well as your full Cartell report.
Other changes planned for 2013 will include new look reports and extra data fields. Cartell would like to thank all our trade users who have given feedback to help us improve our trade services. If you have any feedback about our trade services then we would love to hear from you! Simply email trade@cartell.ie with your suggestions. We will be implementing more of your recommendations throughout 2013.
Cartell Service-Tell
One of Cartell’s new products, Service-Tell, is a backend platform that manufacturers use to price servicing costs for exact vehicles. The first sites to use Service-Tell went live back in April 2012 with the launch of www.bmwservice.ie and a few months later with www.miniservice.ie. These projects were developed with BMW Ireland who could see exactly, from Cartell’s statistics, how bad the decline in new vehicle sales has been since 2008. Because of this decline, BMW dealers were seeing less cars coming in for servicing and falling out of the network. BMW targeted all BMW’s from 1996 to show exactly how much your service will cost from an approved BMW dealer. Cartell worked with BMW to develop the site which gives the exact price on your servicing based on your registration. It’s not a ‘from’ price but an exact price based on your car. Since its launch, BMW dealers have seen a huge increase in cars coming in for servicing. It is also a very useful tool for dealers themselves to price a service weather it’s used to price a trade in or just to inform a customer. This service will be rolled out to other manufacturers during 2013.
Write offs and mileage update (MIAFTR & the NMR)
Since the end of 2010, Cartell have been loading write off data onto the MIAFTR (Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud & Theft Register) Ireland database, which is owned and operated by Cartell. This database now holds write off data from the majority of Ireland’s insurers. This database, which alerts you to write offs from Category A to Category D, is only available through Cartell.ie or the SIMI. It also links MIAFTR UK which will also alert you to UK write offs. It is well known that insurers in Ireland are not obliged to upload their data to private companies, but Cartell go the extra mile to ensure we obtain as much data as possible from all sources and we have worked closely with the insurers since we started in 2006. This continuous work have paid off with our unique alert system helping all our customers prevent buying a written off vehicle. Along with MIAFTR, 
Cartell now holds just under 8 million mileages on the NMR. The NMR or National Mileage Register was set up in 2006 to prevent our customers buying clocked cars. Owning the largest mileage database in Ireland helps our customers identify a potentially clocked vehicle, and with unique access to the UK NMR, Cartell have access to nearly 170 million mileage readings in total, all of which are DPC compliant.
Why don’t Cartell show previous mileage readings?
A question that comes into our office from time-to-time is why we don’t show previous mileage readings on reports. Simply put, showing previous mileages assists clockers and infringes on DPC in Ireland. 
If previous readings are shown on reports and these readings were obtained by someone wanting to clock their car, they could clock it back to the last reading and no discrepancy would show when the vehicle is checked after. Some mileage readings in Ireland are protected by the Data Protection Commissioner depending on its source. When a discrepancy is found on Cartell, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s clocked, it simply means that further investigation is needed and to contact us. Our staff and NMR team are on hand to assist you with any mileage issues you may have. It is common that mileages can be entered in miles instead of kilometres which can cause problems. Contact us immediately if you have entered a reading incorrectly so we can amend it on the NMR. All our mileage readings are DPC compliant and companies displaying previous mileages are liable to action from the DPC.
Dirty old town
At the end on November, Cartell released details on the average Co2 emissions per county in Ireland. The results, based on all private used cars, show that Dublin vehicles are emitting considerably more Co2 on average than any other county in Ireland. The graph of counties from dirtiest to cleanest looks as follows:
At the other end of the scale the cleanest county in Ireland for private vehicle use is Leitrim which records average Co2 of just 132.35 grams per km. Other notable counties include Cork which is listed in 15th position on the chart despite the fact it has the second highest number of vehicles per county. The cleanest province is Connaught which occupies three of the cleanest five positions on the chart. The dirtiest province is Leinster; largely due to the Dublin and Meath results. The full press release can be read at this link
Your FREE online edition of eDrive
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