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Auto Express Car Reviews
Stickers send tax bills soaring
Drivers are unexpectedly having to pay up to £1,000 extra in road tax due to confusion over the Government's eco-band sticker system
Eco sticker doesn’t differentiate between 407 manual and auto
By Marc Mustard
21st August 2006
By law, any new model in a dealer's showroom has to display information which lets buyers see how polluting a car is and what it will cost to run.
However, if the vehicle has a manual gearbox, as most do, the sticker doesn't contain data about how much CO2 emissions will increase if the car is bought with an auto. In some cases, the rise can be as much as 55g/km. And Auto Express can exclusively reveal that for 150 mainstream models, this could see their tax rating rise by up to two bands on the scheme.
For instance, Peugeot's manual 407 2.0 HDi sits in group D, but fit an auto and it rises to group F. This means its vehicle excise duty (VED) goes up from £135 to £195 per year. The effect is even worse for a company car driver, as liability rises by £739 to £2,578.
We were alerted to the problem after a number of readers contacted us querying how much tax they were paying. One said: "I didn't know having an auto fitted would make a difference. I simply went on what the sticker said on the car in the showroom. It was a manual." When we told the AA Motoring Trust about the problem, a spokesman suggested a change to the system was needed to prevent this confusion.
"Introducing a warning on the new car eco-band stickers to inform buyers of the possible environmental and tax effects of fitting an auto would be a good idea," he told us. "If the car on display is, say, a manual in Band C (green), then that information may be totally incorrect for the auto version."
Auto Express has also discovered that an auto box isn't the only option which can unexpectedly increase your car's tax bill. Selecting large alloy wheels can also do this, because they alter a vehicle's fuel economy and therefore the amount of CO2 it emits.
However, if the vehicle has a manual gearbox, as most do, the sticker doesn't contain data about how much CO2 emissions will increase if the car is bought with an auto. In some cases, the rise can be as much as 55g/km. And Auto Express can exclusively reveal that for 150 mainstream models, this could see their tax rating rise by up to two bands on the scheme.
For instance, Peugeot's manual 407 2.0 HDi sits in group D, but fit an auto and it rises to group F. This means its vehicle excise duty (VED) goes up from £135 to £195 per year. The effect is even worse for a company car driver, as liability rises by £739 to £2,578.
We were alerted to the problem after a number of readers contacted us querying how much tax they were paying. One said: "I didn't know having an auto fitted would make a difference. I simply went on what the sticker said on the car in the showroom. It was a manual." When we told the AA Motoring Trust about the problem, a spokesman suggested a change to the system was needed to prevent this confusion.
"Introducing a warning on the new car eco-band stickers to inform buyers of the possible environmental and tax effects of fitting an auto would be a good idea," he told us. "If the car on display is, say, a manual in Band C (green), then that information may be totally incorrect for the auto version."
Auto Express has also discovered that an auto box isn't the only option which can unexpectedly increase your car's tax bill. Selecting large alloy wheels can also do this, because they alter a vehicle's fuel economy and therefore the amount of CO2 it emits.
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