I know quite a few forum members get their cars through Motability leases. I picked this up by accident and have only just received a letter from Motability. It seems to have sparked from totally inaccurate "reporting" in the Daily Mail. Take a chill pill if you plan on reading the bile that is spewing from the trolls against disabled people!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ed-drives.html

Anyway, main changes are the maximum price for a vehicle is now £25,000 and maximum advance payment we can make is now £2,000. While I agree that it was crazy to have the top end luxury cars on the scheme (admittedly for a very high cash payment up front) these changes have disadvantaged the disabled drivers who are obliged to drive automatics. My long awaited G Cmax would not be available to me on the new rules. The choice available if you are allowed to drive a manual is still pretty good but the additional premium for the automatic gearbox has decimated the choice. I am not clear whether this also means you cannot pay yourself to have additional features installed to make your life easier e.g. I am paying to have the pack with the power tailgate installed as it will save me balancing on a crutch on one side while holding the tailgate in place with my chin!

So, while I don't disagree in principle I do think this has been a knee jerk reaction and has not been well thought out. They have also changed who can be registered to drive the car which means many carers will no longer be able to drive the disabled persons car.

They are trying to stamp out abuses to the system but to me the root of the abuse is that fact the Government has not been medically examining everyone who applied for Disability Living Allowance since, if you don't get the Higher Rate Mobility Component, you don't qualify for the Motability leased car.

All existing orders will be honoured so anyone still caught in the waiting for delivery of your latest car it will still arrive.

If the manufacturers can't shift vehicles because of the changes I'm certain they will add some alternatives to just come within the allowances.
They won't just cut off their chance of selling new cars

Time will tell Richard. A spokesman for Nissan seemed to hint that there may be more advance payment vehicles just under the £2,000 threshold. What concerns me is Motabiliy already get quite a discount from the manufacturers as they have a fair bit of clout will 600,000 vehicles on the road leased to customers so how much room is there still to manoeuvre?

What does bother me is there does not seem to have been any consultation even with the various disabled associations.

I am not disabled as such, having arthritis in both hips, even though I have a blue parking badge and have had to give up my job as Chief Engineer on Tugs, as I will be unable to return, even after surgery. Consequently, I am now permanently retired on medical grounds although I receive no benefits of any kind other than my occupational pension. I therefore still pay tax at 20% which I can ill afford! I hope to be able to return to work of some kind when I am able to.
One hip has now been fixed but I can fully sympathise with anyone who is permanently afflicted. I will lose my blue badge at some time in the future when the second hip is done, but I will give it up willingly as I will no longer need it (hopefully).
However, the past year has given me some insight into what life as a disabled person must be like. Namely the abuse of parking spaces by inconsiderate able bodied people and also poorly allocated parking areas at supermarkets and the like. I saw one person put a blue badge on the dash and RUN from the car to the door of Tescos for instance!
I was actually appalled when I discovered the type of cars which had been available under the scheme and agree that it was wide open to abuse. I see no need for people to have so called "luxury" brands like BMW or Audi when a Kia or something cheaper would be perfectly adequate. After all, it is for transporting the disabled person, not for "driveway appeal" or "street cred"! It is a shame that some automatic cars will be priced out of reach, but surely there must still be a reasonably wide choice within £25K? For instance, a Citroen C3 Picasso Exclusive with the 1.6 110 HDi engine and 6 speed EGS auto 'box can be had for under £18K.

I see no need for people to have so called "luxury" brands like BMW or Audi when a Kia or something cheaper would be perfectly adequateWhy not ? As a private customer it's cheaper for me to lease a Mercedes C class than a Vauxhall Insignia why do you think it's not right for a disabled person not to have the same choice if it's at no extra cost to the taxpayer. Btw i'm not disabled

I think it may help if I give some insight into how the scheme actually works. To qualify for a Motability car you must be in receipt of the Higher Rate component of Disability Living Allowance currently £51 per week. You can opt to give up this allowance and have it paid directly to Motability to lease a car instead. If the £51 per week does not cover the lease of the car then Motability charge you a one off up front charge which covers the difference. This is the Advance Payment they are referring to.

When I ordered my G C-Max the Advance Payment was around £1500. Now it has obviously gone above that as it has disappeared of the list (I ordered mine in March). Also, at the time I ordered it the only automatic available was the 2.0l diesel. From there if you wanted to add extras to the car then you pay for them yourself too. This benefits Motability since, when the car comes back after 3 years they have a higher spec car to sell which goes back to Motability (which is a charity).

So the lease amount remains the same regardless of the car ordered. The only difference is the better the car the more the customer pays in cash and they get no return at the end of the lease. I can't remember the exact figures but I know that there were Advance Payments of £15,000 or more on some of the cars! This is why it was totally wrong for the Mail to suggest that there were people getting "£35,000 cars for free". (Not that I think it was right these cars were available in the first place)

Motability being a charity don't pay VAT and with 600,000 cars on the road they have a lot of clout with the manufacturers so they get a high discount. End of the lease the car goes back and Motability sell them and tend to get a good price for them as they are well maintained cars. All proceeds from the sale go to Motability obviously as they own the cars.

So what's the scam/abuse? The car is for the use of the disabled person. Some cannot drive so they have nominated drivers (this is where the changes to the nominated drivers is causing problems where their carers live more than 5 miles away). What they are trying to stop is the cases where the disabled person being "persuaded" to give up their mobility component of Disability Living Allowance and using it to purchase a vehicle which is then used exclusively by able bodied family members - I don't think it will work. I keep seeing a Range Rover at our local shopping mall which is always occupied by a well to do lady and her 3 children when she picks them up from their private school. It is a Motability Car (the signs are there). A disabled person would be pushed to get into this car and, the other big advantage, the Road Tax is Nil - Disabled (and Yes - Big Budgie, she also tosses the Blue Badge on the dash and parks in the disabled bays as her car is too big to fit elsewhere). It would have cost them a big up front payment but Motability do the servicing and cover the insurance plus Nil Road Tax. With the change to the nominated driver rule, if she doesn't live within 5 miles of the disabled person who ordered this beast then she has to move house! Or buy her own car.

This is a pretty bad abuse of the system but it is the minority. Out of 600,000 users it was just over 1,200 I think that were found guilty of various abuses.

The other scam of course is the individuals who shouldn't have Higher
Rate Disability Living Allowance but that is down to the fact they were
not all medically examined by the DWP doctors - nothing to do with
Motability - No Higher Rate DLA = No Car.

The vast majority of us just look for cars to help with our disability. As I have said previously I have spinal injuries (and pretty dodgy legs too!) and had risky surgery which with hard work allowed me to walk again (after a fashion). Had I not had the surgery I would be in a wheelchair by now. Due to the surgery I need a car that is the right level for me to slide in and out of the car which rules out a lot of the cars (I'd never be able to get out of them again). The other problem is you need boot space to cart walking frames etc around with you. Also because of my spinal problems I look for something that has a smooth ride and a lot of airbags (this was caused by being thumped twice by a 40 ton artic at 70 mph so I am very particular about safety features!). Another disabled friend who has a Mondeo Estate Automatic (he uses a wheelchair when he tires) for the boot space but won't be able to get a Mondeo when his change comes up, but he could if he was capable of driving a manual. I would also be able to get the same car if DVLA would allow me to drive a manual again (which they won't).

By the way Big Budgie, agree 100% on the Blue Badge situation. You can't even politely point out to them that they are depriving a genuinely disabled person of a space as you are met with a torrent of abuse. Some people I know have even been physically threatened. Only way to sort this one out is to bring in really penal fines and enforce them. You should try an airport terminal in a wheelchair - you become invisible [img]smileys/smiley4.gif[/img]

I know all about Airport terminals. Well Glasgow at least as I had to fly home to Shetland after my op. I had it on the Tuesday and went home on the Saturday! Shall I say that it wasn't the best experience I've ever had!
I know this is a Ford C-Max website, but the only reason I have a C-Max is because you can't get the C4 Picasso 2.0 HDi (Exactly the same engine) with anything other than an Auto 'box. Well, you actually can as from this year, but not a used one. I am actually a big fan of Citroens and even the most expensive Grand Picasso comes in at under £25K It's absolutely vast in the rear compared to a C-Max as well so plenty room for chairs, frames and all the other paraphernalia! They're actually very well screwed together and ride more smoothly than a C-Max but don't handle quite so well. Apart from the lack of a manual 2.0 Diesel, the other reasons I didn't buy the pic was the digital central instrument binacle which I grew to HATE on my Xsara Picasso, and an electric parking brake which has given a lot of trouble on pre 07 C-maxes. I don't know if Citroen have had any bother with it, but I just didn't like it. I also found the clutch pedal (on the 1.6 HDi) a bit high to operate comfortably due to my dodgy hip which is ironic! Just didn't fancy an auto. The Pic has a 5 star safety rating. have a look next time you're due a car. You may get a pleasant surprise!
In reply to Stanza, I don't rate Mercs and BMWs at all, as they are absolutely hopeless when it snows. I have a neighbour who has a 5 series which he uses in the summer. The other 364 days he uses a RAV4!

Hi Big Budgie, I was just replying to your post when you said that you did not think luxury brands like Audi and Bmw should be on the scheme, in some cases a Kia might have a bigger advance payment than a so called premium car. My nephew has a 5 series and does over 30,000 miles a year even in winter[img]smileys/smiley2.gif[/img]

Just read the text from the news article at Motability which includes this

We will, of course, ensure that customers whose disability-related needs require a car above this level can be accommodated.

I would suggest that with discussion the £2,000 limit is adjustable but it is not automatically so. It perhaps needs contact with Motability direct to check

HiI too am on the scheme, the cars havent disappeared Im told they just arent advertised and you have to ask the dealier for the advanced payment price least thats what the helpline told me, there insurance rules are stupid now too like having a 2nd driver 5 miles from your house too