What with the recent kerfuffle about the changes in Vehicle Excise
Duty, I've knocked up a website to calculate how much the duty will
increase/decrease for a given car make/model. It's based on the
official VCA government data but with the improvement that, if you
can't find your particular car (which is quite likely as the
government data is pants), you can enter the CO2 figure from your V5
and get a duty figure that way as well.

All the magic can be found at http://www.vedcartax.co.uk - all
comments appreciated.

"Andrew Dancy"  wrote in message 
news:2db63002-aba2-48da-90a3-2e30178b36be@r66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> What with the recent kerfuffle about the changes in Vehicle Excise
> Duty, I've knocked up a website to calculate how much the duty will
> increase/decrease for a given car make/model. It's based on the
> official VCA government data but with the improvement that, if you
> can't find your particular car (which is quite likely as the
> government data is pants), you can enter the CO2 figure from your V5
> and get a duty figure that way as well.
>
> All the magic can be found at http://www.vedcartax.co.uk - all
> comments appreciated.


It works well enough and is nice and simple to use , but when I've looked my 
car up it gives a choice of "Octavia Hatch" which turns out to be the Mk1 
and "Octavia Hatchback" for the Mk2 , but you can't tell that until you've 
picked it.

I'm guessing that's just data fed from the government and nothing you have 
control over?

-- 
Alex

"I laugh in the face of danger , then I hide until it goes away"

www.drzoidberg.co.uk

Dr Zoidberg <AlexNOOO!!!!!!!!@drzoidberg.co.uk> wrote:

> "Andrew Dancy"  wrote in message 
> news:2db63002-aba2-48da-90a3-2e30178b36be@r66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> > What with the recent kerfuffle about the changes in Vehicle Excise
> > Duty, I've knocked up a website to calculate how much the duty will
> > increase/decrease for a given car make/model. It's based on the
> > official VCA government data but with the improvement that, if you
> > can't find your particular car (which is quite likely as the
> > government data is pants), you can enter the CO2 figure from your V5
> > and get a duty figure that way as well.
> >
> > All the magic can be found at http://www.vedcartax.co.uk - all
> > comments appreciated.
> 
> 
> It works well enough and is nice and simple to use , but when I've looked my
> car up it gives a choice of "Octavia Hatch" which turns out to be the Mk1
> and "Octavia Hatchback" for the Mk2 , but you can't tell that until you've
> picked it.
> 
> I'm guessing that's just data fed from the government and nothing you have
> control over?

Not very accurate, I'm afraid.

This is, though

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/road-tax/

-- 
SteveH 'You're not a real petrolhead unless you've owned an Alfa Romeo'
www.italiancar.co.uk - Ducati 750SS - Hongdou GY200
Alfa 75 TSpark - Alfa 156 TSpark - B6 Passat 2.0TDI SE

Andrew Dancy wrote:
> What with the recent kerfuffle about the changes in Vehicle Excise
> Duty, I've knocked up a website to calculate how much the duty will
> increase/decrease for a given car make/model. It's based on the
> official VCA government data but with the improvement that, if you
> can't find your particular car (which is quite likely as the
> government data is pants), you can enter the CO2 figure from your V5
> and get a duty figure that way as well.
> 
> All the magic can be found at http://www.vedcartax.co.uk - all
> comments appreciated.

Mmmm? That is only good for CURRENT Production models. According to the 
database I should be paying £35 for my 1.4 5dr TDI Polo SE (80PS). The 
fact is it is a early 2006 model and emits just over the 119g/km making 
it the next  band of VED up.

One can be found at http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/road-tax/ this shows 
the VED for the different year of manufacturer



-- 
Clive

We don't die, we just stop paying taxes.

"SteveH"  wrote in message 
news:1ik16pi.zptfo71dy9h4aN%steve@italiancar.co.uk...
> Dr Zoidberg <AlexNOOO!!!!!!!!@drzoidberg.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> "Andrew Dancy"  wrote in message
>> news:2db63002-aba2-48da-90a3-2e30178b36be@r66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>> > What with the recent kerfuffle about the changes in Vehicle Excise
>> > Duty, I've knocked up a website to calculate how much the duty will
>> > increase/decrease for a given car make/model. It's based on the
>> > official VCA government data but with the improvement that, if you
>> > can't find your particular car (which is quite likely as the
>> > government data is pants), you can enter the CO2 figure from your V5
>> > and get a duty figure that way as well.
>> >
>> > All the magic can be found at http://www.vedcartax.co.uk - all
>> > comments appreciated.
>>
>>
>> It works well enough and is nice and simple to use , but when I've looked 
>> my
>> car up it gives a choice of "Octavia Hatch" which turns out to be the Mk1
>> and "Octavia Hatchback" for the Mk2 , but you can't tell that until 
>> you've
>> picked it.
>>
>> I'm guessing that's just data fed from the government and nothing you 
>> have
>> control over?
>
> Not very accurate, I'm afraid.
>

The couple I checked were correct.
-- 
Alex

"I laugh in the face of danger , then I hide until it goes away"

www.drzoidberg.co.uk

"SteveH"  wrote in message 
news:1ik16pi.zptfo71dy9h4aN%steve@italiancar.co.uk...
> Dr Zoidberg <AlexNOOO!!!!!!!!@drzoidberg.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> "Andrew Dancy"  wrote in message
>> news:2db63002-aba2-48da-90a3-2e30178b36be@r66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>> > What with the recent kerfuffle about the changes in Vehicle Excise
>> > Duty, I've knocked up a website to calculate how much the duty will
>> > increase/decrease for a given car make/model. It's based on the
>> > official VCA government data but with the improvement that, if you
>> > can't find your particular car (which is quite likely as the
>> > government data is pants), you can enter the CO2 figure from your V5
>> > and get a duty figure that way as well.
>> >
>> > All the magic can be found at http://www.vedcartax.co.uk - all
>> > comments appreciated.
>>
>>
>> It works well enough and is nice and simple to use , but when I've looked 
>> my
>> car up it gives a choice of "Octavia Hatch" which turns out to be the Mk1
>> and "Octavia Hatchback" for the Mk2 , but you can't tell that until 
>> you've
>> picked it.
>>
>> I'm guessing that's just data fed from the government and nothing you 
>> have
>> control over?
>
> Not very accurate, I'm afraid.
>
> This is, though
>
> http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/road-tax/
>
That's wrong.

My octavia is listed as follows.

Date of Registration   6 Months   12 Months   Band   CO2 (g/km)
1 Feb 2005 - 6 Nov 2006  £79.75  £145.00  D  154
6 Nov 2006 -  £66.00  £120.00  C  145-149

Mine's about May 06 and I'm in band C at 149g , and not the D that they 
claim

-- 
Alex

"I laugh in the face of danger , then I hide until it goes away"

www.drzoidberg.co.uk

Dr Zoidberg <AlexNOOO!!!!!!!!@drzoidberg.co.uk> wrote:

> > Not very accurate, I'm afraid.
> >
> 
> The couple I checked were correct.

It's only any good for new stuff.

Older cars get very, very complicated  - especially diesels where you
get EuroIV spec in the same model year as non-Euro specs.
-- 
SteveH 'You're not a real petrolhead unless you've owned an Alfa Romeo'
www.italiancar.co.uk - Ducati 750SS - Hongdou GY200
Alfa 75 TSpark - Alfa 156 TSpark - B6 Passat 2.0TDI SE

Dr Zoidberg wrote:

>> http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/road-tax/
>>
> That's wrong.
> 
> My octavia is listed as follows.
> 
> Date of Registration   6 Months   12 Months   Band   CO2 (g/km)
> 1 Feb 2005 - 6 Nov 2006  £79.75  £145.00  D  154
> 6 Nov 2006 -  £66.00  £120.00  C  145-149
> 
> Mine's about May 06 and I'm in band C at 149g , and not the D that they 
> claim
> 

Same applies to mine. Mine is in Band D although the table puts it in 
band E.

Clive Sinclair  gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

> One can be found at http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/road-tax/ this shows
> the VED for the different year of manufacturer

...and even that can vary per individual car. The figures quoted can only 
ever be a rough guideline to a representative figure. The EXACT figure 
for any car can only be taken from the V5C. It's also shown if you do a 
vehicle enquiry at www.vehiclelicence.gov.uk

> I'm guessing that's just data fed from the government and nothing you have
> control over?
>

Yup. The government data (can be found at http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk)
was supposed to be in the form of a data file for each year from 2001
through to 2008. More recently they've moved to a rolling database
which is updated by the vendors. Unfortunately, when I tried to merge
the data from the annual data files, I found that some models of car
had been removed from later datafiles, other models were missing
completely and, to cap it all off, some model/vehicle IDs had been
reused!

A good example is the Ford KA. Ford must have changed something on the
production line, as KA models built after about 2006 have a lower
emmissions rating. Unfortunately, the 2007 VCA data file re-uses the
same unique model ID for the KA and just changes the description from
"Ka" to "Ka 2006", effectively wiping out the older Ka model from the
data file. Bah.

I don't know where Parkers get their data - it's certainly more
comprehensive. I suspect the manufacturers only give basic data to the
Government (and don't cock up the numbering) and sell a better dataset
commercially to people like Parkers.

As mentioned elsewhere on the thread, the best way to calculate duty
is to plug the CO2 figure from your V5 into the alternative
calculator. Still, the official data has some other nice things that I
haven't got round to plugging in yet - pollution data, engine noise
measurement and fuel efficiency are all in the datafiles.

Thanks for the feedback though - it's all appreciated.

On Jul 14, 6:24 pm, Andrew Dancy  wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback though - it's all appreciated.

I've now added fuel efficiency and pollution data, if anyone is
interested. Once I've figured out how to correlate the pollution data
to real world examples I look forward to being able to take the
details of a journey and calculate exactly how many squirrels have
just been poisoned by your car's fumes ;-)

Andrew Dancy  gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

> I've now added fuel efficiency and pollution data, if anyone is
> interested. Once I've figured out how to correlate the pollution data to
> real world examples I look forward to being able to take the details of
> a journey and calculate exactly how many squirrels have just been
> poisoned by your car's fumes ;-)

Grey squirrels? Not nearly enough of the furry tree-rats.

In message 
, 
Andrew Dancy  writes
>All the magic can be found at http://www.vedcartax.co.uk - all
>comments appreciated.
Very good, easy to use and the same results as the Gov. site.
-- 
Clive

On 15 Jul, 19:56, Adrian  wrote:
> Grey squirrels? Not nearly enough of the furry tree-rats.

A proud moment from my childhood was writing in to one of those BBC
childrens nature programs telling them I'd seen three red squirrels
running along the trees in the wood next to my primary school. I
didn't even get a reply from the sods.

Sadly I'm no good with computer animation, but I'd *love* to have a
little animation showing a car driving along, squashing hedgehods,
poisoning local wildlife, etc like a progress bar, stopping at the
calculated level and telling the user "your journey just killed 2.79
fluffy animals".

As a bonus it would probably upset the animal rights brigade. Anything
for a dull evening, eh?

Andrew