Diesel charges - how exactly does it work?

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LittleGreyCat

153 posts

Master Geek

#70862 1-Nov-2010 20:36

Starting out on our mission to find a vehicle for our 4 month stay in NZ I note that some
diesel 4x4s seem a little cheap*, as do some diesel pickup trucks.

Is this due to the extra charges levied on diesel vehicles?

How exactly does this work?

Do you have to have your mileage checked on a regular basis and pay a charge?

How do you check that the charge is paid up to date by the previous owner?

What is to stop you (or someone else) 'clocking' the vehicle to reduce the indicated
mileage?

And finally does this have a major impact on the sale price of a vehicle?

Cheers

LGC

* When I say 'cheap' I am talking in NZ prices - cars are amazingly expensive
(especially as nearly everything else is remarkably cheap) and caravans are a joke.
We saw a caravan for $7,999 today which would have been lucky to make $99 in the UK.
Basically a primitive looking body with faded seats and not much else inside.
We are used to fully furnished, kitchen, toilet, shower, plenty of storage including high
level lockers, fridge/freezer, oven and 3 ring cooker, radio, lights, blown air central heating.
.....I am surprised nobody is importing used caravans from Europe.
I told you not to get me started....

jbard

1377 posts

Uber Geek

#398800 1-Nov-2010 21:08

Diesel road user charges work on a km basis. So usually you buy 5 or 10 thousand km's at a time and you get a sticker similar to a registration sticker that tells you how many km's your car is good for. for me in a toyota caldina it was $220 for 5000km's about 2 months ago, will have gone up with GST though.

The sticker will tell you what the last owner bought and how many k's they bought.

As far as i know their is nothing to stop someone rolling back the clock.

As for sale price, i don't really think so. because diesel is cheaper with RUC on top it usually works out pretty similar pricing to using petrol.

k14

629 posts

Ultimate Geek

#398801 1-Nov-2010 21:08

You buy the road user charges (RUC) in lots of 1000 kms. I bought some for my van in September and it was around $440 for 10000kms. I think it has gone up slightly since. If you get pulled over by the cops they will check your odometer is within the range printed on the RUC label (which you display on windscreen).

There is nothing to stop people winding back the odo. If they do it correctly it is impossible to tell it has been done. But it is unlikely to be in large amounts, seeing as the usual amount of kms that people buy are 10000km blocks if you wound it back further the license label would be out of range, if that makes sense.

wellygary

8312 posts

Uber Geek

#398804 1-Nov-2010 21:12

LittleGreyCat: Starting out on our mission to find a vehicle for our 4 month stay in NZ I note that some
diesel 4x4s seem a little cheap*, as do some diesel pickup trucks.

Is this due to the extra charges levied on diesel vehicles?

How exactly does this work?

Do you have to have your mileage checked on a regular basis and pay a charge?

How do you check that the charge is paid up to date by the previous owner?

What is to stop you (or someone else) 'clocking' the vehicle to reduce the indicated
mileage?

And finally does this have a major impact on the sale price of a vehicle?

Cheers

LGC

You must purchase something known as Road User Charges or RUC, for each kilometre you travel ( usually bought in 1000KM bundles)

The reason this is done is so that owners who drive vehicles primarily off road ( farms fields etc) do not need to purchase these, as RUC is used to pay for public roads,

This means that all diesel costs the same, as opposed to the UK where rural users ( and others ) can buy cheap red diesel which does not include the majority of the road tax portion.

a guide to RUC in NZ is here

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicle/registration-licensing/ruc.html

If you are driving on a public road and stopped if your current RUC license is less than you rego milage then you will get a ticket,

nickb800

2715 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#398808 1-Nov-2010 21:14

The odometer reading is recorded at every warrant of fitness inspection (WOF) which occurs every year if the car is under six years of age (?) and every 6 months for older vehicles.

This data is recorded against the vehicle and you receive a printout when you buy it (gives odo readings by inspection - great for finding out all sorts of things). This means that it is difficult to wind back your odo by great amounts at once - you could wind it back by a similar amount to what you would drive between inspections. But if you wind it back past the last inspection reading then it would be flagged as being wound back.

Basically, winding back odos is uncommon nowadays.

scuwp

3885 posts

Uber Geek

#398864 1-Nov-2010 22:02

As above there are systems in place to pick up if you fiddle with the mileage. In addition if it is found that the mileage has been tampered with you can be charged for that and end up in court. For the little bit you will save its just not worth it.

When you sell the car it must have a current RUC licence for the correct mileage.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

Teeps

501 posts

Ultimate Geek

#398874 1-Nov-2010 22:23

LittleGreyCat: * When I say 'cheap' I am talking in NZ prices - cars are amazingly expensive
(especially as nearly everything else is remarkably cheap) and caravans are a joke.
We saw a caravan for $7,999 today which would have been lucky to make $99 in the UK.
Basically a primitive looking body with faded seats and not much else inside.
We are used to fully furnished, kitchen, toilet, shower, plenty of storage including high
level lockers, fridge/freezer, oven and 3 ring cooker, radio, lights, blown air central heating.
.....I am surprised nobody is importing used caravans from Europe.
I told you not to get me started....

Welcome to New Zealand. It was a shock for me when I moved here from the UK too. It is also why you will see people running vehicles which are a lot older than they do in the UK, you get used to it. The positive thing is when you go back to the UK you will probably have a different view on how old your car is and realise they can run for longer distances than you were lead to believe (I was told by a dealer that my car with 30000miles (~50000KM) was high mileage and getting old at less than 3 years old). Here I bought car imported from Japan and got what I believe was a good deal by NZ standards although the same second hand vehicle would have cost less than half the price for it's age in the UK.

I won't bother talking about the diesel charges as it looks like that's been covered pretty well.

LittleGreyCat

153 posts

Master Geek

#398876 1-Nov-2010 22:30

Thanks to all - very useful.

I have no intention of clocking a vehicle - just wondering if others avoided the temptation.

Clocking in the UK has been much reduced by recording the mileage at each MOT (WOF) so you can't wind it back more than one year.

So now wondering why the diesels are so attractively priced.

Cheers

LGC

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graemeh

2078 posts

Uber Geek

#398986 2-Nov-2010 09:38

LittleGreyCat:So now wondering why the diesels are so attractively priced.

Probably because they are expensive to maintain compared to petrol cars.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#398995 2-Nov-2010 09:54

Teeps:
Welcome to New Zealand. It was a shock for me when I moved here from the UK too. It is also why you will see people running vehicles which are a lot older than they do in the UK, you get used to it. The positive thing is when you go back to the UK you will probably have a different view on how old your car is and realise they can run for longer distances than you were lead to believe (I was told by a dealer that my car with 30000miles (~50000KM) was high mileage and getting old at less than 3 years old). Here I bought car imported from Japan and got what I believe was a good deal by NZ standards although the same second hand vehicle would have cost less than half the price for it's age in the UK.

I won't bother talking about the diesel charges as it looks like that's been covered pretty well.

IMO it depends on what cars you look at. Yes, European models tend to be more expensive, but NZ also has access to some cheap Japanese cars that that are far more expensive in the UK.

e.g. Mitsubishi Lancer base model (2.0 ES) is $29k in NZ (about 14k GBP), yet in the UK the base model (1.8GS3) it is 15k GBP. Identical except for smaller engine and still more expensive

amford

92 posts

Master Geek

#399074 2-Nov-2010 12:54

I have heard of a lot of people that have put switches in there odos so they can avoid the charge and when stopped by a police officer they simply switch the odo back on. Be careful of this when buying a diesel as sometimes kms can be misleading.