VW’s Polo is Car of the Year

I don't think anyone would disagree at Business Car Manager. The VW Polo is a very fine car to win the Car of the Year 2010 award. However ingenious the Toyota iQ might be with its clever design miniaturisation, the grown up feel of the VW Polo, its innate refinement, won over this year's jurors as it has done us.

Why? Well, there are very few cars so small that are so complete. If the iQ is a masterpiece of liberating space from compact dimensions, the Polo is a masterpiece in the distilling of the Golf's key virtues – solidity, reliability, engineering, excellence, value for money – and reproducing them in a more compact package.

In fact, if you only had to buy one car for your business then we would recommend the VW Polo 1.4 SE. It might not sparkle like a Fiesta, but it's a small car with a grown up attitude. It's a winner for us; and a winner in the Car of the Year.

How the cars stacked up in COTY 2010

VW Polo, 347 points

Toyota iQ, 337 points

Vauxhall Astra, 221 points

Skoda Yeti 158 points

Mercedes-Benz E-Class 155 points

Peugeot 3008 144 points

Citroen C3 Picasso 113 points

Heed these traders’ warnings

A couple of useful warnings from two small business owners. The first, a local trader with a van, told me about his experience when he innocently forgot to tax his van.

“I’d insured it, MOT’d it, serviced it, but because no reminder turned up in the post completely forgot to tax the van.” One clamp and a fine later, the local trader suggests making a note in your electronic diary, or organizer, about the tax renewal. “Believe me,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to go through that again.”

The second, who runs his own micro business, this time with a rather upmarket BMW 7 Series. I bumped into him the other day and he told me this salutary lesson. “I got a minor mark on the rear wing. I hate that sort of thing, so I took it to my local BMW dealer. Do you know what they wanted to charge me just to touch it up? £850! I am not, he said walking out of the dealer’s smoked glass doors, a mug.”

Quite right. It’s much easier to use one of the mobile smart repair agents. The one I’ve used before is Chips Away. But there are plenty of others. They come to your house or business, do the job efficiently, and leave your car all sparkly. And the cost? For small marks, around the £100 mark. Which is rather better than the scandalous £850 from BMW.

Efficient driving

There’s a lot to be said for a spot of efficiency, especially when it comes to cars or vans. Fuel has been creeping back up to new heights of financial misery. Worse, it’s unlikely to stop there.

At the end of December, the cost of fuel will rise thanks to the rise in VAT. And then later in 2010, we’ll get another rise in fuel duty. So if you haven’t thought about driving efficiently, you might want to start thinking about it right now.

What is efficient driving? Well, it’s changing up early into a higher gear as soon as practical; not jamming on the brakes all the time; adopting a smoother style; driving at 70mph on the motorway, not at ‘motorway speeds’. The savings in fuel can make a big difference.

But the gain isn’t only financial – you’ll need to fill up fewer times – but your driving should become safer, more considerate. And you should find that your stress levels decrease.

It’s not just car drivers, though. Van drivers should think about adopting a smoother style – and saving on the bottom line. To help van drivers achieve this, the government has just launched the Van Best Practice programme.