Q & A – Changes to the Motability scheme
Thursday, October 20th, 2011Q/ The car I want has a deposit of £2,000 or more will I still be able to get it?
A/ The changes are coming in from January 1st 2012 so if your car is up for renewal before this date than yes. If not probably not unless you can make a special case for a certain vehicle. (Just wanting it is not a special case)
Q/ I live on a farm and need a 4X4 the deposit is more than £2,000 will I be able to get it?
A/ Motability will take special circumstances into account so if you need it because of your living situation probably yes.
Q/ I have a WAV and its deposit it a lot more than £2,000 what am I going to do when my renewal comes up?
A/ Don’t worry WAVs do not come under his policy so you will still be able to get a WAV.
Q/ My nominated driver is my mum and she lives 10 miles away from me what am I going to do?
A/ If you speak to Motability and explain your circumstances they may be able to make an allowance.
Q/ My son is 18 and lives with me. Can he still be my nominated driver?
A/ Yes. It is only when someone doesn’t live at the same address that a restriction applies.
Q/ My mother lives in a care home 20 miles away. Does this mean I can’t be her nominated driver?
A/ The situation is different with people in care homes. You can still be a nominated driver but you may have a tracking device in he vehicle so Motability can ensure it is used for the benefit of the disabled person.
Q/ I think these changes are outrageous what are you doing about it?
A/ DMUK is disappointed that these changes have been made and have expressed our concerns to Motability. However, we recognise that with so much media pressure if they didn’t change their practices the scheme was in danger. It is vitally important that this scheme survives and so although it is disappointing we do support Motability in making these changes.
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Tags: Motability, motability changes, motability questions
This is a double blow to those of us who have to have an automatic, the total amout of auts available go to 307 out og 1,475, about %20
Autos are always more expensive AP due to the autobox costs, depreciation etc, so even looking at what manual box motability users can get, Auto box drivers will only get a lower spec than them!
I have just been into a dealership. I was told when our motability car is due for changing next year I would be able to get a galaxy Zetec on motorbility but if I wanted Titanium spec I would have to order them has extra packages and pay for them. This would work out dearer then Fords price difference between the two. Surely this is discrimination and also for not allowing people to choice what they need to fit there needs.
Most cars on the motability scheme now will not take wheelchairs, walking frames and luggage for four or five people with out being overloaded and unsafe.
I find it difficult to believe that DMuk are supporting the changes to the Motability scheme especially those relating to the advance payment. Reducing this to a maximum of £2000 will do nothing to save costs as it is paid by the customer anyway. It only reduces choice which seems ludicrous. This has only been done to appease those who were misinformed by the inaccurate press coverage stating it was possible to get vehicles worth £35000 for free. The cost of the vehicle is irrelevant as anything which equates to more than the DLA allowance is added as an advanced payment and funded by the customer. I am a quadriplegic Motability user myself and will be unable to renew the Ford Mondeo Estate I currently have. Only smaller estates are now available that do not meet my requirements and I am no longer able to add funds of my own for the larger car. This makes no sense. It does not save the tax payer or Motability any money whatsoever it just prevents me obtaining the car I require. Madness!
I am e-mailing in respone to the mobillity changes that are in/coming in. I for one think the choice of cars on the scheme is not good enough, the only ones that motability seem to have thought about are the walking disabled,and not wheelchair users like myself.
None of the cars on the scheme at the moment have big enough boot space to carry wheelchairs, schooters,cases and such like, so come on DM get together with other disabled groups and PLEASE STOP THE CHANGES.!
The first we knew about the changes was the day they were introduced so we will have no joy stopping them as they are already here. However, we will be informing Motability of all your concerns and the lack of choice now available for those of us who need automatics and larger cars is dismal.
As DM has said they are only aware of the changes on the day. Poor on Motability’s part. I myself found out by chance on the motabilty website
As many have already said the limit of Advance Payment makes little sense as automatic cars which are already higher AP than manual. While I understand the reasons behind this, it limits the choice of such cars dramatically. Like Derek with the new changes I can no longer replace the car i have now with another one.
Another change Due to my youthful age i’m unable to go to 2.0 which seem to be the powertrain of many Auto Diesels thus even lowering my choice. However i feel this does reflect the insurance industry as it would be a eye watering sum
Although the bigger and primary annoyance is the Advance Payment
I’m 28 year old disabled guy I live alone and I have my 58 year old mother on my Motability car she prob only drives it 3 or 4 times a year when we go away etc but she lives 14 miles away from my address. I’m alright to drive for an hour or two after that I need to rest as it becomes very painful, the new rules will stop her from driving and restrict freedom as now when going away anywhere I must make sure it’s within an hour of home.
Other option is to move house the place where it has taken yrs to get right. I spoke to Motability about this and they said the new rules have to apply to any car ordered after the 1st Jan 2012. Mine is due for chance on the 27th Jan next year so have been told as long as it is ordered before the 1st Jan the old rules will apply until the end of my agreement. So if you car is due by for change before the 28th Feb order BEFORE 2012 so DEC this year and the old rules apply.
Also I used to work in the motor trade and I was talking to a friend who works for a Nissan dealer and he told me a new Qashqai Ntec+ is brought by Motability for approx £17k after 3 years of benefit which is approx £7500. Take away £2500 for insurance and servicing. so £5000 from the £17k start as they don’t pay VAT. Are selling 3 yr old Nissan Qashqai Ntec now for £12-£14k ex Motability cars so where is the problem ?
I agre with the views expressed about Automatics. Under the new rules you can have a BMW 1 series, Mondeo, Passat Volvo s40, Seat Exeo and many more cars in manual, but not one in auto. Motability will let you but a BMW 118d for 1799 AP and let you spend over 10k on avery optional extra available except one, an Auto box. Motability if you are going to have a 2000 limit please have a higher one for automatics. People who drive auto’s are being penalised/descriminated against. Surely if a car is available in manual it should be available as anauto too.
On a seperate issue I wonder how many people will pop down to their Mercedes Audi or BMW dealer in January to order a new C class, A4 or 3 series blissfully unaware it wont be available.
The political campaign from the department of work and pensions assisted by the national, and my local press(some report).must have given Motability a kneejerk reaction, causing them to rush in to make changes to their scheme without giving it much thought.With AP capped at £2000 it is going to be difficult to choose a mid range automatic vehicle as there is a limited range even in the present list. many disabled drivers like myself have to carry equipment for medical assistance that would be difficult to fit into the boot of a small car such as the Nissan Note. motability should stand back and revise their hasty decision
I think the new rules are not well thought out. If you want a higher spec car then you have to pay for it. I has never been the case that it is for free. I wonder how many dealerships up and down the UK will be affected by these huge changes and will have to reduce there advance payment to £2.000 to less to enable to get the motability customers through there doors.
I am disgusted at some of the comments online on the tabloid pages caused by the inaccurate reporting of the Daily Mail in particular. I too have to drive an automatic because DVLA say so. It took me 18 months to get licenced to drive again after a serious accident which resulted in major spinal injuries. Prior to that I worked for 37 years. My car is invaluable to me but like many others are saying I will not be able to get the features that make my life easier. I’m not in a wheelchair – I battled to walk again and use crutches but my mobility will get worse. I would happily swap my motability car for the full use of my legs again. Had I not opted for surgery I would be in a wheelchair by now but I wanted the use of my legs back painful though it is.
What everyone is overlooking is the problem was not the Motability Scheme – the problem is DLA and the failure of the previous Government to medically examine all the applicants. I was horrified to discover that not everyone is medically examined and I know there are people in receipt of DLA who are abusers of the system. What the current coalition needs to do is get a move on with medical checks on the more dubious claimants. If they don’t have higher rate DLA then they don’t get the Motability car either. Perhaps it would also help with Blue Badge abuse as the removal of Higher Rate DLA also means no automatic qualification for the Blue Badge.
For my disability benefits I was medically examined 3 times in the space of 2 weeks (twice by the same doctor) just because it was different parts of the DWP dealing with my claim. This was despite the fact that they had the clinical notes from my surgery and I was hardly going to “re-grow” the part of my spine that had been removed. Eliminate the abusers of benefits generally and you mostly solve the problem. Most genuinely disabled people would be able to tell the DWP how to sift out the most obvious potential abusers!
I have just written to Motability and will write to a few MP’s too – I hope you all do that as well to ensure they know it will affect a lot of people.
I too need a large family car (estate) automatic and from what I can see i am limited now to 1 car, vauxhall, which when i looked at it 18 months ago i thought was horrible and had a silly shaped boot.
well done the media for causing hastle for 10 of thousands of people.
Well done Nick! I also have written to Motability and will write to Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson DBE if a suitable response isn’t forthcoming.
Judging by the tone of media forum comments, I’m extremely concerned that a media campaign has been allowed to stigmatize the entire disabled driving community in this wa; where we are now portrayed as being an ‘exhorbitant and scandalous waste of the nation’s finances’. Motability, in my view, has compounded the situation by making rapid and significant scheme changes as part of a knee-jerk reaction and without careful consideration of the implications; which in itself, comes across as a clear admission that the scheme was badly flawed.
As a result of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday’s efforts and because I happen to have a ‘BMW’ car, I’m now regularly subject to verbal abuse and snide comments in public car parking areas. This, in my view, also puts the ‘acceptance of the disabled’ cause back some way. Considering the general public doesn’t know if a disabled driver’s car is a Motability car or otherwise, perhaps there now needs to be a some way of indicating this?
Motability – worry free motoring – I don’t think so!
This is outrageous, there are hardly any automatic cars available and I’m only used to driving one particular car and don’t like these adjustments and find them very stressful!
Why can’t the DWP just take these abusers off the list instead of making things difficult for people that actually need a car on the motability scheme! this is a JOKE!
I struggle getting in and out of cars and need a roomy car for equipment and family.
Do they actually think how its affecting the people that need this scheme!
“DMUK is disappointed” DMUK needs to be a whole lots more than disappointed. It’s there to represent the interests of disabled motorists and this is the best it can come up with?
These regulations, which may well be illegal, threaten to decimate our lives. For me, it means all family holidays are now cancelled because my child’s father and grandmother live more than five miles away, but have always done the driving. Will Motability take on explaining to my 10-yr old why all future holidays are cancelled! There are so many ways in which these regulations are wrong – the restriction they will cause on our lives, the questionable legalities of it, the fact that the regulations don’t even address the abuse they claim they’re there to address, etc. Someone else wrote that it’s “court of Daily Mail”, which sums it up very well. I expect better from Motability, but I expect better from DMUK too. Get out there and represent us.
So Motability will allow me to have the car I want so long as its a manual which I wont be able to drive. Never mind Motability I might get a miracle cure that means I can use my left foot. So long as it doesnt upset the right wing gutter press. Shameful
We have a Volvo XC90 7 seater 4×4. We had to pay £5000 deposit which is fair enough, that’s not my concern. We need a big car equivalent to this to get our daughters special wheelchair in. Plus we cannot fly so if we want to go away this size is ideal, everything just about fits.
I don’t know what we are going to do now……. It’s discrimination!!!!!!!!
Motability have clarified their rule changes and if you approach them with your request they shoud certainly consider your needs. They have told us that people lik you should still be able to get the car you need as it is due to a disability need. If you are a member of DMUK we can certainly help you with your appeal.
Of course we have represented you and all the other disabled people affected by these rule changes. We have presented the facts and a rational argument to Motability and now they have appeared to relax their rule changes. We can not take all he credit for this but we certainly played our part.
the system had to change,i have two sisters who have cars for mobility reasons.People who are not on mobility don’t object to them getting the cars, as they can see they need them ,but ask why can they not have a new car, that is fully insured,taxed,and serviced and pay the same monthly figure as mobility allowance.
Just checked the Motability price list and see that some cars with advance payment over £2000 have started to appear including more large automatic estates (my requirement). Wouldn’t call it a u-turn but it looks like a sensible move.
This is to include more automatics, diesel and estates. A sensible and very welcome move.
I agree with the majority of the above comments. As a disabled driver who is in the process of changing her car, I would like to point out a couple of other problems with Motability’s new policy.
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I am a 48 year old widow. I have a 23 year old son who doesn’t live at home. He has been safely driving my Motability cars (a VW Golf & Vauxhall Astra) since he passed his test at 17. He hasn’t had an accident or a conviction in those 5 years. His own car is an old Golf GTI – he has full no claims on it. Motability have now decided to put a restriction on age versus BHP & Insurance group. So, if I want a diesel auto under £500 AP (I don’t have money to spare), my choice is cut down even more because my son can only drive a Motability car Insurance group 16 or under and under 115 BHP. Now you may think that’s not too bad, insurance group 16 is pretty high but, you would be surprised at the amount of mid size/family cars that are above group 16 or more than 115 BHP or both. The Kia Cee’d cars are either too high insurance group or the BHP is above 115. So if I want a diesel I basically have a choice of three cars. Yes three diesel cars!
If I had changed my car before 31st December those restrictions wouldn’t apply said Motability. I really could not cope with trying to sort out a car during the Christmas period, it’s too stressful for me and my son works full time so I would only have weekends which, where I live are horrendous at that time of year.
So I have had to plump for a less economical petrol automatic. A Nissan Note to be precise. The only thing I don’t have a problem with is the 5 mile restriction but, that’s not to say I won’t at a later date.
The Government, the tabloid media and now Motability have all conspired to make disabled people of all ages feel absolutely discriminated against. I have not felt so low as I do now for a decade, this has really set me back. I dare not mention I have a Motability car.
I am disgusted with the way Motability have basically been bullied into this and especially the fact that there was no warning or consultation of some description. It would have been nice to have been asked for my opinion.
I am new to DMUK so I am sorry for such a long rant but I really needed to get that off my chest
I am new to this forum, I am a 24 year old girl with disability i have been searching for a car from november, finally find a car (nissan qashqai) and have been told i cannot get inscured on it till i am 25? this is the only car which suits my needs.. great height and good boot for wheelchir etc.. should i ring up and esplain or wait till i turn 25 next year?
Do contact Motability they will look at your case on an individual basis.
I rang this morning, they said to go ahead with application of the car and when they recieve it someone will contact me within 5 working days as to why i need this car and ask questions.
INITIAL PAYMENT FIASCO
I am angry that we could have been consulted prior to the changes being announced so we could give feedback on the changes and had our views taken into account. However in typical “does he take sugar?” fashion we have been pretty much told what’s going to happen. So we are treated like idiots. Motability seem to issue lots of paperwork to us normally so why not ask us for our views before imposing a system? In good management terms consultation is surely no bad thing in the year 2012?
In a stupid letter announcing the changes I am told I have hundreds of vehicles to choose from when in reality I can only get into about five production models all large. This is due to the rather bad combination of being tall and having both spine and neck problems so I can’t duck under the car roof in most models. While I suppose I am one of the so called “exceptions” it is infuriating to know that many disabled people who have problems will now have to fight to retain their rights. Heaven knows we have to do enough of that already!
Also do these new changes apply to all Motability users including War Pensioners? If it only includes non War Pensioners then why? I n my view that would be blatant discrimination as while no complaint has ever been made about their slight advantage financially within the scheme they are ultimately the same as the rest of us (which would include emergency service personnel and police injured on duty) .
The Motability system is no doubt abused but certainly not by me or the vast majority of disabled folk. I have in the past obtained cars under the scheme with more than a £2000 initial payment to get the models I can access but also because those cars have additional safety features like better brakes, tyres, traction control etc. So why am I to be banned from getting a safer vehicle? Disabled people like myself understand more than most the after effects of road accidents and are keen to protect themselves as best they can.
So what will the change in restricting the choice of disabled drivers save taxpayers, well I understand it will save nothing at all! Most of the public do not realise that Motability Finance is not a charity and are under the illusion we get “free cars”. The truth as most on this site know is more complex than that but myths can turn into beliefs if never corrected.
One of the problems we as disabled people have is that the TV has only ever shown the abuse of the Benefits System which in my view has been the “mud” which has stuck to all those with disabilities. The media have never shown the people with crippling cancer who have been rejected for benefit as they didn’t fill the complicated form in correctly or the errors made by the system as opposed to the people using it.
As for our disability organisations they need to get organised and protect our interests and start asking searching questions about what’s really going on. As we just victims on the altar of some PR initiative?
I could think of some preventative measures to tackle the abuse of the Motability system but of course I was never asked…
I work in the media, though do not write for the tabloids. My extensive research as a freelance journalist has shown that while there are genuine cases, an awful lot of abuse does take place. Indeed, the Motability magazine ran an article a few years ago highlighting some of the blatant frauds that were taking place with the car scheme. During the course of my research I spoke to many people who worked long hours just to keep a roof over their heads and run a clapped-out old Ford car.Across the road, in some cases, the couple had a brand new BMW/Mercedes Benz/Audi or very expensive 4X4 jeep-type of vehicle. No tax, insurance, servicing, tyres etc and, apart from putting fuel in, all paid for by the DWP!
It is no wonder then that these working people with the clapped-out Ford are both angry and hostile. Me? I do not care a damn. I live alone so get 25% off my council tax and free hearing aid batteries to boot! However, all those of you who have written on this site really should think yourselves jolly lucky that you have a car at all without nitpicking that changes to the scheme mean that you are not able to get the absolute top-of-the-range model you have set your heart on. One old chap told me that his home-help lady offered to ring up the DWP for him to order the DLA forms and told him that “you have to tell a lot of lies” to get the car money. My assistant at the time joked about ‘ingrowing toenail limp.’
my son is 27 and just passd his test can he be my seconed driver
You will need to contact Motability.