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Quite proud to have helped build this application, particularly the front-end

Posted in: General by Richard Hearne on May 22, 2014
Internet Marketing Ireland

If you're in the UK and have a car give it a try.  The Max Report shows the entire specification of your car, and it's free for now!

http://www.motorspecs.co.uk

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12 Comments »

  1. missing a link?

    Comment by Andy Wigglesworth — May 22, 2014 @ 8:08 am

  2. It's top secret ;-)

    Comment by Richard Hearne — May 22, 2014 @ 8:15 am

  3. There now +Andy Wigglesworth 

    Comment by Richard Hearne — May 22, 2014 @ 8:15 am

  4. Let me know if you try it out Andy.  All feedback welcome.

    Comment by Richard Hearne — May 22, 2014 @ 8:23 am

  5. Heh – learnt a few things about my old car that I didn't know!

    Yeah that works a treat – easy enough on he phone as well (only one but I found is when i ticked on terms and conditions – the big red button resized slightly and broke the page width – not by much though – iPhone 4)

    But yeah overall – nice!

    Comment by Andy Wigglesworth — May 22, 2014 @ 9:56 am

  6. It didn't work for me: "We're sorry but there was an error creating your report. Please contact support quoting your report ID to fix this problem:"
    I submitted the contact form so will see what they say.

    Comment by Duncan Booth — May 22, 2014 @ 11:22 am

  7. +Duncan Booth Sorry about that.  It means that the matching logic was unable to match your reg number in the database.  Could you message me the reg number and I'll see if I can get this fixed for you?

    Comment by Richard Hearne — May 22, 2014 @ 11:24 am

  8. +Duncan Booth hopefully you got your report?  I think your car was a hybrid and some pieces of data may not be 100% accurate, but hopefully you'll enjoy the report regardless.

    Comment by Richard Hearne — May 23, 2014 @ 9:12 am

  9. Yes, I got the report.

    It is interesting but I think some of it is a bit off. Here's some feedback (some bits are subjective) which may or may not be useful.

    'Include radio AM/FM', actually it is AM/FM/DAB.

    Charging information just lists voltage, what would be really useful on this sort of report would be to list the type of connector, the maximum power, and the expected time to full charge.

    "FUEL CONSUMPTION Fuel consumption: ; Range 500 km (combined), 311 miles (combined) ; Standard: ECE 99/100*
    That looks correct for the official range but I don't understand what the 99/100 means. The official ECE consumption figure is 1.2l/100km (235mpg).

    Powertrain Hybrid. I think it would help if you had a distinction here between the E-REV or plug-in hybrid and the ordinary hybrid vehicles. Most of the time the Volt acts as a pure electric car, it only acts as a hybrid when the battery is depleted which makes it very different from something like a Prius.

    There is no servicing data and the battery warranty entry is also empty.

    "CO2 level – g/km combined Yes"
    What does 'Yes' mean here?

    Under Electric Power Source it has:
    Battery kilowatt hour (kWh) 16
      Range (miles) 24.85

    I believe the battery is 16.5kWh (Volts were 16kWh until the late 2012 models when they slightly increased capacity) but I'm not going to argue over half a kWh. Where I do have an issue though is that only 10.8kWh is available to the driver. I think for electric cars you should try to include to figures: the actual capacity and the available capacity as they all restrict the available capacity to maximise battery life.
    I'd love to know the source for your range figure? The ECE figure for battery range is 83km/52 miles (which is rarely attainable), the US EPA range is 38 miles. The figure you give is lower than I've ever had.

    The pricing and valuation section is way off. Part of the problem here is that when new the Volt like other electric cars qualifies for a £5k government grant, so when you list the RRP as £34,940 it was actually £29,940 and you haven't allowed for that. Also new car prices in this sector seem to have dropped over the last year (the penalty of being an early adopter). For example, the figure you have for current trade '£22,775' is actually about the same as the price being quoted by some dealers for a brand new Ampera (the Volt's more expensive sibling) with the same spec.

    I take it the figure you give for insurance doesn't include NCD? It looks scary high. I suppose is about right with no discount but not what I would expect to pay.

    Comment by Duncan Booth — May 23, 2014 @ 9:54 am

  10. Thanks for that.  Some good feedback in there for sure. I think that one of the problems your car highlights is that it doesn't handle hybrids as well, and TBH it's still just BETA. For regular petrol/diesel vehicles the data is really good, but there's definitely some work to do based on your feedback.

    One question – did you use any of the settings, or did you even notice that you can add various pieces of data to the report yourself?  Did you notice the various buttons for changing settings and adding info?

    Comment by Richard Hearne — May 23, 2014 @ 9:59 am

  11. Forgot to mention – the data comes from multiple sources, and being honest it's a massive undertaking to cleanse and build the data that you see.  It's not perfect, so you'll get some problem values like the ones you mentioned, but it's still probably the most comprehensive source of specification data in publicly available today.

    I'm passing back your feedback and it is very much appreciated Duncan!

    Comment by Richard Hearne — May 23, 2014 @ 10:02 am

  12. I did notice that I can add some data and I told it I have the premium paint, but I haven't yet added any of the other optional bits like service history.

    Comment by Duncan Booth — May 23, 2014 @ 10:47 am

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