Have you noticed that even today's small cars are huge?

You can’t open a newspaper or a magazine these days without staring at a headline about the obesity epidemic. But it’s not just waistlines that are rapidly expanding – vehicles are, too.

There have been tremendous advances in efficiency technology - and these are often offset by each new model getting heavier and heavier. This occurs because each car company is obliged to offer more with the next new model: more space, more features, more legroom, more power - more everything. It's a prime motovator to get the last (say) Commodore owner into the next model.

Cars have grown out of all proportion, too

In fact a whole new class of vehicle

TIP 1: Buy your next new car at the end of the month

When you buy a new car, timing is everything. New-car dealerships have very aggressive sales targets, and they are accountable for those projected new-car sales on a monthly basis. Serious financial incentives are paid by wholesalers (car companies) to the dealers that meet their targets; those that miss their target lose their bonuses.

New car dealerships also pay interest on their

New car dealerships work like this: when a car company (the manufacturer of the car, or the importer of it) delivers a car to a dealer, it becomes the dealer’s property. The dealer pays for it on credit; he needs to sell it to reduce the interest cost of holding it. This is true for every vehicle you can see on the showroom floor, as well as every vehicle you can’t see in the dealer’s warehouse.

Essentially, dealerships use the equivalent of a big, fat

When you’re buying a new car, always leave your trade-in at home. New car dealers love to confuse buyers and obfuscate the deal’s economics with trade-ins. Sometimes they offer what appears to be a high trade-in price but refuse to discount the new car you’re buying – with a better financial result for them than had you just bought the car with no trade-in and simply driven a hard bargain. Coming to grips with whether you’re getting a good deal on a new car, or not, slips further from your grasp whenever a new car dealer starts cooking the books with your trade-in.

You should also realize that new

It would be a solid-gold miracle if you could find exactly the right make, model and variant of the new car you want, right down to the colour, the trim and the options. Bottom line: you should be prepared to

Every aspect of buying a new car is negotiable – except the statutory charges. Most people hate negotiating, and they especially hate negotiating over money, and extra-especially they hate negotiating over a big-ticket item like a new car. Many – most – new car dealers understand this disinclination to bargain hard, and exploit it to their advantage.

Here are a few strategies

TIP 7: Have your finances sorted

There’s no point merely going with the flow inside the new car dealership, and taking them up on their finance offer – at least not without first shopping around for the finance, if only to convince yourself what terms, conditions and rates constitute a good deal.

Dealerships are paid a hefty commission to convert buyers to the

TIP 8: Consider run-outs & demonstrators

When you’re in the market for a new car, you might want to consider buying a ‘run-out’ model or a demonstrator. The two terms are commonly used, but they mean very different things.

Run Out Models

Run-out sales occur when there’s a fair amount of existing stock in the market, and a new model is either just released or just about to be released. Let’s say you’re

TIP 9: Check the likely depreciation

There are two ways to lose money on a new car. The first way to lose money on a new car is to pay too much for it at the outset. Most of the tips here are devoted to getting the sharpest price you can, at the point of purchase.

However, you can also lose bucket-loads of money to

TIP 10: Dealership dirty tricks

When you visit a new car dealer, here’s the basic position: the dealership staff are used to selling cars (you probably buy one every few years, at best), the dealership is used to negotiating over money (you’re probably not), the dealership staff know whether they’re under pressure to make a few extra sales that month (you don’t). They’re match fit; you’re not.

The bottom line here is that all car dealers

Buying a car? Here's how to save 30 per cent on your next car by letting the first owner bleed all over it - financially

The Buying a Used Car Bottom Line: Save 30% Over New

You can halve the absolute cost of depreciation by buying a two-year-old used car. You’ll get essentially the same model as the ones on sale now (in general) and 30 per cent off the price. It’ll still have a year’s worth of warranty, or more, and very low kilometers on the clock. (The average used car in Australia has about 15,000km under its wheels for every year of service.)

Buying a Used car? Find out about the 'Goldilocks' age - not too old, not too new: just right (and why this is so)

• Buying a used car at the right time in its life can save you heaps.
• Depreciation is one of the biggest costs involved in owning a car.
• A two-year-old used car generally represents the ideal age, and excellent value – you get many of the benefits of a new car, at a significant discount around 30 per cent (compared with the new price). 

How well do you know the new car market?

Try these 20 car names below. See if you can a) name the car manufacturer that goes with the name and b) picture the car...

1. Mito
2. Epica
3. Evora
4. Tiida
5. Satria
6. Stavic
7. Brera
8. Captiva
9. Panamera
10. Murano
11. Fluence
12. Berlingo
13. Elantra
14. Grandis
15. Koleos
16. Kyron
17. Kluger
18. Exiga
19. Avensis
20. Tiguan

Click the link below for the answers: 

These are the proton-energy-powered cars Roger Ramjet would have driven. And they're about as real as he was, too

1958 Ford Nucleon

The market is knee-deep in alternative-fuelled cars. We've got hybrids, ethanol-burning cars, hydrogen-burning cars, fuel cells, solar cars, we're talking about making so-called 'fossil' fuels from garbage - and coal. And let's not forget electric cars. Or steam: recently, a new speed record was set for a steam-powered car.

One category sadly lacking from the modern imagination is the nuclear-powered car. In theory, a neat concept. After all, just four grams of uranium-238 is equivalent to a full tank of petrol.

4X4s are death traps in driveways? Don't be so sure...

A recent study by the NRMA has found that many new 4X4s are among the safest vehicles to have in your driveway. The organisation’s latest round of Reversing Visibility Index (RVI) tests identified 17 popular 4X4s with either 5-star or 4.5-star reversing vision performance – all offering the driver a view of a small child as close as touching the bumper.

The NRMA’s RVI uses a laser beam and a grid measuring 1.8 metres wide by 15 metres long behind the vehicle to identify the closest locations an object the height of an average two-year-old’s shoulder becomes visible to an average-height driver.

Goofing off at the wheel might be legal sooner than you think

The most grueling part of long-distance drive has to be the last couple of hundred kays. You know how it is: you’ve seen the sights, had the adventure then turned homewards, watched the countryside roll by, and then turned onto the damn freeway. That last bit is insomnia-curingly hateful – at least it always is for me. I pity anyone who has to commute on a freeway.

How would you like it if you turned onto the freeway next time, accelerated up to 100, locked onto autopilot, cracked open your laptop, took your peepers off the road for 90-odd minutes and got nice and productive?

The market for used cars is huge - but how do you play it?

ARE USED CARS GOOD VALUE?

The used-car market is saturated. It’s a great time to buy, because prices are down. Unfortunately, if you already own a car, upgrading also involves entering the market as a seller. Used cars make great actuarial sense … but they don’t come with ‘new car smell’ and can’t be ordered with precisely the