Not a term I am familier with.  Having ordered a new Octavia 4x4 Elegance 2.0 diesel recently and expecting to pay no road tax for year 1 and £30 for the next period until it all changes in April 2017I was surprised to be contacted by the dealership who said, that because it will have 17" wheels and due to " Tyre Clustering " the tax will be zero for the first year £110 for the next period. I would bet that it is some mysterious rule from the ******* EU.  However, Skoda are paying the difference on this occasion.  I assume the larger wheels will increase the CO2 emissions.  Your thoughts would be apreciated.

 

John

Think it must be the bigger wheels pushing your CO2 emissions above 120g/km.

Whatever tax bands you pay now you will still pay in 2017 - the new rules only apply to new vehicles registered from that date onward I believe!

Ignore the techno babble. The UK has changed its car tax payment bands for new cars which you can check on the UK.gov website

There is an excellent explanation of tyre clustering - which is a completely new term to me too - on audi-sport.net. See the downloadable pdf file below.

http://www.audi-sport.net/xf/attachments/tyre-clustering-faqs-pdf-au0167-15_635623621800843123-pdf.57391/

I'd not heard of that term before either. Handy link though, and I don't think I'd pay an extra 2% BIK just to have larger wheels.

Thanks for the link DGW, and for other replies. The new Elegance comes with 17" wheels as standard and as Skoda are going to pay the difference so much the better.  What might be interesting is, if the new tax bands coming in April 2017 were all vehicles will pay £140 after the first year, will the charge be even more for the first year depending on the size of wheels that are fitted. I can imagine in March 2017 there will be more cars sold than ever before.  The sooner we are out of the EU the better.

Thanks for the link DGW, and for other replies. The new Elegance comes with 17" wheels as standard .

But... Since the new brochure was released in June, there is a free option to downgrade to 16" wheels.

So... Not only do you get a more compliant ride and less damage to tyres from potholes...and cheaper tyres on replacement.

You also will pay less VED

WIN all round from what I can see.

Back in the Yeti forum there were a number of us who got our factory orders changed from 17's to 16's.

When we ordered our Octy in June, I was lucky enough to get our wheels changed a couple of weeks before the option became available to all...

Thanks Vegit8.  I wish I had known that in early June when I ordered the vehicle.  Unfortunately Skoda will not change and order once it has gone in.  My dealership say they were not told about the 16" wheel option until July12th.  Perhaps they don't read the brochures.

When did the June Brochure come out.

I don't get this as it's got nothing to do with wheel size it got to do with engine CO2 your Octy is 2.0 TDI CR 150ps 4x4 ie band D first 12 months £0 standard £110 there after

My Octy vRS TDI CR 184 ie band C first 12 months £0 standard £30 there after and I've got the 19" xtreme wheels on to

I don't get this as it's got nothing to do with wheel size it got to do with engine CO2 your Octy is 2.0 TDI CR 150ps 4x4 ie band D first 12 months £0 standard £110 there after

My Octy vRS TDI CR 184 ie band C first 12 months £0 standard £30 there after and I've got the 19" xtreme wheels on to

How much CO2 the engine puts out depends on how hard it has to work. How hard it has to work is in part dependant on the wheels and tyres. Larger wheels generally being wider increases the contact area and thus rolling resistance.

 

Finally we may see an end to overpriced, ridiculous, uncomfortable, easily damaged, oversized alloys.

So the solution is to buy a car with small wheels, then swap them to whatever you want, and you'll pay less tax?

I am afraid, Rsrob, that wheel size does matter from Sep1st 2015.  Which is why Skoda are offering 16" wheels on the new SEL, which they did not do in May, to reduce the CO2 emissions back down to 120gms per km.. The larger the wheels the more power is required to drive them therefore an increase in CO2 output.

Thanks Vegit8.  I wish I had known that in early June when I ordered the vehicle.  Unfortunately Skoda will not change and order once it has gone in.  My dealership say they were not told about the 16" wheel option until July12th.  Perhaps they don't read the brochures.

The order can be changed up until the point that a build week has been allocated.

The change to the SE L spec was announced to all dealers in their daily update to their desktop systems in the middle of June, so your dealer is telling you porky pies...