Vehicle manufacturers are being urged to provide a list of essential equipment for used cars and vans to help ensure such vehicles are easier to dispose of.

Essential equipment for used cars and vans could help ensure vehicles are easier to dispose of

The call comes from the Vehicle Remarketing Association (VRA), which says that more, potentially removable equipment – such as smart keys, different charging cables for EVs and PHEVs, and even removable tablet displays – is finding its way onto vehicles, impacting on the used vehicle industry when it goes missing.

Sam Watkins, deputy chair at the VRA, said: “These items are essential to the operation of the vehicle and the car or van generally cannot be sold without them. In many instances, the retailer or trader ends up footing the bill, which can easily be more than their margin in the vehicle.”

Watkins said the industry needed an essential checklist to help avoid this and the best people to supply this were the motor manufacturers themselves, who would also gain from the benefits to RVs.

“What a manufacturer doesn’t want to happen is that the trade starts to avoid a particular model because it becomes known that the smart key is often missing and costs hundreds of pounds to replace, for example.

“All it would take is regularly updated information that would allow trade buyers to quickly check what items should be included with a vehicle. This could be disseminated through the established pricing data companies and the manufacturers themselves.”