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Anon
By AA | Moderator | 844 Posts | 20 January 2011 at 3:30pm

I have bought a diesel car and the Road User Charges (RUC) were prepaid as part of the sale.

I know nothing about how the RUC system works having had only petrol cars all my life.

What do I have to do?

Philip

From the "Ask Jack" archives - 14 December 2009

jbiddle
By jbiddle | Community Member | 1657 Posts | 21 January 2011 at 8:37am

Road User Charges are a way of paying the taxes and levies which are already built into the petrol prices at the pump.

As diesel is not used solely for road legal transport RUC is the way to pay the same taxes and levies as petrol when it is used to fuel cars and trucks.

The RUC is purchased in a minimum of 1,000km lots and cost (in round figures) $36.00 (per 1,000km).

Most people purchase their RUC based on the distance they travel in a given period. Those who travel large distances would buy in larger lots than those who travel shorter distances.

The important point to remember is; every time you purchase RUC you pay an administration charge of approx $10.00, so for high mileage users it pays to buy in bigger amounts and avoid repeated admin costs.

You will notice a RUC label in the L/H front lower corner of the front windscreen (by the registration label). This will give details of the vehicle and more importantly at what distance the RUC will expire.

It is vital the odometer reading on the label is always higher than the actual odometer reading on the car. You can and will be fined if the cars actual odometer reading has exceeded the figures entered on the label.

You can up-date RUC's at the same agencies which handle change of ownership and normal registration fees. The AA is one such outlet via their retail Centres and at AA testing stations around the country.

You will also find the normal registration costs for a diesel are higher than a petrol as well. Hopefully your diesel has the fuel efficiency that covers these costs. It is for this reason we encourage people to do the sums before purchasing a diesel vehicle.

For many who travel a small distance each year the benefits are either very marginal or zero. As a general rule anything over 20,000kms is beneficial for diesel over petrol. It does depend however on the gap between diesel and petrol pricing at the pumps as well.