Well, congratulations to you now that your boss has approved the salary sacrifice. You’ve been dreaming about buying a new car for a while, and with a novated lease, you’ve got the chance to do just that. It’s a lot better than being provided with a company car; OK, having a company car can be pretty good but if the company provides little hatchbacks and you’ve got four kids and a big dog… yeah, that’s not so great! With a novated lease, you get to pick your own set of wheels.
Anyway, if it’s been a while since last time you bought a car – or if it’s your first time for buying a new car – then understanding all the jargon can be confusing. Nobody’s born knowing what all those terms mean, and unless you’ve been a motor nut since the age of 10, then you might not know your CVVT from your CVT.
At Fincar, we believe in being helpful and answering all your questions to do with salary sacrifice deals and novated leases, so to make things a bit easier for you when you’re browsing through automotive websites and/or wandering around the local car dealers, we’ve put together a few of the common abbreviations that you might come across.
Useful Abbreviations For Buying A New Car
- A/C: Air conditioning.
- ABS: Anti-brake skid or Anti-locking braking system. If you have to brake hard, then this kicks in to stop the wheels locking up so you end up losing the ability to steer. An absolute must-have.
- ACC: Adaptive cruise control. Regular cruise control allows you to set the speed you want to go at, and the car will keep going at that speed. If it’s adaptive cruise control, the system has sensors to detect if you’re coming up close behind another vehicle, and will adapt the cruising speed to suit (if you haven’t already overridden the cruise control to slow down).
- AEB: Autonomous emergency braking. If the car detects something up ahead that you’re likely to plough into it, it will start braking for you (which usually sharpens your attention enough to drive properly the way you ought to).
- ANCAP: Australasian New Car Assessment Programme. This is Australia’s very own car safety testing authority. You know those tests involving crash test dummies, where a car is slammed into various objects at a range of angles to see what sort of damage happens to the car and the driver? That’s what these people do, and they award vehicles stars according to how well the vehicles perform, with five stars being the best possible for that class of car.
- AWD: All-wheel drive. Another name for four-wheel drive (4×4 or 4WD) but tends to refer to cars that look more at home on city streets rather than chugging through mud out the back of nowhere.
- BEV: Battery electric vehicle. This is an electric vehicle (EV) that runs only on electricity, as opposed to a hybrid vehicle. Worth considering if you are buying a new car under a novated lease, as these are exempt from fringe benefit tax.
- CVT: Continuous variable transmission. This sort of car drives more or less like an automatic but has a difference down in the working bits, as it can hop freely and easily from one gear to the next, ensuring that you’re always at the best engine speed for what you want to do (e.g., minimising fuel consumption).
- CVVT: Continuous variable valve timing, or just plain VVT or variable valve timing, depending on the car manufacturer (each brand seems to have its own name for this). This is to do with the valves in the business part of an internal combustion engine and the rhythm or timing of when they go up and down. The timing can be altered to suit your driving style.
- DOHC: Double overhead cam. This is to do with the design of the internal combustion engine and its valves, and it means that there are separate camshafts for the intake valves and for the exhaust valves. This affects the power and fuel efficiency.
- DRL: Daytime running lights. Unlike headlights, these are to help you be seen rather than to see. They’re smaller than ordinary headlights and tend to be lower down, rather like fog lights.
- DSC: Dynamic stability control. This is a clever little electronic system that can pick when you’re losing control and going into a skid, and selectively brakes individual wheels and fiddles with the throttle so you reduce the risk of hitting something. This goes by other names, depending on the manufacturer, and you could see it called ESP (electronic stability package) or ESC (electronic stability control).
- EBD: Electronic brakeforce distribution. This tinkers around with how hard the brakes grab each wheel depending on what’s happening so that you brake safely without spinning out, skidding or rolling. Often part of an electronic stability system.
- ECU: Electronic control unit: The CPU or central processing unit for the electronics in your vehicle. Most modern cars usually have quite a few of them, most of which have abbreviations ending in “CM” for “control module”. If you are considering a used car instead of buying a new car, make sure that no warning lights on the dash ending with CM are showing, or you could be in for some amusing repairs.
- FWD: Front wheel drive. The wheels at the front get the power, with the rear wheels just being there for stability and braking purposes. Often, traction is better when the heaviest bit of the car (i.e. the engine) is over the driving wheels, and front wheel drive is also better for less experienced drivers.
- HUD: Heads-up display. This projects key information onto your windscreen – often your speed and the current speed limit – so you don’t have to take your eyes off the road (much).
- ICE: Internal combustion engine – the sort most of us grew up with that runs on petrol, diesel or occasionally LPG (liquid petroleum gas).
- MPV: Multi-person vehicle. A car that has three rows of seats and can seat up to seven people; any more than seven and it’s probably more of a van than an MPV. If you’re buying a new car to suit a large family, one of these is worth considering.
- PHEV: Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. This combines an internal combustion engine with electric motor that you can charge up by plugging it in at a charger or a wall box at home.
- RPM: Revolutions per minute. This refers to how many times the engine completes one full cycle or revolution, which is displayed on the rev counter. Car makers tend to let you know where the sweet spots are for power and torque. These don’t apply to EVs.
- RWD: Rear wheel drive. The engine may be at the front (which is the case in most vehicles) but the power is sent down to the rear wheels; the front wheels are more or less there for the ride and for steering. This makes the handling more responsive and a bit sportier.
- SUV: Sports utility vehicle. This is rather like a regular urban car but tends to have higher ground clearance (even if only slightly) and can have all-wheel drive, at least some of the time.