Carjam no longer free

[Thani-B]

Noticed this today...

NZ Transport Agency is stopping the provision of the free information.

No more free CarJam reports from 1st January 2011.

We will prepare a full media release later this week.

Meanwhile, keep posting your thoughts on our blog, Facebook Page or email.

It sucks how they are making a useful tool harder (read 'costing us money' ) for us to use.

[steve_t]

Lame. I wonder who decided they could make more money from the site?

[grusomhat]

Lame. I wonder who decided they could make more money from the site?

Huh, this has nothing to do with carjam wanting to make more money. NZTA is the one removing the free access. Unless by site you mean, NZTA

[steve_t]

Huh, this has nothing to do with carjam wanting to make more money. NZTA is the one removing the free access. Unless by site you mean, NZTA

Oops. Thought Carjam was owned by NZTA but it appears it's not Sorry, my bad

[Smiff-ta]

This is all to do with people opting out and people complaining that their information is easliy available.

It doesn't work both ways

[mikemike104]

Is disappointing for me (because I am selfish and do like free services) as I use it daily at work (along with Trade Me) to A. Check the value of cars being offered as security on loan applications and B. Make sure cars already used as security are still up to date.

I guess like everything - user pays. It will be interesting to see Carjams new pricing plan, but I'm thinking it will be more than what Motochek already charge as Turners will want their cut if they continue with the auction prices as part of the Carjam report.

[robo555]

This is all to do with people opting out and people complaining that their information is easliy available.

It doesn't work both ways

That's only for the name and address of the owner. When purchasing a vehicle, it's useful to know the odo reading, WOF history. Sometimes when going pass a more exotic vehicle, it's handy to be able to go back home and look up what model it is.

[SMOKEU]

This is all to do with people opting out and people complaining that their information is easliy available.

It doesn't work both ways

It's also good if there's a suspicious vehicle parked outside your habitat, or if someone is taking your bike out for a test ride to make sure the vehicle isn't flagged as stolen, and that the tags match up to the type of car.

[ukusa]

obviously a safety issue designed to lower the road toll, too many people carjamming the car in front on their iphone while driving.

seriously, there will be some sort of lame excuse, when the real reason will be that NZTA want to make more money from it by charging shitloads. In reality it will just die.

[The Everlasting]

Yeah that sucks,I used it heaps over the last year or so.

This will obviously also affect the checka site? http://www.checka.co.nz/

[breakaway]

This is all to do with people opting out and people complaining that their information is easliy available.

It doesn't work both ways

No, this is from the CarJam site:

Hi Gaz. NZTA is making CarJam pay 16c per query (what is free now) from 1st of January 2011. — Anton on November 10th, 2010 at 5:47 pm

This has NOTHING to do with the privacy laws OR carjam. The government being the money thieving cunts that they are are going to charge a (16 cent) fee for a previously free service. Get your facts right.

More information here: http://www.carjam.co.nz/cms/2010/04/...-under-threat/

[imdying]

I don't know what you are all whinging about. If want to use it, you can pay for it. There is no reason why it should be paid for by the tax payer. Servers, bandwidth, and application development, all need to be paid for. Your mums have probably never used it, they shouldn't have to pay for it.

[breakaway]

I don't know what you are all whinging about. If want to use it, you can pay for it. There is no reason why it should be paid for by the tax payer. Servers, bandwidth, and application development, all need to be paid for. Your mums have probably never used it, they shouldn't have to pay for it.

The 16c fee per trasnaction is just like the toll roads $2 fee for motorcycles. Most people think the fee is there to recoup costs of building the road, but in reality, it's just a way to do load balancing:

They are actually a part of a recognised government strategy of road pricing, which in turn is part of a strategy of Travel Demand Management. (Google it)

NZTA does NOT want to upgrade their infrastructure (currently, CarJam queries are raping the shit out of it), so they add this fee.

I would not be surprised if NZTA's IT infrastructure and systems are older than the dinosaurs and can't stand up to the load that carjam / checka etc putting on them.

[mikemike104]

I found out today, Motochek instead of charging $3.07 per vehicle check and more for an ownership history, from the first of Jan will lower their vehicle check and ownership history requests to $0.18 and $0.21 respectively ! cheap stuff !!

So I do look forward to finding out what CarJam intend to charge as in theory it has to be dearer than the above due to the Turners values (if they continue to offer them as part of the Carjam report).

Whichever way you look at it it's cheap I reckon and its infomation we must have so no matter the price the user will still happily pay it.

[Stormer]

Lame.
Typical... NZ middle class public getting ripped of yet again.
As pointed out before, it`s real handy in checking out any suspect vehicles hanging around.