Hello and welcome to the March issue of Fleettorque, brought to you by Fleetcare.

Adding a tint to the windows of your vehicle can make driving safer and more comfortable and even save you money.

Keep cool: tinted windows can reduce the temperature inside your car by as much as 60% on hot summer days, so that means you can turn down the air con and save on fuel too.

Protect from sun damage: car tint is sunscreen for your car and can block 99% of the sun's harmful UV rays, so 'red arm' is a thing of the past. It also stops your upholstery from fading and keeps your car looking newer for longer, adding to its resale value.

Cut glare: sun and oncoming headlights can dazzle the driver and add to fatigue, but tinting can reduce glare by as much as 60%, making driving much safer.

Hold broken glass: tinting can help shattered glass hold together, reducing the risk to the occupants of a car in a smash.

Increase security: if thieves can't see what's in the car they are less likely to break in and steal it, so tinting helps cut down on opportunistic thefts. Security films make it hard for intruders or vandals to break the windows too.

Look good: tinted windows improve the look of a vehicle and that can be translated into dollars when you come to sell.

If you fancy tinted windows, here's your chance to get them for free. Enter our competition to WIN FREE TINTING for your vehicle - simply reply to this email with your top five reasons to tint your vehicle. The best response will win their choice of any legal vehicle tinting available courtesy of Instant Windscreens. Competition closes 12pm WST Friday 6 March 2009, winners will be notified by email.

If you don't win, you can always take advantage of Instant Windscreen's car tinting discount offer. Go to www.instantwin.com.au/Voucher.html, print the coupon to receive a $25 discount on your car window tinting and remember to bring the voucher into your nearest Instant Windscreens branch to claim your discount.

Go to www.instantwin.com.au for store locations or click through to Fleetcare Finder and search your nearest store by postcode. Discount only valid on full tints.

Keep an eye on your local new car showroom and you'll find it hard to believe there's a global economic slow-down happening. Throughout 2009 we can expect to see nearly 100 new vehicles arrive on Australia shores, and more than half will be brand new or next-generation.

The new car set to make the biggest stir when it gets here mid-year is the new Mazda3. The current 3 is the best-selling car in Australia among private buyers and its second-generation model promises more refinement. But a highlight for 2009 is sure to be the arrival of the all-new Nissan GT-R, the Japanese sports car known as Godzilla. It'll launch here in April as Nissan's global flagship model, fully loaded with twin-turbo charged V6 power and all-wheel-drive traction.

There's sure to be a battle of the hybrids this year too as Honda takes on the new, third-generation Toyota Prius which will be here in June, with a second-generation Insight due to arrive in November. But there are plenty of other newcomers sure to make waves in the car market. Ford will launch the cool new Fiesta, Suzuki will introduce the country's cheapest car, the Alto, priced from $12,990, Alfa Romeo will take on Mini with the Mito, Subaru will offer diesel power for the first time in the new Outback, Volkswagen will release the sixth-generation Golf, Porsche will put a four-door sports car in its showrooms, and American luxury brand Cadillac returns to Australia after a 41-year absence.

It's going to be quite a year.

It's more than a century since Henry Ford advertised his first motor car for sale in any colour as long as it was black, but according to a recent Swedish study in doing so Ford could have been boosting his customers' chances of having an accident.

When researchers analysed annual road accident data in Sweden, they discovered that black cars were involved in 22.5% of 31,000 crashes, despite the fact that only 4.4% of the country's vehicles are painted black. Their staggering conclusion was that black cars were five times more likely to crash than other colours of car.

So what is the safest car colour to choose? The Swedish researchers found that pink cars were involved in fewer accidents, although studies in the US have calculated that US Postal vehicles painted red, white and blue were involved in 27% fewer crashes than those painted drab olive. The red, white and blue vehicles were involved in 622 crashes while the olive vehicles were involved in 849 crashes.

According to research by Daimler-Benz, white is the easiest colour to be seen and therefore the safest to drive on the road. White rated 86% for safety in their tests while black, dark red and dark blue rated only 4%.

However, visibility is not the only factor as that can change depending on the condition of the weather and the road, the type of landscape and the time of day, says The US National Safety Council. Generally, bright and brilliant colours are much safer than dark colours because they reflect more light and can be seen from up to four times the distance of vehicles painted a dark colour.

The Safety Council noted that white is the most visible colour in uniform lighting, but it has low visibility on a light coloured road in bright sunlight and in snow and fog. So its definition of the safest colour is 'one that is highly visible in the widest range of lighting, weather and vision conditions'.

After white, Daimler-Benz's research plumped for aqua blue, shades of yellow and signal red as generally the safest car colours on the road.

It's no wonder there are some confused faces at the pump these days. With such a choice of fuel on offer, which is right for your vehicle?

For drivers puzzled by the selection of unleaded fuels, the advice is that the vast majority of cars in Australia will run perfectly well on ordinary unleaded.

High performance engines, especially those with high compression ratios may need a premium fuel and other engines may produce slightly more power if a premium fuel is used.

Put simply, if your car has a carburettor, stick to ordinary unleaded. If your car is fuel injected with an engine management system (computer), then using a premium fuel may be cost effective and may give more performance, but most will be quite happy on ordinary unleaded.