How You Can Lease A Car For Less Than Some Of The Largest Fleets.
Thursday, 13. April 2017
I felt certain that I had mentioned this before but having checked back over recent postings I can’t find any reference to this important piece of information. So here goes. Did you know that as a consumer you can sometimes lease cars at much less that some of the biggest fleet users in the country.
Thanks to Stephen Byers, back in 2000 he created the Supply Of New Cars Order which pretty much levelled the playing field as far as new car prices were concerned. The order meant that the prices paid by consumers should be no more than those paid by the biggest fleets in the country subject to certain negotiating advantages.
This was done to stop new car buyers from jumping on the ferry to Belgium or France in order to buy their new cars from a foreign dealer and pocket savings of several thousands of pounds rather than buy overpriced new cars in the UK. The knock on effect was to equalise contract hire rates so you will often find that the rates offered to businesses are the same as those to the consumers on a PCH, simply add on the VAT.
But this is where it gets interesting because there is a little wiggle room and often a window of opportunity to do a better deal than a large company. Let me explain. Let’s say a large fleet operator negotiates with Ford and in those negotiations commits to taking say 200 Ford Mondeos over the next 12 months. They agree a rate of say £225 + VAT per month.
The deliveries would be spread throughout the year and the rate will remain unchanged for the next 12 months. That helps the customer and the supplier to budget accurately over the next year. At some stage during the same 12 months you might consider leasing the same model of Mondeo but most of the time you are quoted say £260 + VAT on a PCH from an independent contract hire provider or Ford (I’m just using them as an example).
However, at some stage through the year Ford finds that they have stocks of Mondeos in their various storage pounds with a new model due to arrive at their dealers in 3 months’ time. In order to move them they offer them to the independent leasing companies at a huge discount resulting in PCH and business contract hire rates of say £195 + VAT so for that short window of time consumers and SME’s are able to lease cars at less than some of the largest fleet users in the UK.
This is an area that I specialise in. I find the deals on cars with extra support applied (that’s discount and bonuses to you and I) for a wide variety of reasons. Could be as mentioned a facelift or totally new model coming out, it could be to fill up the new order book to make sure that production lines continue running (this has often been the case with VW) and some even spend a chunk of their marketing budget to discount new cars going on lease as the best form of car marketing is to actually see them on the road. By Graham Hill
