Automotive Discussion

Post a Response

Courtesy Cars

Posted by MARK DUHIGG on March 22, 2007, 7:02 am

Good Morning all
I have a 8 year old fiesta I used as a courtesy car! The lease companys that use me are now saying courtesy cars must be less than 2 years old and I think I do need to upgrade.
I am intrested to know how other garages go about this.
Do you charge the customer for the use of courtesy car?
Do you lease the car or buy?
I am thinking of leaseing one for £94.95 per month.Do you know of cheaper?
If you do lease how do you insure it?
Cheers
Mark

Re: Courtesy Cars

Posted by Kevin Apps on March 22, 2007, 7:01 pm, in reply to "Courtesy Cars"

Mark
See if you can get a good deal on BUYING a skoda fabia over 3 year,s.
Kevin.

Re: Courtesy Cars

Posted by Graham Clark on March 22, 2007, 7:32 pm, in reply to "Courtesy Cars"

I run six courtesy vehicles, 4 Renault Clios and 2 Peugeot Partner vans which have all got our company livery on.

I have recently bought 2 new Clio 1.2i 3dr Campus, which cost £6300 inc vat with a 3 year warranty. I dont allow staff to use the cars for private use, so I am able to recover the vat content legally (approx £900). So car costs £5400.00 (plus vat) OTR, I keep the cars 3 years, if you use the £100 figure, cost over 3 year is £3600.00, so if I get £2200.00 + VAT back I break even, (the cars realistically are worth about £3000 inc vat).

I know that I will incurr maintenance and road tax cost over annual leasing but I prefer to buy that lease, as I dont have any HASSLE at term end over stone chips/dings/other damage which can run into hundreds of pounds.

We make no charge for the use of the vehicles, which gives us an edge over our competition. I know it is a huge cost, but as a customer service, I know our customers really appreciate the use of the vehicles.

Sorry for the long winded reply.
Graham

Re: Courtesy Cars

Posted by Dave Harney on March 22, 2007, 10:38 pm, in reply to "Re: Courtesy Cars"

We lease nissan micra's for 116 quid a month, give them out free to customers, who must replace the fuel they use and also sign our insurance declaration that they will be responsible for the first 250 quid of any insurance claim.
Have to say though, that this year will be the last time we use nissan, as the reliability this time has been very poor, one car has been back to dealer 5 times in 3 months for the same fault and the support from nissan and the dealer has been nil.

Hope this helps (even if it only keeps you away from nissans
Regards
Dave

Re: Courtesy Cars

Posted by martin young on March 22, 2007, 10:47 pm, in reply to "Re: Courtesy Cars"

funny how they werent so good after a certain french company took them over

martin

Re: Courtesy Cars

Posted by Andrew West on March 24, 2007, 11:16 pm, in reply to "Re: Courtesy Cars"

I have one Ford Ka (52reg) courtesy car & a Landrover Discovery (P reg V8)for my own use,which i also use as a courtesy car when needed,(which is most of the time).I charge them both out at £10 /day & get the customers to sign a form to say that they will refill with fuel that they have used,pay the first £500 damage,pay any speeding fines etc.
Quite often the cars are returned empty or i am told "i only went to so & so & didn't see any petrol station.The Ford Ka was an ex demonstrator when we got it in as new condition.Within the first 3 or 4 uses there was quite a bit of damage & one time it was returned so low on fuel,that my wife ran out driving to the petrol station approx 3 miles away.
Sorry for such a long post,but i think that if you are going to provide a courtesy car, you need to charge to cover damage etc & to be able to replace it.Most customers appreciate the use of the car & realise that hiring a car for the day is a lot more hastle & costs more & also usually it is more convenient than having to get a lift etc.I also find that the customers that complain about the cost are a pain in the ass anyway & i usually don't want them to come back.
Kind regards, Andrew

Re: Courtesy Cars

Posted by Tony Sefton on March 25, 2007, 9:13 pm, in reply to "Re: Courtesy Cars"

I have thought about this in the past and not Gone any further due to the costs that I assumed would be involved, And knowing that a lot of damage would be caused to the cars etc, Then I would end up spending more time repairing my own cars rather than customers. If This was a Chargeable Service and the costs could be covered easily, then it would be worthwhile. ?? How much is the Insurance for Loan or hire cars, ?? A lot of Car/van hire places around here Closed down due to escalating costs of insurance etc. ??

Re: Courtesy Cars

Posted by Russell Davey on March 26, 2007, 10:12 am, in reply to "Re: Courtesy Cars"

Hi Tony

In answer to how much hire cars are to insure, we get charged around £825 per car a year. If we have any spare they go out for courtesy as and when required(great if you need to buy some time on an awkward fault)

Russell

Re: Courtesy Cars

Posted by Steve Norman on March 26, 2007, 3:40 pm, in reply to "Re: Courtesy Cars"

Hi All,
We run 3 loan cars, no charge, but built into each job. All are old cars, but well maintained, usually ex customers cars, so all up together for very little money to buy.
Disclaimer in car saying the person who loaned the car is responsible for all costs including fully comp insurance which the customer has to supply.

We have got insurance for loan cars, but don't tell customer, cost £500 extra on motor trades policy.

Being in the middle of no-where, it costs more in time running customers to & fro, than if they drive home in a loan car.

Very little petrol in any of them, they have to put some in (Garage less than a mile away)

Works well for us.

Regards
Steve

« Back to index

[ Automotive Discussion ]