Dilemma

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Wed 19 Aug 2015 13:30
Dilemma - Jes

Hi all, my work circumstances are due to change and I’ve therefore opted to re-join the company car scheme as I’ll be doing around 30k miles a year just to my local office (could be around 38k plus private mileage). My dilemma is what action to take until the company car arrives.

At the moment I’ve got a 64 plate Qashqai 1.5dci Tekna that has 15k miles on it which I own outright. I’m advised that my company car might take 4-5 months to arrive and in the meantime I have to start using my own vehicle for travelling to the office.

I’m not sure I want to put around 2,500 miles a month on the Qashqai as I’d want to sell it once the new car is here and feel the mileage would affect the sale and value. Am I going along the right lines here ?

I was thinking about buying a car £2-3k for the interim period and then disposing of it once the company car is here. In the mean time I could start to sell the Qashqai without the need to accept silly offers.

What type of car should I look at ? Can you rent a car for such a period of time ? Are there any other options I should consider ?

Cheers,

John

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Wed 19 Aug 2015 13:38
Dilemma - RobJP

The extra 10k miles on your Qashqai would, at most, make about £1k difference to the selling price. Probably more like £500-700.

Buying a (probably) heavily used, worn-out car for £2-3k, and expecting it to cope with 2,500 miles a month is really gambling. Entirely possible that you'd have to spend a considerable sum on repairs and maintenance, or even that it would suffer a catastrophic failure. In which case you'd be throwing even more money at it.

Renting a car for that period of time/mileage would not be cheap.

I'd imagine that your cheapest option would be to use the Qashqai and just sell it when your company car arrives.

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Wed 19 Aug 2015 14:16
Dilemma - Engineer Andy

I couldn't have put it better. Tick VG!

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Wed 19 Aug 2015 14:17
Dilemma - 72 dudes

There are companies that specialise in short term rentals. They are usually lease companies as opposed to Hertz/Europcar etc. Google is your friend.

I agree with RobJP that buying a cheap car doesn't make much financial sense and could be a gamble.

As you are re-joining the company car scheme, is there not a pool car they can let you have in the meantime? Or speak diecrectly to the lease company who will provide the company car (assuming it's not an outright purchase).

Can you 'charge' your company for the increased mileage or at least some of it? A friendly word with the boss or the Fleet Manager? Or worst case, claim it back from HMRC next April as business mileage. Mileage to and from a permanent place of work is not classed as business mileage, but if you are having to move premises, more of a grey area which could work in your favour.

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Wed 19 Aug 2015 14:55
Dilemma - Jes

Thanks for the replies so far.

In the old days the company used to provide you with a hire car whilst yours was on order but this is no longer the case. All Company Car activity is now handled by LeasePlan and they say they don't operate a 'pool service'.

There might be a chance I can obtain some compensation for increased daily mileage as part of the base location change, but it will only be minimal (long story that I don't wish to go into).

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Wed 19 Aug 2015 16:52
Dilemma - Wackyracer

Whenever I have looked at cars for sale, The varying mileages between like for like cars has had no bearing on the asking price at all within reason. I'd stick with what Rob said and just use your current car.

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