Understanding the different style products available for purchasing or running your car (or van) is very important as it is important that you make the best decision for meeting your needs and requirements.
With car rental, you are embarking on a daily/weekly hire of a vehicle, with the ability to include insurance. The big advantage to car hire is that it is very flexible and so allows you to return the car at any time and provides an answer to some of the issues which relate to car ownership.
If you need a vehicle for a short-period of time, for example if you are conducting a specific project or if you need a specific vehicle for a weekend, car hire is very much the right product for you to review.
The obvious problem with car hire is that it is expensive compared to contract hire or personal contract purchase type products, so is often not considered to be an ideal solution in the long-term.
You may have a new employee on a probationary period, so you could use car hire for the first 3 months’ and then explore a longer-term product thereafter.
Another growing type of product is a “flexi-lease” which is a medium term product commonly based on a 6 to 12 month term. This is not an ownership product, so like contract hire avoids any requirement for purchasing/selling of cars or organising road fund licences.
Many of the flexible type of leases will allow you to have all your maintenance included (so there are no running costs except fuel and insurance) and can also offer you the ability to swap or upgrade the vehicle during the course of the contract.
This is good for those individuals or businesses who need to swap their vehicles on a more regular basis and enjoy the flexibility of this product. Like contract hire you would not be able to own the vehicle.
While cheaper than car hire, flexi-lease is still more expensive than longer term products like contract hire.
Our main source of funding products are contract hire arrangements. These are 18month – 48 month fixed term arrangements based on a specific mileage and will be based on either a driver-maintained (driver services and maintains vehicle) or funder-maintained (the cost of all servicing and maintenance is included within the agreement) basis.
Contract hire is often much cheaper than car hire or flexi-lease but involves more scrutiny in financial checks/credit-checks and there is no ability to swap or exchange a vehicle during the course of the arrangement.
Contract hire is not a flexible product. Additionally, there is no ability to own the vehicle at the end of the contract.