Thank you to one of our fleet suppliers, Swansway Honda at Bolton (Greater Manchester) for sending through pictures of their new Honda Civic.
A rival to your Ford Focus, VW Golf and Volvo V40, Honda continue to produce more unique and “out-there” product which does not conform to the normal standards of car design and aesthetics.
In a market which continues to be more competitive and is essentially forcing more and more manufacturers to form allegiances or merge, being able to stand out with a unique proposition is becoming increasingly difficult.
The onset of further conversations on the right fuel to proceed with is creating even more obstacles and considerations for manufacturers in the UK market. Honda have already suggested the closure of certain dealerships in addition to their UK plant/manufacturing base in the UK.
Will Honda be in the UK long-term? Can the leasing market help them to get their product on the roads? For more information on the latest Honda leasing deals just get in touch with the Car Lease team – they haven’t left our shores yet!
The car shown is one which is in “preparation” awaiting delivery for a customer and is great illustration of the process a vehicle goes through.
How quickly can I get my new lease car? Unlike a dealership we don’t hold any stock on our premises or at a holding compound. What this means in practice is that we cannot offer any immediate or next-day car deliveries for our customers. You might be left thinking – “that doesn’t seem very good service”. However, what you probably don’t appreciate is the time and effort which gets invested in order to bring about the delivery of that vehicle. When you successfully pass a credit check (sometimes referred to as the “proposal” stage) you will be asked to sign an official order with us.
This will reflect the actual car which is being ordered and delivered to you.
Once you have done this we then need to complete two important things: 1) finance documents with the relevant finance company; and 2) order the vehicle with the supplying dealer.
In relation to the order with the dealership, we will place an official order to say to them that you (or the business) requires that vehicle and we will indicate which finance company the vehicle will be registered to. As contract hire is a usership based product, the vehicle is registered to the finance company and they are the registered owner and keeper of the vehicle.
How quickly they can turn the vehicle around will depend on the status – is this a stock vehicle? Is it at a UK port? Is at a foreign port? Is this a factory order deal?
In answering these queries, you will quickly understand how long you need to wait for your vehicle. If you need a bespoke Range Rover in a certain colour/specification, then this will be built at a factory for you and could take anywhere between 3-6 months to arrive with you. Clearly, building a car is not an automatic and next-day style process. However, if a vehicle is in stock with the dealer, or at a UK port, the transition to you will be much quicker. However, you need to understand is that there will be a logistic process of moving the car through a pre-delivery inspection and then the vehicle will have to be physically delivered to you. This does take time and can often be between 7-14 days.
For our regulated customers (personal, sole trader and partnership) there is another consideration – your cooling-off period. As part of the various consumer protection laws in the UK (Consumer Credit Act, Credit Directive, Contract Regulations and the Distance Marketing Regulations) there are certain time strictures. As we are looking at a “non” face-to-face proposition you are afforded 14 days (starting on the day after you sign an order) in which to cancel the transaction with us and then consequently with the finance company. This is a tri-partite agreement. Where a customer asks us to deliver a vehicle within the cooling-off period, they place us in a tricky position as they are effectively entitled to cancel the order with us notwithstanding the vehicle being delivered to them.
As a result, unless the customer is able to leave a holding deposit, as a gesture of good faith, or is someone we already know this is something we might not be able to offer due to the risks it presents.
Bear in mind that if you are outside your cooling-off period with us (the broker) but not the finance company and you cancel, we may charge you a cancellation fee which is equivalent to 3 x the monthly rentals. The 14 day period will apply with the finance documentation you sign for the finance company and therefore you need to sign these as soon as possible. Failure to do so can result in there being further delays.
The crucial point to note in the process is that you need to tell the leasing broker or finance company if you have a certain time requirements. Do not presume that a car, or van, will be delivered within a certain timescale. Organising all of the above takes a huge amount of systems, process and people-hours to arrange and this needs to be considered by our customers at the outset. Of course we all want you to receive your vehicle as soon as possible but as part of treating customers fairy and meeting their needs and requirements, we have to ensure a professional and efficient service is delivered.
In terms of the car shown here, the Honda CIVIC HATCHBACK 1.5 VTEC Turbo Sport 5dr (Petrol/Manual), this is based on the following configuration:
· Rallye Red Solid Paint
· Cloth – Black
· 17″ alloy wheels
As standard the car includes vehicle stability assist, apple car play/android auto, Bluetooth, adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning , front and rear parking sensors, lane departure warning system, lane keep assist, rear parking camera, traffic sign recognition, 7” touch screen, automatic retractable mirrors, body coloured externals, 2 x YSB, Garmin sat nav, DAB radio, dual exhaust pipes, automatic coming/leaving home lighting function, headlights washers, LED headlights/running lights/fog lights, climate control, leather steering wheel, ambient lighting, electric lumbar adjustment for driver, 17” alloys, immobiliser, super locks and an ultrasonic alarm system.
Apart from alloys and paint colour, there are no further additional factory options you can add to the vehicle.
On the technical-side company car and business users can note the P11d at £23,550 and CO2 at 128g/km. The 1498CC 6 speed manual petrol engine delivers 50.4 combined MPG (EC), 46.3 (WLTP), 182ps and 0-62 times of 8.2 seconds.
So would you select the Civic as your next car leasing deal? Or as Honda’s Civic had its day in the UK?
