Thank you to our car rental partners, Enterprise (at Leigh Greater Manchester), for allowing us to photograph one of their newest additions to the fleet – the Renault Clio hatchback.
As we have been discussing recently, it is very important to make clear distinctions between the different finance products which are available in the UK automotive market. This confusion can cause some customers to sign up for the wrong product for their needs and requirements.
At CarLease UK we make it very clear to customers exactly what the financial product is (contract hire/personal contract purchase/finance lease) and how this affects the customer (customer cannot buy the vehicle/fixed contract/set mileage)
With Enterprise, they are a car hire organisation as opposed to a credit broker offering contract hire and leasing.
What is the difference between car hire and leasing? Enterprise are focused very much on car hire, which essentially means they offer daily and weekly solutions to personal and business customers on cars and vans.
With car hire there are no long-term fixed contracts and you have the ability to include all maintenance and insurance, nor do you have to complete any credit checks.
Using car hire is therefore a more flexible and comprehensive solution in comparison to contract hire. We find that many businesses will use this with new employees on a probationary period.
When a business has a new starter employee, they will often run a probationary period of 3 – 6 months which must be completed before certain benefits are offered to them, for example a new company car. With contract hire, the business is contracting to a 2, 3 or 4 year fixed contract which is fixed. What this means is that if the employee left the business after a few months, the car would still be ongoing with the business and the finance company. The only way in which you can terminate a contract hire arrangement is to enter into an early termination – effectively you will pay at an amount equivalent to half of the remaining rentals to return the vehicle.
For a business, if they sign up to a 4 year contract, only for the employee to leave within 3 months’, they would have a substantial bill.
Car hire for a probationary period offers a more flexible solution than leasing, in that there are little to no cost consequences to return the car.
In terms of the car shown, the Renault Clio 0.9 TCE 90 Iconic 5dr (Manual/Petrol), this is based on the following configuration:
· Special Renault ID – Iron Blue
· Style cloth – dark carbon with grey inserts
· 17″ Black alloy wheels
As standard the car includes automatic headlights, automatic windscreen wipers, MediNav with a 7” touch screen, air conditioning, 4 x 20W radio, extra tinted glass on rear windows, hill start assist, Bluetooth, smartphone cradle, rear parking sensors, push button starter, electrically adjustable and heated door mirrors, body coloured externals, LED daytime running lights, DAB radio, 17” black alloys, Thatcham Cat 2 immobiliser, central locking, 60/40 split folding seats and a multi-function steering wheel. In terms of additional factory options, consider the Techno Pack, space saver spare wheel and the parking pack. Alternatively, upgrade to the GT Line for the nicer specification.
On the technical-side, company car and business users can note the P11d at £15,725.00 and CO2 at 114g/km. The 898CC 5 speed manual petrol engine delivers 56.5 combined MPG (EC), 47.1 combined MPG (WLTP) 90ps and 0-62 times of 12.1 seconds.
So would you select the Renault Clio as your next leasing option? Or would the UK’s best-selling car (the Ford Fiesta), Peugeot 208 or Citroen C3 get your vote?
So why doesn’t every business hire their vehicles? This is very much down the cost. For a long-term solution, car hire is very expensive in comparison to contract hire, particularly for longer term 3 and 4 year contracts. However, what is perhaps causing a little more confusion on this matter is the IASB IFRS 19 changes which comes into effect in January 2019 (i.e. now!). For this year, all current and future lease activity must appear “On Balance Sheet” EXCEPT for items which are less than 12 months in contract length. For a business which is concerned about gearing ratios (investment/sale), there may be an additional incentive to look at car hire.
So is car hire used for personal customers? Of course a personal customer could use car hire as a short term solution – maybe a van is needed for a house move, a 4×4 for the winter or in cases of vehicle breakdown or accidents. In these examples, car hire is a far more practical (albeit expensive) route moving forwards. It would not make sense to take a 2 year contract on a vehicle, if you only need a 1 month solution. What is adding even more confusion are those companies now advertising “leasing” on Instagram and Facebook with pictures of luxury and prestige vehicles. These are being marketing as no-commitment 12 month leasing deals and which do not need credit checks. To confirm, these are not contract hire solutions, in most cases these are companies offering car hire on an expensive basis. Pretty much all contract hire arrangements are credit based and anyone advertising it as such are not being legitimate. As such, proceed with caution.
Using car hire or contract hire is essentially a decision to make based on your needs and requirements. For customers needing short-term solutions, car hire is the right product. For those customers needing long-term and cost-effective solutions, contract hire is the right route forwards.
Find the webs best deals on the Renault Clio @CarLease UK – or – check out more small hatchback cars below…
