A company car question
Discussion
Hi all
The company I work for has recently been bought out and our contracts moved over under TUPE. All fine so far, no problems.
However I have a company car and the new company operates different rules to my old employer.
My old company allowed you to choose any car you wanted within a certain set of rules and up to a maximum budget. All the people in our section would arrange our own deals with dealers or drive the deal type places and often obtain a very good discount. The company would then step in and pay the dealer/website/whatever on our behalf.
My current car is a Skoda Superb 1.6 TDI SE. The new company gets cars though a lease company. My car is up for renewal and most of the cars on the list are small superminis or bottom of the range family hatchbacks. Whilst there are one or two possible options (out of the 30 or so choices) they are not comparable to my current car.
How would you play the situation? I am currently thinking of trying to see if they will allow me to choose a car on the list, but take it up a few trim levels to be more in keeping with my current car. Do you think that this is a reasonable approach? Are there any parts of TUPE which might help in this area?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts or opinions that you might have.
SSC.
The company I work for has recently been bought out and our contracts moved over under TUPE. All fine so far, no problems.
However I have a company car and the new company operates different rules to my old employer.
My old company allowed you to choose any car you wanted within a certain set of rules and up to a maximum budget. All the people in our section would arrange our own deals with dealers or drive the deal type places and often obtain a very good discount. The company would then step in and pay the dealer/website/whatever on our behalf.
My current car is a Skoda Superb 1.6 TDI SE. The new company gets cars though a lease company. My car is up for renewal and most of the cars on the list are small superminis or bottom of the range family hatchbacks. Whilst there are one or two possible options (out of the 30 or so choices) they are not comparable to my current car.
How would you play the situation? I am currently thinking of trying to see if they will allow me to choose a car on the list, but take it up a few trim levels to be more in keeping with my current car. Do you think that this is a reasonable approach? Are there any parts of TUPE which might help in this area?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts or opinions that you might have.
SSC.
No, my contract does not make any statement regarding a company car (and never has). If it makes any difference, I have always had a company car since I the first day I started my job at the 'old' company and they had always been provided and replaced under the same 'deal'.
Thanks
Thanks
Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 23 September 20:36
Skodasupercar said:
No, my contract does not make any statement regarding a company car. If it makes any difference, I have always had a company car since I the first day I started my job at the 'old' company and they had always been replaced under the same 'deal'.
Thanks
The contract would have helped. TUPE is one thing, but being helpful to the newco might just stand you in a better place.Thanks
I know, its a bit of a quandary.
On one hand I don't want to 'down grade' if I can help it and if I don't have to, but on the other hand I don't want to be seen to be a difficult or greedy git!
I am kind of thinking if you don't ask you don't get, and they can say no! If they said no, I wouldn't cause a fuss, I would just accept and pick the most fun car on the currently offered list.
On one hand I don't want to 'down grade' if I can help it and if I don't have to, but on the other hand I don't want to be seen to be a difficult or greedy git!
I am kind of thinking if you don't ask you don't get, and they can say no! If they said no, I wouldn't cause a fuss, I would just accept and pick the most fun car on the currently offered list.
Skodasupercar said:
I know, its a bit of a quandary.
On one hand I don't want to 'down grade' if I can help it and if I don't have to, but on the other hand I don't want to be seen to be a difficult or greedy git!
I am kind of thinking if you don't ask you don't get, and they can say no! If they said no, I wouldn't cause a fuss, I would just accept and pick the most fun car on the currently offered list.
On one hand I don't want to 'down grade' if I can help it and if I don't have to, but on the other hand I don't want to be seen to be a difficult or greedy git!
I am kind of thinking if you don't ask you don't get, and they can say no! If they said no, I wouldn't cause a fuss, I would just accept and pick the most fun car on the currently offered list.
ask nicely & see what happens. Good luckDo you not get an allowance/expected rate to aim at?
I'm sure there are almost as many variations of schemes as companies running them; for comparison: My employers scheme is you can have a car from the selected list of manufacturers up to your allowance - if you want something that the lease rate is higher (by up to £100/month I think is the limit) you can do that, but you pay the extra rate. I suppose that stops people going totally daft.
The manufacturer list used to be BMW/Merc/Ford/Toyota, but in the last year or so it seems to have changed to include Volkswagen and maybe Vauxhall and dropped Toyota, but also suggestion is that as we're now using parent companies scheme that it could be derestricted on manufacturer. The curve ball that almost defeated my preferred option was that there are also eco limits: so threshold for g/CO2 that you can go for, but in the end that was fine and I even got the car far sooner than expected (about 6 weeks rather than 20 or so that was quoted).
The alternative that I'd also expect is the option of a cash allowance instead of the car: in which case go and get the car you want with the money.
I'm sure there are almost as many variations of schemes as companies running them; for comparison: My employers scheme is you can have a car from the selected list of manufacturers up to your allowance - if you want something that the lease rate is higher (by up to £100/month I think is the limit) you can do that, but you pay the extra rate. I suppose that stops people going totally daft.
The manufacturer list used to be BMW/Merc/Ford/Toyota, but in the last year or so it seems to have changed to include Volkswagen and maybe Vauxhall and dropped Toyota, but also suggestion is that as we're now using parent companies scheme that it could be derestricted on manufacturer. The curve ball that almost defeated my preferred option was that there are also eco limits: so threshold for g/CO2 that you can go for, but in the end that was fine and I even got the car far sooner than expected (about 6 weeks rather than 20 or so that was quoted).
The alternative that I'd also expect is the option of a cash allowance instead of the car: in which case go and get the car you want with the money.
Not really.
The new scheme you pick a specific make and model from a pre-approved list (depending on your position within the business). For instance, cars like an A1, Fabia, Ford Ecosport, Mazda 2, Corsa etc. There some larger options like Astra and Mazda 3 but only a few and all bottom of the range (other than the Astra, but I detest Vauxhalls).
They do offer a car allowance, but the rate is not enough to get anything decent and leave enough fat in the balance for covering unforeseen problems. The standard car allowance rate is £250 plus 25ppm. I do up to 20k combined miles per year so lots of the cheep lease deals are no good (due to 8k or 10k miles PA). I don't want to run second hand really as I don't want to have to deal with the potential unforeseen bork factor.
The new scheme you pick a specific make and model from a pre-approved list (depending on your position within the business). For instance, cars like an A1, Fabia, Ford Ecosport, Mazda 2, Corsa etc. There some larger options like Astra and Mazda 3 but only a few and all bottom of the range (other than the Astra, but I detest Vauxhalls).
They do offer a car allowance, but the rate is not enough to get anything decent and leave enough fat in the balance for covering unforeseen problems. The standard car allowance rate is £250 plus 25ppm. I do up to 20k combined miles per year so lots of the cheep lease deals are no good (due to 8k or 10k miles PA). I don't want to run second hand really as I don't want to have to deal with the potential unforeseen bork factor.
Yeah, when you are racking up the miles you want/need to be comfortable, plus decent economy for the miles you have to pay for yourself!
As someone else has said, no harm in asking - all you are wanting to replace like-for-like, so you'd like to think rates should be similar. Lease rates do seem to vary in odd ways at times, I was amazed my new car lease rate is less than the previous one, so has cost me less over the standard rate allowance.
Like you, I seem to clock up the miles, already approaching 8k and only got it at the end of May!
Good luck in nudging them into seeing things your way.
As someone else has said, no harm in asking - all you are wanting to replace like-for-like, so you'd like to think rates should be similar. Lease rates do seem to vary in odd ways at times, I was amazed my new car lease rate is less than the previous one, so has cost me less over the standard rate allowance.
Like you, I seem to clock up the miles, already approaching 8k and only got it at the end of May!
Good luck in nudging them into seeing things your way.
I was in a similar position a couple of years ago, I had opted out of the company car scheme a few years earlier because my job involves some minor off roading and I didn't fancy a Toyota Hi Lux as my everyday run around.
When I TUPE'd to the new company I discovered that a company car is part of the package however it was a crappy 1.3 Astra which I and my team were expected to use in place of the 4x4's we were used to. The new company were completely inflexible on this and two years on and following one of the guys sending a monthly email to the directors showing his car in various fields, forests and mountains, despite the fact they've spent a fortune replacing all the bits that have been damaged, in one case a whole rear bumper got ripped off, there is not going to be any change to the company car scheme.
Your new employer may be more amenable but there is nothing in TUPE that will help you here.
When I TUPE'd to the new company I discovered that a company car is part of the package however it was a crappy 1.3 Astra which I and my team were expected to use in place of the 4x4's we were used to. The new company were completely inflexible on this and two years on and following one of the guys sending a monthly email to the directors showing his car in various fields, forests and mountains, despite the fact they've spent a fortune replacing all the bits that have been damaged, in one case a whole rear bumper got ripped off, there is not going to be any change to the company car scheme.
Your new employer may be more amenable but there is nothing in TUPE that will help you here.
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