A company car question

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anonymous-user

Original Poster:

55 months

Friday 23rd September 2016
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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.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

55 months

Friday 23rd September 2016
quotequote all
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

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 23 September 20:36

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

55 months

Friday 23rd September 2016
quotequote all
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.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

55 months

Sunday 25th September 2016
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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.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

55 months

Tuesday 27th September 2016
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use the revenue fixed mileage scheme and go with the car allowance, 3 year old car over 2 liter. you will get all your allowance and the 25 p per mile tax free. Last time I worked in the UK i ran a 3 year old 7 serieson the scheme after tax I was better off, and had a nice car.