Honda Accord

Honda has been named by Fleet News magazine as the most reliable car manufacturer in their annual vehicle reliability survey. Data is collated from the top FN50 UK leasing companies who run in excess of 1.0 million vehicles, with their multi-marque fleets of cars and vans.

Graham Avent, Manager-Corporate Operations at Honda (UK), said,”Winning the FN50 most reliable manufacturer accolade is a huge boost for Honda in the Corporate market. What makes it so important is the survey size- it’s great to know that out of over one million drivers, the Honda brand comes out on top”. Mr Avent went on to say,”The Civic’s top ten placing is also a great endorsement for our plant in Swindon that makes 85 per cent of the cars we sell in the UK. Honda has proven that British manufacturing continues to produce class-leading product for the fleet market. The Honda Accord was placed as second most reliable car and Honda business car leasing is readily available off the site now.

Ford vans

Every year, the top 50 leading contract hire and leasing companies, who all run multi-marque fleets, rate vehicles according to breakdowns per 100 of each model. This annual survey is conducted by Fleet News, one the UK’s leading fleet news publications. Ford was voted top manufacturer for van reliability with the Ford Transit named as the most reliable van for the fourth year running. The Ford Transit Connect was also in third place for the second year running.

The annual reliability survey is based on the top UK leasing company vehicle fleets, which together operate over 1,000,000 vehicles and this year, data was provided on 840,000 cars and 183,000 vans. Stephen Briers, editor of Fleet News said,”Businesses that depend on vehicles take reliability very seriously, and can’t afford downtime through breakdowns and incur extra costs.This is the largest reliability survey of its kind, so any vehicle with a top 10 placing will represent a safe bet for any organisation or private motorist”.

Volkswagen Golf

Volkswagen has done the double at the Auto Express New Car Awards 2010 picking up two awards. For the second year in a row they have won the “Best Compact Family Car” and Auto Express editor in chief, David Jones said: “With its classy looks, high-quality cabin and executive car refinement, the Volkswagen still sets the standard. Better still, it’s great to drive, excellent value and has a brilliant range of engines -including innovative turbocharged TSI petrol units”.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI retained the “Best Hot Hatch” award and David Johns commented: “There are rivals that are faster and more eye-catching, but few can match the Golf’s all-round ability and appeal. Its smooth 2.0-litre engine delivers perfectly judged performance,while its composed chassis mixes comfort and composure in equal measure. Plus it comes in three and five-door bodystyles, and with manual and twin-clutch DSG transmissions”.

These awards are now added to the Golf’s growing list of accolades, with other titles presented already presented this year by Fleet News, Top Gear, Diesel Car, BusinessCar and What Car?. Volkswagen Golf business contract hire is on the site now with prices on all new models available.

Fleet managers will be interested to know that Brake, the UK road safety charity, has launched a new website to provide fleets with a “one stop shop” for fleet safety advice, information and resources. The website covers subjects like eco driving, duty of care issues, driver tiredness, forthcoming fleet events, latest fleet news, best practise case studies and a full range of e-learning tools and other resources.

The site is being sponsored by Balfour Beatty Plant & Fleet Services and is available to all subscribers of Brake’s Fleet Safety Forum, which is a non-profit facility aimed at helping companies manage their occupational road risk. Subscription to the forum costs £115+VAT per annum and you can subscribe online at their website. 

Roz Cumming, Fleet Safety Forum Manager at Brake said,”The new site gives fleets a valuable range of information and resources, all in one place, to help them improve safety and save lives. We urge fleets to join our community of safety conscious organisations and sign up today at www.fleetsafetyforum.org, to get full access to this important web portal”.

VW Golf

The Volkswagen Golf has been voted as the “Business Car of the Year” by the readers of BusinessCar magazine, a leading UK fleet news publication. The Golf has always been a favourite with business car operators mainly due to its brand appeal, great running costs and also it is a nice car to drive.

BusinessCar Editor, Paul Barker said,”The BusinessCar Awards take the temperature of the corporate arena as they’re decided by those people experiencing and relying on the products and services on a daily basis”. Volkswagen car leasing prices are available now.

The full list of winners is at www.businesscar.co.uk/awards

Ford van

Ford has been named as the most reliable van manufacturer in a survey of more than one million vehicles. The Transit was named as the most reliable van for the third year running with the Transit Connect in third place.

The survey was conducted by Fleet News magazine and polled the UK’s leading vehicle leasing companies who together, run over 1,000,000 vehicles. The leasing companies (many of whom are partners on Comparecontracthire.com) all run multi-marque fleets and they rated vehicles according to breakdowns per 100 of each model.

Car leasing or buying - which is better?

This is always a question that causes a lot of debate and many people just say “I like to buy because you always own the vehicle at the end of three years”. This is true but the bigger question is how much will it be worth? When our finance partners calculate a contract hire rental (or car leasing as it is sometimes called) they set a future residual value. This is calculated by using a number of factors and there will always be variances between each FN50 vehicle leasing company. The depreciation of a particular vehicle is the biggest factor in what the contract hire rental will look like.

If you want to get an idea of the running costs of your future car where can you go to find this information? Well one of the answers would be What Car magazine, who publish running costs and future residual values at the back of their hard copy magazine. If you want to see the data on-line, on all manufacturers and makes, on different mileage parameters, then have a look at the Fleet News website under running costs.

You can drill down to an exact model or just look at a range of cars i.e. Ford Fiestas for example. It’s simple to use and you will get an idea of all running costs including the MRV figure (residual value) which is also shown as a monthly depreciation figure.

This is only a guide but you will see the sorts of residual value variances between different manufacturers and the different maintenance costs as well. The forecasted maintenance costs are displayed as a pence per mile figure under the SMR (Service Maintenance Repair) column. So for example if it shows 2.17p and you travel 10,000 miles a year, your annual servicing and maintenance costs will be approximately £217 per annum.

So before you buy, think about depreciation as none of the MRV (residual value) figures shown are higher than what the car cost at the outset - they will all lose money over time!

This is why it is best to choose your car, when contract hiring, by the monthly rental rather than by how much it costs. You will see some cars that actually cost more to buy, may have a lower rental on contract hire, due to a better residual value.

Fleet News is the UK’s leading motoring publication for the fleet industry and is part of the Bauer Media Group.

The Fleet Van Conference and Awards will take place on September 16 at the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham. This event, which is seen as an essential part of the van fleet industry calendar is also an excellent day for networking for decision makers and suppliers.

During the day, the Conference will focus on the challenges facing van fleet operators and look at some of the best ideas in the industry that have kept costs under control. Later that evening the Awards ceremony will take place. The Fleet Van Awards will cover three key categories: Fleet Managers, Fleet Suppliers and Fleet Manufacturers with some additional Headline Awards closing the event.

Fleet Van (read by over 13,000 people) is the industry leading monthly title for commercial vehicle fleet operators, is the sister title to Fleet News, the weekly paper for fleet decision makers. The deadline for awards entries will be Friday, 24 July, 2009 and more information can be found @

www.fleetvanevent.com