Maintenance: bundle or debundle?

Fleets at the Fleet200 Strategy Network meeting at Kenwood Hall Hotel, Sheffield, on whether to include maintenance in lease arrangements or to debundle it and embrace a pay-as-you-go model.

During a roundtable discussion, those that bunded it cited reasons of convenience and the security of fixed monthly payments.

However, this approach could mean an organisation is incurring unnecessary expense, warned another.

“We split it out so we could then manage the cost,” said one fleet manager. “As an example, prior to the debundling we were getting charged £25 per vehicle for tyre maintenance, contributing to a monthly maintenance payment of £150 to £180.

“That’s ludicrous, so all new leases now are PAYG maintenance.”

Fleet managers also felt that because leasing companies are risk averse, they have bumped up the prices for maintenance for EVs.

“However, it’s now transpiring that a lot of cars under lease aren’t requiring any maintenance at all,” said a fleet manager.