COMPANIES are throwing away hundreds of pounds when selling vehicles at auction by setting 'unrealistic and unachievable' reserve prices for their cars. Fleet managers are failing to learn harsh lessons from more than a year of dropping used car prices - with members of the industry blaming a lack of investment in proper training.

They are still setting unrealistically high prices for their vehicles, according to a major new report on the industry and as a result, large numbers of fleet cars are not selling. This increases holding costs and while vehicles are waiting to be remarketed, they are dropping in value.

According to a joint CAP Motor Research and BCA survey, which examined more than 1,200 vehicles which went through auction, fleets have been benchmarking vehicles above CAP Clean rates, despite their fleet vehicles not being in a condition to warrant a Clean price. A spokesman for BCA said: 'Fleets have put a price on a vehicle and not reacted to the changing market, so when their vehicles come up or sale, they are too expensive and do not sell.'

Bill Carter, editor of Glass's Information Services residual value forecasting product AutoProVision, backed the CAP Motor Research/BCA findings, saying that fleet managers were costing their companies money by wrongly valuing their vehicles. He said: 'A lot of fleets have deskilled fleet management and now the problems are coming home to roost because the staff in place are not coping with the changing market. There will be some hard lessons learned over this.'