WHOLELIFE cost calculations proved crucial in non-profit-making Midlands Foster Care Association switching its expanding 150-car fleet to Toyota. The independent Bromsgrove-based fostering agency is switching from Peugeot with some Nissans to Toyota with about 100 vehicles expected to be ordered in the first 12 months of the new full maintenance contract hire deal.

The organisation takes care of about 500 children and employs almost 200 staff, mostly social workers, who claim Toyota's new generation petrol engines are as fuel-efficient as the diesel-engined cars they replace. MFCA financial director Steve Dolphin said: 'We have no experience of managing a fleet of vehicles and no internal resources to do so, so we have always relied on a contract hire company to do it for us. But following problems with the previous supplier the company decided to seek a solution through Dial Contract Hire and its vehicle management service Barclays Vehicle Management Service.

'Vehicles are normally replaced within two-and-a-half years. We needed full maintenance contract hire because we didn't want our staff to have to cope with breakdowns and servicing themselves. Dial did a very good presentation on how we could manage the fleet better with a one or two-badge policy. Wholelife costs were examined rigorously. We narrowed it down to Peugeot, Toyota and Vauxhall and found that with Toyota the prices were right and so was the range of vehicles.'