Vehicle change cycles for rental companies’ cars will continue rising this year and could peak at around 12 months.

Traditional change cycles are four to six months but the BVRLA said this had already risen to nine or 10 months due to rising prices and manufacturers restricting supply.

John Lewis, BVRLA chief executive, said: “We will see longer rental cycle periods because it is being driven by the manufacturers cutting supply. If the Exchange Rate doesn’t change dramatically, the change cycle will stretch to 12 months.”

Longer change cycles will mitigate the need for rental companies to raise the rates paid by fleets, but has implications for residual values and maintenance costs which might be passed onto fleets.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car has already moved from a sub six-month change cycle to around eight months and it expects this to rise further as manufacturers restrict supply into the rental industry.

“Everyone will have to pay a bit more for their cars; if we have to pay more, fleets will have to pay more – it will change the pricing structure,” said Jim Burrell, Enterprise Rent-A-Car senior vice president of European Operations.

“Although the underlying rental business is pretty good, when manufacturers aren’t doing well it’s difficult for everyone else to do well.”

While it is “unlikely” that rental rates charged to fleets would double, Burrell believes the smaller buyers of rental days will be hit first and hardest.

“If you don’t buy a lot of volume or you don’t have a long-term contract agreement, you will be more exposed to bigger prices increases,” he said.

“Fleets looking to protect themselves against rental price increases should establish closer relationships with fewer suppliers and longer-term contracts to raise volumes.”