Rental companies are buying late-plate used cars to bolster their fleets as manufacturers cut off the supply of new cars.

Manufacturers have reduced global production levels as demand from the public and from fleets dried up. They have also been diverting vehicles away from the UK due to the fall in the value of sterling against the euro which has hit the profit margins of every car sold in this country.

The speed with which countries like Germany, Italy and Spain introduced scrappage schemes has persuaded some manufacturers to switch production from right-hand drive to left-hand drive to satisfy rising demand in those countries.

In addition, the introduction from next month of the UK scrappage scheme will further exacerbate the supply shortage faced by rental companies, say experts.

“Rental companies will be on a real starvation diet this summer,” said Adrian Rushmore, managing editor at Glass’s.

“They have been jumping on decent late-plate cars because of these supply problems.”

Mark Hankey, BCA sales director, added: “We’ve never known rental companies to be in the used market, but they can’t get hold of cars.”

Rental firms have already been extending their replacement cycles (Fleet News, April 23). Some experts believe they will need to consider 18-month change cycles as supply is further squeezed this year.

Enterprise has sourced used vehicles, but stressed it had not purchased vehicles from auctions.

“The most important thing is that we aim our vehicles at the profile of our customers’ requirements,” said Spencer King, corporate communications manager at Enterprise – Europe.

“The customer experience is no different to that which you would experience in any of our vehicles.

“We have one of the newest fleets available and customer service is the essence of this business.”

King stressed that any used vehicles entering their fleet would be of a similar age to its existing offering.

Budget Rent-a-Car and Europcar both told Fleet News that they were not sourcing used vehicles.