Six-year-old company cars are likely to become the norm, according to the latest research seen exclusively by Fleet News.

The vast majority of fleet managers who buy their vehicles already keep them for at least four years with many now planning to extend their working lives past five years.

Over 92% of diesel car fleets now run their cars for at least four years, with 54% running them for five years or more.

For petrol fleets, the numbers are similar – 91% for four years or more and 51% for fives year or longer.

Just 4% replace them after the typical three-year lifecycle, making the average working life of a company car now 4.6 years.

In 2005, just 3.4% of fleets surveyed by Sewells for its 2009 Fleet Operator Attitude Survey kept their vehicles for five years or more, this dropped to 1.4% in 2006, before rising sharply to 10% in 2007 and on to over 50% last year.

And this trend is predicted to continue, with six-year-old company cars likely to become the norm for outright purchase fleets after 73% of fleet decision-makers questioned confirmed that they are considering postponing the replacement of their company cars even further.

This could have massive implications for manufacturers – 52% of new car sales are to fleets. Just five years ago, most fleets – 56% – kept their cars for between three and four years, which meant a regular cycle of renewal that manufacturers could rely on.

This dynamic has now changed dramatically.
Just 50% of diesel cars are now de-fleeted before they reach the critical 100,000-mile mark, while 38% of petrol company cars exceed 100k before being sent to auction.

This is in sharp contrast to the working life of leased company cars, where the average age before de-fleet is still less than three-and-a-half years. According to Manheim the average age of an ex-lease car entered into its auctions last month was 41 months with just 58,000 miles on the clock.

The findings are part of the latest Sewells research, which questioned 657 fleet decision makers who between them manage at least 94,000 cars.

The survey focused on companies that own their vehicles, either by outright purchase or hire purchase.

A fifth (22%) of those questioned also said they had, or would be, reducing the size of their car fleet, either by cutting back on the number of company cars allocated, or by reducing headcount of employees who qualified for a company car.

The research focussed on senior management directly responsible for buying and running their company’s fleet.

Of those that responded, 35% were fleet or transport managers, while a further 42% were senior managers or directors directly responsible for the acquisition and operation of their business cars.