Financial Tips

The main reason that people con't buy these fuel efficient cars is cost. If you work out the price to own / run the car for 3 years (a common time period these days) then you still have not even broken even on overall cost compared to a similar "non-green" car. I'd love to be proven wrong and things may have changed since I worked it all out late last year but extra cost has to be worth while. I am looking forward to it looking better next time we buy a car. Dnx Hi, Toyota about to release another prius, called prius c which will start from $23,990. The electric cars should be compared with Oz electricity prices in mind, but if owner has solar cells, this will be cheaper. Some of these cars in list are manual versions, not prefered by some drivers. Oz petrol buyer behaviour is such that we will cross the road/do a u turn to save a few cents at another bowser. The BIG cars in Oz are now $30-40K. I can see why diesel SUVs are popular. My daily commute is shared with mostly single occupant cars. The market is there for an organised car pooling scheme, and buyers wanting new $15-25K cars with low fuel use. I'm seeing more i20s, Mazda2s, Yaris, Fiestas, Polos, etc . Melbourne prices over $1.50/litre this week. Perhaps couples/famillies will adopt the one big & one little car 'policy' or we hire big cars when we need one.......but nothing new in that. I would like to see a complete list of cars less than 7litres/100kms. cheers Duncan is on the money. This is little more than a novelty comment. Any fleet manager worth his money would be talking about whole of life cost. If these vehicles have a higher premium cost, higher maintenance cost, excessive downtime because of maintenance issues, and consequently a lower resale cost because of the excessive maintenance and downtime much of the fuel savings are lost and they may in fact be a financial trap. As an example I can recall a particular truck model which used less fuel than its competitors and cost about $5000 less, but required a $15,000 engine build at 80,000 km; the manufacturer had to pull it off the market.

Well put and succinct Rory. One point I would like to re-iterate is that tyres effect most other consumable costs. That is, correct tyre pressues and selection both have an impact on fuel consumption AND servicing cost! Uneven tyre pressures, especially in vehicles carrying load, can incur damage to suspension components (whilst you wont see the difference straight away, once one bushing on on corner wears earlier than the others, with time the difference will become pronounced and break other components). Another flow on effect then becomes braking distance (an obvious safety issue). The most important point though is the create detailed records. Distance travelled and load carried are both important details to record when comparing tyre types utilised within your fleet. Most importantly keep analysing the results of your records for continual improvement. A very clear message Rory. One item i would also like to add is that for a fleet manager or leasing company with a fleet of vehicles the tyre costs can be a high percentage of the overal maintenance budget during the life of the vehicle.

Thank you for discussing such a nice topics.You have discuss awesome points and it's really great.If you’re not already using fleet management systems to control your business, then you and your company are missing out on a wide range of benefits.

Hard to find a good Toyota Service Centre. My first (10,000Km) service was incomplete because the mechanic did not know how to unlock any door other than the driver's door. I have two-stage unlocking programmed-in. I had the inconvenmience of re-attending to show the service centre manager how to unlock the front passenger door and rear door and to also rectify the oil leak that they gave me. Then at 30,000Km service I had to explain that my vehicle has an on-board computer which removes the need for service reminder stickers on my windscreen. They do not know much about their own product. I Read The Manual (RTFM). THEY could read the manual and learn about what they sell and service. Not Happy Jan! Ho Hum

Hi Rory, the last 3 rows of your table should probably not say "Contracts commenced from..." because this gives the impression that contracts entered into before that date will stay at the previous rate - this is not correct from my understanding, ie. existing (low) rate contracts will be subject to an increase in FBT rate each year till they reach 20%. Regards, Peter. Thanks for the comment Peter. According to the Chartered Accountants Review of the FBT change, lease holders liability will indeed depend upon the date lease holders commence their lease (correctly outlined in the table above). We do however understand that there is some confusion over the change and, with this in mind we look forward to more finite details which have been sought by the AFLA (Australian Fleet Lessors Association) who are currently liaising with the Treasury Department. These details primarily revolve around the definition of the term “contracts entered into”. We will update any details as we receive them. For others reading this; please rest assured that if you do have a novated lease which you entered into prior to the FBT changes you will not be impacted by these altered rates and thresholds. This clarifies the situation somewhat. No impact on existing contracts, and for those that have signed an order but not yet received delivery, they will also fall under the old FBT regime. http://www.charteredaccountants.com.au/Industry-Topics/Tax/Current-issues/Tax-news/Regulatory-and-government-updates/24-05-11-Fringe-benefits-tax-reform-of-the-car-fringe-benefits-rules Rory, do you know if it will be possible for existing lease holders to elect to move to the new strucuture if you're already doing low km's to avoid the paperwork burden? Taking into account the above article its fairly evident there will be a massive impetus on many more drivers to switch to the logbook method if maximisation of claims is to be achieved. If it is obvious that you can better the 20% flat rate more drivers will keep a logbook for a continuous 12 week period, after all its valid for five years on the same vehicle if its is indicative of the normal use of the cae. It is even easier now to keep logbooks - you can buy a fully tax deductible Australian made iphone app for less than the headache of keeping a written logbook (and then having to perform all the manual calculations to get your percentage business use). One such app is VehicleLog available on the Apple App Store. Rory, I am changing the company who manage my lease, but not the finance company. should I continue on the old rate? @Kurross we will need to look into your details for this one. I have mailed you my details. As I see it a sales person who has to take out a loan so their company can conduct business now is going to be penalised for visiting a lot of customers and would be better off staying in the office? e.g Someone doing 35,000km a year mainly for work will be slugged 20% instead of 11% - so effectively the EMPLOYEE is fined for buying an asset, taking the risk of that asset depreciating, reducing that employees ability to borrow funds for their personal benefit, and now is lured into travelling LESS at the expense of good customer service??? And the people who drive their cars less (typically the executive are rewarded because they get an FBT cut?

Very useful!

My drivers cant seem to clean anything higher or lower than they can see... lol

Fantastic rundown on the age old debate of leasing vs. purchasing a new vehicle. Should some of your readers elect the new purchase route, I'd like to share a blog that runs through some important tips in making the right choice. Great tips on buying a new vehicle. You can never have enough information when buying or leasing a new vehicle. I found some additional tips on what to look for when entering into the process. Amazing tips, very useful when we are planning to take a new vehicle. firstly we never have information when leasing a new vehicle. they given many tips which really helps me and hope fully helps you too, thanks for posting... regards, atvs for sale