This guide is for you if you are weighing buying against leasing, if you have just taken over a leased fleet whose contracts you do not know, or if one return cost more than expected and you do not want it to happen again.
Chapter 1Buy or lease: asking the question properly
"Does leasing cost more than buying?" has no general answer. Three questions do.
- Who should carry the resale risk? When buying, you bet on the vehicle’s value in four years. When leasing, the lessor takes that bet and charges you for it.
- Are your needs stable? A lease fixes a term and a mileage. A business that fluctuates will pay either overruns or unused mileage.
- Can you service and resell? Some organisations do it very well and gain from it. Others discover they have just added a new trade to their remit.
Deductibility caps, VAT recovery, annual taxes: these rules change and the tables with them. Take them from the source at the moment of the decision. A comparison table copied from last year’s article is the most common way to be wrong by several thousand euros per vehicle.
Go furtherTotal cost of ownership·The ecological penalty·The TCO calculator
Chapter 2Reading a long-term lease
The six parameters that make the payment
| Parameter | What it changes | The trap |
|---|---|---|
| Term | The longer it is, the lower the payment | A vehicle kept too long costs more in servicing than it saves in payments |
| Contract mileage | The basis for the residual value | Underestimated, it is paid per kilometre at the end |
| Finance payment | The part tied to the vehicle itself | It says nothing about the real cost: everything depends on what surrounds it |
| Included services | Servicing, tyres, insurance, replacement vehicle | A service removed moves the expense, it does not remove it |
| Adjustment clause | Revision if the mileage changes along the way | Whether it exists, and which way — some adjust upwards only |
| Early termination | What stopping before term costs | It is the clause people read on the day it is too late |
Ask to receive the contract, not only the commercial offer, before the decision. The gap between those two documents is the most useful information in the negotiation.
Chapter 3Included services, and the ones that are not
An "all-inclusive" contract generally covers routine servicing to the manufacturer’s plan, wear parts, often tyres, sometimes insurance, a replacement vehicle and roadside assistance.
What is almost never included
- Fuel or energy.
- Damage not covered by insurance, and excesses.
- Fines and the handling fees that go with them.
- Refurbishment at the return, beyond normal use.
- Cleaning, livery, removal of fitted equipment.
"Over the last twelve months, what is the average bill outside the monthly payment for a fleet comparable to mine?" A contact who cannot answer is information in itself.
Go furtherVehicle servicing·The service·Calculating fuel consumption
Chapter 4Steering mileage during the contract
A mileage overrun can be spotted months ahead, with one division.
Observed rate = kilometres driven ÷ months elapsed · Projection at term = observed rate × total contract term · Gap = projection − contract mileage
What to do with a gap spotted early
- Moderate gap, stable activity — ask for the adjustment amendment provided for in the contract. Adjusting mid-term almost always costs less than paying excess kilometres at the return.
- Gap concentrated on a few vehicles — swap the assignments. The vehicle that drives little takes the long round. It is free.
- Gap across the board — it is the sizing of the next contract that must change, not this one.
All of this assumes dated, regular mileage readings. A mileage entered once a year allows no projection. This is the point where an automatic reading stops being a convenience and becomes a negotiating tool.
Go furtherThe odometer and mileage readings·Route optimisation·The ROI simulator
Our Excel templates already carry these columns, with the formulas written.
Chapter 5Preparing the return six months ahead
Six months, because the three cost items at the return all need time to be fixed: mileage bends by swapping assignments, missed services need workshop slots, and a repair planned with your own body shop costs less than the same one billed by the lessor.
The method, month by month
- M-6 — List the contracts ending within six months. For each: projected mileage, services done against services due, known damage.
- M-5 to M-3 — Catch up: missed services, repairs decided, assignment swaps.
- M-2 — Pre-inspection if the contract allows it. This is when surprises are still cheap.
- M-1 — Remove fitted equipment, clean, gather documents, keys and cards.
- The day itself — Joint inspection, time-stamped photos on your side, written reservations immediately in case of disagreement.
The inspection report at delivery, the full service history with the invoices, and your own photos at the return. Without them, a dispute does not hold.
Chapter 6Deciding on renewal
The tipping point is where the ageing vehicle’s cost of ownership per kilometre exceeds that of an equivalent new one. It does not fall at the same moment for every vehicle in a fleet.
- The projected mileage overrun, covered in chapter 4.
- Drifting servicing costs. Two unplanned immobilisations in a year on the same vehicle is a reliable signal.
- The regulation coming. A vehicle that will no longer be allowed into an area where you work is a vehicle to take out, whatever its mechanical condition.
Renewal is also the only moment when the composition of the fleet changes: it is therefore where the electrification path is decided. The French annual incentive tax, for that matter, does not look at the fleet in stock but at the vehicles brought in over a rolling period — renewal badly spread over time costs more than renewal smoothed out.
Go furtherLow-emission zones·The greening tax simulator·The automotive market
Chapter 7What all this asks of your organisation
This whole guide rests on four pieces of information kept up to date per vehicle: the contract end date and the contract mileage; the mileage reading, with its date; the services done, with their invoices; the known damage, with photos.
None of them is hard to get. What is hard is having all of them, in one place, up to date, for every vehicle, on the day the lessor calls.
A spreadsheet carries those four items perfectly well. It fails on three counts: it does not warn you that a contract ends in six months, it does not project a mileage on its own, and it cannot be shared between head office and sites without creating competing versions. Those are exactly the three things that cost money at the return.
Go furtherManaging a fleet in Excel·The fleet management guide·Pricing
A demo starts from your vehicles and your real end dates.