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HORSES FOR COURSES
Page 115
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• Welcome to the Commercial Motor Finance Supplement designed to help you win through some of the complicated, and frequently baffling, monetary problems which beset every transport manager in the 1980s.
There is no easy solution and no correct answer. Buying your fleet and keeping your company solvent can be a matter of personal style or even prejudice. Different horses for different courses, in fact. The one thing that you must be, however, is wellinformed and confident that the horse your company has mounted is fit enough to stay the race.
To help you keep well-informed, we have prepared a pull-out wallchart in the centre of this magazine which lists the five principal methods you could choose to acquire a 240,000 commercial vehicle. Brian Fish of DFF International, a Bristol-based consultancy specialising in the road transport industry, has explained all of the costs involved in buying outright, buying on hire purchase, contract hiring, leasing or renting a 240,000 outfit. The bottom line makes fascinating reading. Check it out and see if your sums agree.
Operating experience can colour even the best of calculations on paper and we have been to see a whole range of different operators to see why their companies buy, rent, lease or contract hire their trucks. Right or wrong, the five different companies profiled have each got a story to tell. It is up to you to draw the moral from their tales of experience.
Financial journalist and business editor Ken Smith has also given you a detailed breakdown of the different options a typical, growing haulage company might consider when going out to borrow money in today's lunatic-high interest rate environment. The article is full of tips for successful borrowing.
Independent British truck builder AWD has just arranged a new contract maintenance plan on its vehicles to help operators like you keep breakdown and repair costs under control with a fixed monthly instalment. We have been to the Dunstable-based headquarters of AWD to find out how the scheme works.
Finally, don't forget Commercial Motor's competition with Contract Care Plan to win free maintenance on your trucks. We are giving away up to 27,500 in total, so it could be your lucky day. Enter now with the form on page 29.