According to independent research from the Corporate Vehicle Observatory (CVO) Barometer, which conducted more than 4,500 interviews with fleet decision-makers in 15 countries, businesses of every size in the UK change their cars and vans more regularly than fleets in other European countries.

The annual fleet barometer supported by Arval also highlighted that companies in the UK change their vehicles at around the same time, irrespective of the size of the business. Across other areas of fleet it is common to see smaller businesses operate differently to larger ones, but not in this important area. However, it is a different story in the rest of Europe where there is a large variance as larger companies change vehicles much more regularly.

Despite this there remains a perception amongst the fleet managers surveyed that the duration of a company car's life has increased compared to a year ago, especially amongst larger companies.

Mike Waters, director of market insight at Arval, commented: ‘Changing fleet vehicles at the optimum time has a significant impact on the total cost of vehicle ownership, even allowing for the current high cost of fuel, depreciation remains the single largest cost factor. Therefore, fleets can save themselves significant amounts of money by changing vehicles at the right time and before the total running costs start to escalate. This research suggests that the optimum time in the UK may be different to other European countries.

‘Irrespective of international trends, it is surprising in many ways that UK companies seem to be aligned in terms of the right time to switch their vehicles over whether they are a large company with a dedicated fleet manager or a smaller business without this resource. This may be due to vehicle warranties elapsing and the increasing maintenance and MoT costs for vehicles over three years old.’