Company Car - Loosing money!

[lewist123]

Hi all!

I have a company car that i use for both personal and company stuff.

The way it works is, I put the petrol in the car, and the company give me the money back for any company miles that i do. I get back 13 pence per company mile.

When i first started i did a few sums and it all looked like it would work out in terms of getting the right amount of money back.

Now with the recent hikes in the price of petrol, I re-did the sums and some real world tests and i worked out that i am actually loosing money... and a fair amount!


Here is a test i did yesturday;

I drove from High Wycombe to Sheffield and back and racked up 330 miles round trip. Before i left i put 45 litres of petrol in my car which cost me £45.00.

I did the trip and returned having basically used all those 45 litres!

now - I had worked out previosly that if i managed 36 MPG i would just about break even (dependant on the cost of petrol at that exact second). So i did the trip and the car told me i managed 39.3 mpg which i fairly impressed with. Its a 1.8 petrol civic and i am fairly pleased that i managed 39.3. I wasn't driving like a granny, but i wasn't booting it.

so now i come to do the sums and things don't stack up.

So I spend £45 on fuel.

the company gives me 13p a mile back so 330x0.13 = £42.90.

So i have lost out £2.10

Not a lot you say, but if i do a trip into london i average more like a registered 30 mpg or less.

So in summery there are two issues here... the first one is that my car LIES to me!

I didn't average 39.3 mpg, it was more like 33.4 mpg! 6mpg out, so when i am doing a registered 30 mpg is it more like 25mpg? I think it is!

so when i normally average 30 - 35 on work trips i am starting to loose as much as £10 per tank or more!

the other month i drove to scotland and back and racked up 1400 miles in one week. I could have lost out as much as £40 on that trip.


the second issue is that i raised all this with the company i work for, and they agreed with my sums and said yes i was loosing out, but were not prepaired to adjust the rate at which they pay back millage as it is what the government set it at.

so i could be loosing hundreds of pounds a year in petrol, and as the price of petrol goes up i will loose out more and more. When i filled up the other day, i got it fairly cheep, but i could have spend up to 108.9p per litre that tank would have cost £49 and i would have lost more!



One last thing to add to the equasion is that the government set the petrol to 13p for engines up to and including 2ltr, and 10p for the equiv derv! But the company give te derv drivers 11.5p a mile so all the derv drivers make money, and the petrol drivers (fewer of us) loose out! SO if they give the derv drivers more than the government rate, why not give the petrol drivers over the government rate?????


I am not prepaired to loose money to the company on this, but what can i do? any ideas or comments?

[CraigGreen]

Sounds like you need to give them an ultimatum (sp). Give you more money per mile or a Derv.

Failing that look for another job, that is pretty poor tbh. It might be that the company is over a barrel regarding the tax due on the vehicle/its carbon output. However maybe they could offset this with a payrise?

Otherwise get looking elsewhere for another job. I wouldnt work any longer than I had to for a company that are shafting me like that.

[Matt2345]

But on the other hand you have the use of a car in your free time that you pay no Road Tax for , No Insurance and No servicing costs, Some might say that although you are loosing a little, it still costs you a lot less than it would if you had to pay all that every year youself, Swings and roundabouts mate

[calibrav624v]

13p a mile is piss poor. My mrs gets 35p per mile

13p shocking

[Sten]

It's certainly not fair that you are losing (one "o") money. Tell them you need a more reasonable sum per mile or a car with a fuel consumption which fits into the budget. It's quite strange to have a petrol powered company car these days, it doesn't make a lot of sense if you are covering plenty of miles.

[bennymac36]

mine is similar at 10p per mile and i have a similar complaint as a few of my workshop guys borrow my company car from time to time and i have no real control over how hard they drive it... i doub very much they are trying to get good mpg ...
i havent heard of anyone getting 35p per mile for a company car mileage they used to get that for using their personal car for the first 10k miles or something.

another point for me is although i have a shiney golf gt without any insurance, road tax and servicing cost i do get hit every month in my pay packet as the number of company miles driven has nothing to do with the tax rate, i can opt out and get a cash equivalent when mine is up which is what i plan to do its just not worth having a company car any more.

[SimonP]

My company constantly adjust. They are paying 12.5p a mile which is the equivalent to 107p per litre or something. My local petrol station are 101p per litre of diesel.

[SimonP]

13p a mile is piss poor. My mrs gets 35p per mile

13p shocking

That's because she probably claims for fuel on her own car 35p per mile being about the norm for a private petrol car. 13p per mile is pretty good going for a diesel company car. I make about £1 every time I fill my tank.

[Galahad]

This government are a bunch of idiots. Company cars are the bread and butter for car manufacturers, they make far more money on those than they do with retail cars.

Quite a few people are now reappraising the need for a company car, because the tax implications are such that it won't make financial sense to bother.

And this from the government that injected a load of cash into Rover. They either want to remove cars off the road or support car makers, they can't have it both ways.

[jamied]

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cars/

have a look over the info here, some might help you , some might

Also look at this site and use the calculator to see how much tax you will have to pay at the end of the year as P11D if your comp is paying all your fuel for private use, insurance, ect.

http://www.comcar.co.uk/

[BlackIce]

I hate having a company car, you get taxed on the sodding thing before you start

[SimonP]

Makes financial sense for me. I do 40k a year and can't be arsed with the hassle of having to purchase and fix my own car if I had to use it. I handed back my last company car as I did next to no company mileage in it. Maybe 150 a month? I now do at least that a day.

[vxlgsi]

why are you honest about how many miles you do for work? atleast make sure you break even financially

ive done 102k since march 05

[Trevor]

This government are a bunch of idiots. Company cars are the bread and butter for car manufacturers, they make far more money on those than they do with retail cars.

Quite a few people are now reappraising the need for a company car, because the tax implications are such that it won't make financial sense to bother.

And this from the government that injected a load of cash into Rover. They either want to remove cars off the road or support car makers, they can't have it both ways.

Whilst the figures have been adjusted over time, most of the company car tax rules were bugger all to do with this government.

And the government has not been injecting cash into private businesses for some time, it is banned by EU laws.

The reason many people are swerving company cars is that private leasing can mean they actually EARN money by driving a car leased in their name as HMRC will allow a payment of 40p per mile before they tax it as a benefit. So if you do 10K company miles a year you would receive £4000 tax free from your employer. 10000 miles at 30 MPG is 1262 litres of fuel. So at £1 a litre that leaves you £2738 to pay the lease of the car etc. And if you buy an old car your totally quids in!

[Galahad]

Whilst the figures have been adjusted over time, most of the company car tax rules were bugger all to do with this government.

No excuse!

Labour have been in for ten years, at any time they could have revised the car tax rules, they chose not to, that makes them as culpable as the Tories were.

[vxlgsi]

The government are steering us in the direction they want us to go, forcing us to take decisions they couldnt tell us to take.

[SimonP]

why are you honest about how many miles you do for work? atleast make sure you break even financially

ive done 102k since march 05

It's nearly 2008....so, I'll have probably done more than you since 2005

[vxlgsi]

I dont have private use. lol.... credit to vauxhall 1.7 dti engines though, doesnt use any oil and never had 1 problem with it!!

oh and it gets abused.. i only get 380 miles to £44

[SimonP]

The Vectra is mine to do with as I please.

I had a DTi once. Last car contained the 1.7 CDTi which is a miserable noisy prehistoric unit. I don't even think it's all that fuel efficient. My old MK5 Astra was the 1.7 CDTi and I loathed it. The car itself was great, but the engine was down right awful. Very noisy and clattery, poor performance and not particularly amazing economy.

You have the DTi...I actually think (although the CDTi is slightly quicker), the older DTi is a little less noisy and more fuel efficient. I had a MK4 Astra with it in. Still a pretty loathsome engine.

Current Vectra 1.9 CDTi though is a completely different kettle of fish. Really like the 1.9, it's smooth, pretty quick, has reasonable fuel economy and is a fantastic motorway car. So smooth and has loads of torque. So having the 6 speed box and cruise control makes the car effortless to drive on the motorways.

[Trevor]

No excuse!

Labour have been in for ten years, at any time they could have revised the car tax rules, they chose not to, that makes them as culpable as the Tories were.

[lethal]

And the government has not been injecting cash into private businesses for some time, it is banned by EU laws.

Unless the private business happens to be a bank in need of a cool £24bn or more.

[lewist123]

wow lots of replys!

But on the other hand you have the use of a car in your free time that you pay no Road Tax for , No Insurance and No servicing costs, Some might say that although you are loosing a little, it still costs you a lot less than it would if you had to pay all that every year youself, Swings and roundabouts mate

That is true and don't get me wrong, it is great to have a brand new car for very little money, however to be honest, if there was no car, i would have wanted a lot more money, or probably i wouldn't have taken the job in the first place!

It's certainly not fair that you are losing (one "o") money. Tell them you need a more reasonable sum per mile or a car with a fuel consumption which fits into the budget. It's quite strange to have a petrol powered company car these days, it doesn't make a lot of sense if you are covering plenty of miles.

Yeah that is the idea currently. I have set it all out with sums and all sorts. As for the petrol thing, I was allowed to choose whatever car i wanted. I wanted the civic diesel. What happened was i was told that i could have x thousand pounds OTR price. So i chose the civic diesel sport, but i chose a good deal on an internet site, but appently according to my company, that is not what they ment and if i ordered it like that i had 750 quid less to spend and so couldn't afford the derv. so i chose the petrol cause i couldn't afford any of the derv engined cars. But i was told that i would get extra millage cash for a petrol car so the only difference was tax which was like 10 quid a month more, plus i don't do many personal miles so the extra cash for that was ok! plus you know.... Vtec kicked in yo!

I hate having a company car, you get taxed on the sodding thing before you start

still cheep though (£65 ish a month!)

why are you honest about how many miles you do for work? atleast make sure you break even financially

ive done 102k since march 05

That is another option and may be the answer, but i don't want to be dishonest if there is another way to sort it out!

[Galahad]

Whats that response in aid of?

[Galahad]

Unless the private business happens to be a bank in need of a cool £24bn or more.

Or MG Rover

[Trevor]

Or MG Rover

When did they recently give money to MG Rover?