Conference terri::cars_uk

I sincerely hope we do get them for free: looking at the price list for the 
Land Rover Discovery I see that item RTC9514 "Rubber mats, footwell set" costs 
�45 plus VAT!

Which I figure PHH would charge me about �2 a month for...

/. Ian .\

    
    
    I'm really irritated with the floor mats supplied with my car, I
    was supplied with the "Deluxe" moulting floor mats which have left
    little bits of black bits all over the carpet. It makes the inside
    of the car look a mess.
    
    Yours "5 quid a month for a mess" 
    
    Sean

    
    Re .2........
    
    From my experience, the mats that are supplied are the cheap and
    tacky ones that you can get from Halfords for about �2.50 a piece.
    ANYTHING that PHH/Hertz supply that they have to pay for, the lessee
    pays for. There is no chance of it being any different.
    
    My preference is for the mats and I have always specified those
    that the manufacturer sells: they are easier to clean and clear
    of stones and bits of grit than the carpet anyway. The sets of mats
    that I've had from Renault and SAAB have been tailored to shape,
    stay in place and make small change difference to the lease cost.
    
    What has got up my nose has been PHH's attitude to the Mudflaps
    that have been fitted (again at my expense via the lease):
    Manufacturers kit and all the proper mountings and they still fall
    off. I ask the garage to replace them and not anly do they not put
    on Manufacturers kit(but the Halfords variety) and then PHH tell
    the garage to get me to pay cash for them as "that's bodywork sir
    and not covered under the lease". It took a phrase that contained
    the word "off" to sort that one out. 

    
    FLAME ON....
    
    What really ticks me off is the way the lease cost is hit by things
    like the price of a decent radio as you can bet your bottom dollar
    that the garage doing the quote isn't going to charge the street
    price for the radio but list.....
    
    FLAME OFF....
    

    The floor mats supplied by Hertz in my Citroen were Citroen originals.
    Personally I think they do help keep the car clean, and I think
    originals are vastly superior to 'bits shops' cheapies as they stay
    where they're supposed to. Interesting that this has just come up,
    they've been on the quotes as long as I can remember. 
    
    Richard

    
>>    resale value of the car by about 75p because the carpet is cleaner.  On lease 
>>cars its the lease company which has to resell them anyway so this doesn't
>>apply.

  I *suspect* (anybody know for sure ?) that the final cost to DEC of
    a lease car is affected by it's resale value.  In other words, we
    get something back if it's in good nick at the end of it's term.
    My last employer used to have this deal, and went to considerable
    trouble to keep us aware of it !  
    
    Ian

	These floor mats sound like the Lease equivalent of windscreen
	washer fluid at a service.

	You know the stuff they charge you a full bottle's worth  even
	when you take the car in with the reservoirs full.

	-John

    Re the last one tho' we may be going down a Lease T's and C's rathole.
    
    
    Moderator persons, if there is a need for a separate note on just the
    lease scheme perhaps you could decide?
                     
    Just who is the customer on the lease, Digital or us the paying
    punters? If there is money to come back to anybody at the end of
    the lease surely it should be to us and not the company? Over the
    last 4 cars my lease payments have averaged (over 30 months) almost
    exactly the list price of the car when new: lease company does NOT
    pay list but can be up to 20% off. They sell the car at the end
    for a resale value which has been increasing to silly figures over
    the last few years. But, resale value, we are told is one of thevreasons
    foe high lease costs to us (doesn't compute so far does it?) so
    it seems that PHH/Hertz are getting money off us in high lease costs
    and then raking it in in high residual value at the end of the lease.
    
    Like several back Front floor mats have been on the car quote form
    since the days of tablets of stone ...........    
    

    re .7
    Dave, this argument is perrenial, there are already a proliferation of
    notes with comments about how unfair/expensive/slow/good/beneficial/???
    The scheme is, I think frankly it's a waste of time trying to round them
    all up into one note as another one is bound to start up on a
    different vein (like this one :-) ) but on the same basic subject.
    
    THE DIGITAL LEASE SCHEME!
    Good or bad you have to live with it!.
    
    Richard
    
    (that's not to say you won't keep complaining anyway :-) )

    I guess I can understand Digital wanting the carpets kept in reasonable
    nick; I don't mind them insisting on floormats being supplied.
    
    However, the one under the driver's seat gets consigned to the boot,
    for safety reasons. A piece of mat sliding round the floor is an
    unstable base for the feet which are doing some of the controlling
    of the car, and also tend at times to ruck up under the brake pedal,
    and all of a sudden the brakes don't seem to work.
    
    So why do I put it in the boot, rather than the garage? They do
    make handy driving mats in case you get stuck in sand or mud.
    
    Steve

I've always gotten carpeted floor mats for my cars.  The dealer sells them in
many cases - they're usually the same colour as the carpet in the car.

I find them convienient because you can use them until they get really crappy, 
and then go buy another set of them.  If they get full of sand (tracked in on
your shoes in the winter), you can just lift them out, beat them, and vaccuum
them.  For people who drive long distances on the motorway (salesmen for
example) rest their accelerator foot on same part of the carpet - all the time.
The fact that the driver's heel is digging down into the same spot all of the 
time will ultimately cause a hole in the carpet.  If there are floor mats, the
hole appears in them.  New floormats, no unsightly hole...

-Al

 
    Robin,  thanks for at least being an active moderator that at least
    takes his responsibilities seriously!

    
    Regs,

    Dick (who believes that the ultimate sanction that a punter has
    is to vote with his/her feet and doesn't like not to have that option)

>>                      <<< Note 946.9 by SUBURB::PARKER >>>
>>    However, the one under the driver's seat gets consigned to the boot,
>>    for safety reasons. A piece of mat sliding round the floor is an
>>    unstable base for the feet which are doing some of the controlling
>>    of the car, and also tend at times to ruck up under the brake pedal,
>>    and all of a sudden the brakes don't seem to work.
    
    Again, it obviously depends on the supplier: The citroen one is a heavy
    rubber, fitted perfectly to the footwell, it NEVER slides or rucks. My
    only complaint would be that it is difficult to wipe off wet shoes on a
    rubber mat, for that you need the carpet.
    
    Richard

    Hmm..
    
    I took the original carpeting out of our Ninety and replaced it
    with a rubber floor matt. It helps draining the vehicle when I get
    it soaked again.                                                 
    
    A lot of snow or rain will get the floor of any car pretty wet.
    The carpeting takes ages to dry as your car floor is poorly ventilated.
    The moist collects at the lowest point and the floor starts to rot.
    But since you all seem to be leasing you won't have the car anymore
    when the effects begin to show from the underside.
    
    For the rest it's up to personal preferance and thats it.
    
    Peter

    re:mats sliding around.
    
    My Astra CD comes with "luxury" mats as standard. They're brill. Same
    carpeting as the main carpet (uh?), cut to the right shape for the car,
    *and* have press studs which fix them to the main carpet so that they
    cannot slide aound !!
    
    Mind you, the PHH ones look really tacky on top of them :-) :-)
    
    Colin

Everyone I've spoken to thinks the lease scheme is a rip-off.  There seems to be
a lot of unhappy feeling about it in this note.  So why do people do it?
IAMFI.
Scott.

    CAR FLEET PLEASE NOTE
    
    My car was also supplied with "off-the-shelf" floor mats rather
    than the manufacturer's model. I considered it dangerous, on the
    grounds that it moves around, and so I too have consigned it to
    the boot, where it will remain for the rest of the lease.
    
    MORAL: If the Fleet Department wants to keep the carpet clean in
    order to keep the resale value high, they should INSIST that all
    vehicles are supplied with the manufacturer's floormats.

    Is there a lease note I can reply to .15 in?
    
    J

    re .17 you could try "the usual rathole" 925, I think.....