My son is a real estate appraiser who works for a major, nationwide savings bank based in California. All of their appraisers are given "penniless" company cars; that is, the cars don't cost them one penny -- all maintenance, insurance and fuel costs are paid, even for commuting or personal use.
They have a LOT of company cars, and they are a fiscally conservative bank, so my guess is their fleet department has done a lot of research into the best company cars.
When he started, staff appraisers were given a Ford Focus and appraisal managers were given a Taurus. He had a Focus, then moved to a Taurus when he became a manager. Shortly after he started, they switched to Honda. Now, all appraisers get a Honda Civic 4 door, regardless of their managerial status.
The cars are kept until they reach 80,000 miles. Adam's Taurus is just about nearing that, so he will be getting a Civic, soon.
The employees are permitted to do minor things at their own expense, such as tint the windows, but nothing that will move them out of the mainstream or hurt resale value.
Because this is a bank which knows how to manage it's money, and because appraisers put enormous amounts of mileage on their cars in a short time, my guess is that the bank purchases the cars outright rather than leasing them.
The only reason I can offer for their switch from Ford to Honda is that their research showed that Honda had the best combination of purchase price, maintenance costs and resale value.
While Adam is not status conscious, he is 6'4" tall, and therefore wishes that managers were upgraded to an Accord rather than the Civic. He was a lot happier with the larger Taurus compared to the Focus. This bank's appraisers generally work out of their cars and often complete their reports in the car, using Sprint or Verizon broadband wireless internet to communicate with the central computers and do their research in both public and private databases. Even though he is a manager responsible for hiring and firing, training and managing a staff of appraisers, he also does his own production, usually taking the harder appraisals in order to get them done, and cherry-picking some of the easier ones to balance that off.
Therefore the company car is probably the best "perk" that the bank offers, and they would likely have a revolution on their hands if they picked the wrong one.
I'm sure most of the others would also do a good job, but sometimes it pays to follow the lead of the big boys.
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Inputting...thick skull rejecting...
