Business Purchase - Van

CG2017

Hello,

Looking for some advice for our business, just before Christmas our van broke down, we have been quoted £1600 to fix the problem, but we are unsure whether to spend that money (the van is worth around £1500), with the possibility of the van having other problems, or to look at getting another vehicle.

We are a vat registered business and unsure whether to look at lease hire or lease purchase? Does anyone have any knowledge on which option is financially better for vat registered businesses, if any? We don't have the funds to purchase a new second hand van outright.

Thanks in advance, hope you had a lovely Christmas!

System

Do you have the funds to meet £250 or more repayments every single month for a 3-5 year financial agreement? Has there been any point in the past 3-5 years where had such an arrangement been in place you'd have not been able to?

ratrace

Whats the issue with the van and how much miles does it have on it, if its done silly miles and is looking tired rusty then it may not be worth fixing but if its still half decent avarage miles with the livery still looking ok itmay be worth fixing

i know you are a new user are you are more than welcome on here but ty to give more information such as make model and problem as we may know how to fix things on the cheap, this is money saving site afterall

Robisere

What kind of business use? Do you need a large/medium/ car-sized van?

Would it be possible to carry out your business with something like an Astra Combi van, with a sliding side door?

Larger vans are ,ore prone to corrosion, particularly Transits. My son last year had to scrap his Transit. The chassis needed so much welding work, it was simply not worth the price of repairs. He looked at his needs, sold the Transit rot-box to a garage that does nothing but buy and repair scrap vans to sell on, or keep the running gear for spares. Then he bought a much newer Astra Combi van and is happy with it.

PaulJWood

i am quite curious about your business, can you give us more details?

CG2017

Thank you for everyones quick response.

Its is a peugeot boxer 2007 so quite old i am not 100% on the mileage (its currently at a garage) but its circa 100k miles, yes as a business we would be able to afford the repayments if we leased a vehicle.

The problem we know about after diagnostics is that it is the ECU unit which has failed which we have been quoted £1600 to fix as they need to reprogramme it also, i am confident we could get it done slightly cheaper - the van is also due an MOT in January so will also have to have things done to get it through that.

We could get away with a slightly smaller vehicle, i.e. Vauxhall Vivaro - we are a kitchen business, we have a showroom and supply and fit kitchens - my husband as said as long as he can fit in an 8x4 sheet in to the van it will be fine.

ratrace

CG2017 wrote: »

Thank you for everyones quick response.

Its is a peugeot boxer 2007 so quite old i am not 100% on the mileage (its currently at a garage) but its circa 100k miles, yes as a business we would be able to afford the repayments if we leased a vehicle.

The problem we know about after diagnostics is that it is the ECU unit which has failed which we have been quoted £1600 to fix as they need to reprogramme it also, i am confident we could get it done slightly cheaper - the van is also due an MOT in January so will also have to have things done to get it through that.

We could get away with a slightly smaller vehicle, i.e. Vauxhall Vivaro - we are a kitchen business, we have a showroom and supply and fit kitchens - my husband as said as long as he can fit in an 8x4 sheet in to the van it will be fine.

Assuming that it only needs an ecu supply, fit, reprogramme for £1.600 is a very expensive, even with eus's that are knackerd/bricked you can still read the data of the old unit and the eprom and clone a new ecu . but it will have to be bu the chaps who remap cars they have to bdm the ecu read the eprom (where all the immblizer an key data is kept) and just clone it over like you would do in a computer harddrive.

a second hand ecu can be bought for https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=peugeot+boxer+ecu&_sop=12

loads on here but you need to know what caused the ecu to go in the first place if it was an electric issue then that needs to be fixed first otherwise its pointless putting a new ecu on when the it could fry it again , if it was water then why isthere a cover missing that protects it

i must admit its not a very common thing to happen on cars but i dont work on vans so im not sure only cars, cmpared to all the other jobs we get in

CG2017

We were told that it is likely caused by the snow we had a couple of weeks ago and water got into the unit? I am not sure about the cover - my husband knows more about it that me but I shall ask. Thank you for your helpful reply

ratrace

CG2017 wrote: »

We were told that it is likely caused by the snow we had a couple of weeks ago and water got into the unit? I am not sure about the cover - my husband knows more about it that me but I shall ask. Thank you for your helpful reply

Ahh so that may be the reason, i thought there would be somthing as ecus on the whole out last cars in most cases and we very jobs on them, only done a few bosch edc15 and edc16 as we work on a lot of german cars

No problem ill send you a link to a video to give you a more clear idea about what i mean

EDIT: link sent via pm