
I sat down one evening and worked out quite how much my company car was costing me. Ultimatly the company car was costing me over £6,000 a year if you included the allowance I'm missing out on.
£6,040 a year to drive around in a poverty spec Focus. Now, I liked my Focus. In 14 months I did over 30,000miles, drank 2800 litres of diesel and took me the length and breast of the UK multiple times without fail. I always wanted higher spec cars, I still do but was I was surprised with the company Focus how much lighter the lower trim makes the car and how much better it makes them handle. But, I thought it best to opt out.
The opt-out car had to meet certain criteria and has to be approved by the company. It must do more than 60mpg on the combined cycle, C02 emmisions of less of 125g/km, must be less than 12 months old when purchased and must be replaced before its 5 years old.
I spent hours on Autotrader and the only two cars that made financial sense were a 2018 Seat Leon FR 2.0TDi 184ps DSG or this, a 2018 Volvo V40 D3 Geartronic Inscription.
I was quite keen on the Volvo because I'd loved the MK3 Focus chassis in the 3 MK3 Focuses I had and the Volvo was based on the same platform.
I looked at some other trims. There two 'normal' trims which were momentum and inscription and two R-Design trims. The basic R-Design is a momentum with some sport bumpers, wheels and a fancy interior trim and the R-Design Pro which is Inscription based with some sporty bumpers, wheels and a fancy interior trim. The R-Design Pro was out of my price range so I decided on the Inscription.
I picked up an ex-Avis Hire rental car. It was 8 months old with 8,500miles on the clock and had received it's first service early by the supplying Volvo dealer I purchased it from. The bodywork was immaculate, it drove nice, performed well and had enough technology to keep me amused. I paid a smidge over £16,000. The brand new OTR price of this car in this spec is around £32,000.

Anyway, some more pictures after I got it home...



And my company car cleaned before it went back..

Unfortunatley the day after I bought the Volvo I managed to kerb one of the back wheels...

A local company refurbed the wheel for a reasonable £115.


