Originally posted by MarkJerling It's a peculiar business model, for any business to run a vehicle fleet for 25 years. The more normal course of action (read the route that will make you waste the least amount of your shareholders money) would be to buy vehicles to use for three years tops with all regular scheduled maintenance thrown into the deal. After three years, trade in at a pre-agreed fleet trade rate and buy new. Of course, you'd not want RHD vehicles sold for use on the roads there, so shipping them to us or any of the other RHD markets would make the most sense. But, then I guess they're not trying to make a profit!
I dunno enough about the costs of the cost plan, the post office (both USA and Canada, which seemed to be the same re; the Grumman vans) or the cost plan you're talking about. But it is food for thought.
My father had a similar cost plan for buying personal vehicles as you are suggesting, and it worked out well for him. We did a lot of RV trailering when I was a kid and dad would buy a new car, about every three years. It would always be a new old stock model, that he would buy at the beginning of the next year new car introductions, which back then was usually late September/ October of any given year in the '50's and '60's.
That way, he would always be one model year behind, but it would be a new car, and the cars he would buy, would be at a reduced price as the dealers wanted to clear the new old stock out, to make room for the new cars.
His rationale was that he needed a reliable vehicle (usually a station wagon) to pull the trailer(s) throughout Canada and the states. We put a lot of miles on the cars during our trips and saw a lot of North America. I have appreciated dad's efforts to show us North America, and my wife and I did so, with our kids. I also love traveling by car, no doubt as a result.
Anyways, back to the original subject.
His costs that way were minimal, we had no repair costs of major components (engine/transmission, etc.), just regular maintenance (which he went by the book), got a very reliable vehicle that could handle more severe service than the average driver, and still maintained reasonable resale value. Through the '60's his payment costs for the cars were about $ 100 @ month. which he wanted to keep at this cost per month. The only additional costs were gas, oil changes and a set (2) of winter tires for the rear drive axle wheels, due to living in a wintry climate.
He wanted to fix his car expenses to close as he could and this system worked very well and yet , still have a reliable vehicle. Sort of what your suggesting.
In an earlier post you wrote about the odd looks of the new Oshkosh mail van. I agree with you . Your response to the look, made me wonder, why was the new mail van designed to look the odd way it does...what was the reasoning behind this design ?
I came across this article from Road & Track magazine which offers some explanation.
Why the New USPS Mail Truck Looks So Strange