ECO, or Easy Care Option, allows retailers to offer FR-V customers a five-year service deal for £330 or three years insurance at around £1,300, with or without the company’s PCP finance. With the combined package starting from £1,630, customers could potentially save more than £2,700, says Honda.
Announcing the ECO initiative, Simon Thompson, Honda UK marketing director and the main architect behind the package, says: “This programme must appeal to consumers and retailers alike. On the retail front we expect incremental service and aftermarket in year four and five.
I believe the £330 service package should be recovered by superior residual values within three years. All of these elements are likely to register higher CSI levels and profits, particularly if related to the PCP scheme.”
Thompson confirms that if take up levels are sufficiently high on the FR-V – it’s based the deal on an predicted 80% take up from retail buyers – Honda is likely to extend it to other models.
With ECO, a PCP on a 1.7SE model would involve £305 payments over three years on an “only add petrol” basis.
It provides retailers with an additional sales tool and a chance to tie customers to their workshops for servicing over the next half decade.
Honda is unusual in offering ECO, both as an integrated part of a PCP scheme, and with the service and insurance deals as separate bolt on offerings. “Customers using Honda PCPs are four times more likely to take another Honda. With the service/insurance deal we believe our retailers have a very strong sales proposition. I admit that C sector MPVs are reluctant grudge purchases and this should ease the pain,” says Thompson.
The ECO service deal applies to the car and is transferable when the F-RV, on sale from November 16, is sold on, while the insurance, calculated on the basis of an urban motorist, more than 30 years old, relates to the driver.
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