That's a shame. When you take into account the total "rental payments" together with the final purchase payment (25% of original cost or something like that I think) then how much money in total would you actually pay for a £1000 bike in cash terms ?
If you're a higher rate taxpayer then the tax and employee's NI savings you make from paying rental payments out of gross salary rather than from net pay might be significant. However you need to do the maths because if you're a basic rate taxpayer then depending on the scheme arrangement you might only save a couple of hundred quid. If that's the case then if you like the bike just buy it outside the scheme and organize your own finance if you can.
It's only 75% or so of the bike's cost that you're getting an income tax break on not the whole amount owing to the final payment so it pays to work out whether getting a bike under the scheme that's not quite what you're looking for at a discount is better than buying one that suits you for RRP. Bit like buying clothes that don't fit in the sale because they're 50% off
. The Sirocco CD is very keenly priced for its specification in terms of value for money so to be honest might be worth exploring other options and doing the costings carefully.
Sounds like the 3rd party scheme operator has some bulk buy allocations somewhere - like rental car firms used to have with Renaults that lasted about 12 months before falling to bits ?
Often that means they offload vehicles to the schemes which won't hold their value or are hard to find buyers for at RRP. But I may be being a tad cynical
