The mechanism of all this is the lift truck supplier gets the sale (to a finance company - not the customer). The finance company collects the rental and the original equipment supplier conducts the service (for a fixed weekly rate - the risk lay with the supplier). The equipment supplier also takes the buy-back of the machine on completion of the lease and recycles the asset either by selling it or re-financing it over a secondary term.

As far as the customer is concerned he pays the combined lease and maintenance so, apart from fuel, tyres, driver and damages - he has fixed costs for 5 years - then replaces and the whole cylce repeats.

The fun really starts when suppliers give the customer the option to break the finance with a 'break clause' giving the customer the ability to have a new fleet earlier than he would have. Clearly this is high risk as assets are returned with a higher book value so it is usually the big boys who do this as they have more scope to place or sell the machines elsewhere.

This repeating cycle (and early repeating cycle) drives up volumes and keeps the lift truck factories full.