ROVER has launched a simplified version of its residual value guarantee scheme for the 75 after contract hire companies branded it 'unworkable'. Companies said the conditions Rover attached made it impossible to apply.

Now Rover has launched a new version to run alongside the existing scheme which offers a residual value top-up at the end of the contract, rather than a buy-back deal. Jeff Peyton-Bruhl, national leasing and rentals manager for Rover Group Corporate Sales, said: 'The system could have been worked and I think unworkable probably meant too hard to do because it meant changing systems.'

Under the new scheme, Rover will use CAP Monitor for residual value forecasts and then work out what it thinks the 75 will be worth in three years/60,000 miles. This difference will then be used as the basis for the uplift payment at the end of the contract, although the actual amount to be paid to the customer depends on CAP Black Book figures showing what the 75 is worth. CAP Monitor editor Mark Norman, applauded Rover's scheme. He said: 'What Rover has done is gamble on the fact that in three years' time it will have a better range and public perception.'

Glass's AutoProVision editor Bill Carter, added: 'The problem with the old scheme is that had too many limitations, but the new one has done away with some of them. This new scheme is workable.' But Andrew Cope, managing director of Zenith Vehicle Contracts, said: 'The buy-back scheme has not been a huge success and we are a little sceptical about it because it does limit our opportunity to make a commercial return. I think this is something of a crisis response - a more simple way would be to knock money off at the front end.'