ROVER says soaring sales means it no longer needs to continue its residual value guarantee scheme on the 75, which had to be revised after it was criticised by fleets for being over-complicated.

The scheme, launched at the end of last year, offered a residual value guarantee set by Rover up to a maximum of 11% higher than those set by CAP Motor Research and Glass's Guide. The offer was revised after fleet managers claimed it was too complicated to administer. The new version offered a residual value top-up on CAP's figures over three years/60,000 miles.

But the scheme has been scrapped because, Rover says, there is no longer any need to push sales of the 75. The guarantee no longer stands for those contract hire companies which purchased Rovers prior to its cancellation.

A spokesman said: 'The scheme was set up under BMW ownership and now Phoenix has taken control of Rover it did not want to absorb the same responsibilities. Also, we've already sold well over 7,000 75s in the last two months and we obviously don't need to boost sales through such incentives.'

He said contract hire companies were unlikely to lose out: 'The aspirational used-car figures we set under the scheme are proving to be accurate. There is now no residual value risk in buying Rover as the market perceived there to be at the height of the BMW turmoil when we launched the RV scheme,' he said.

These claims are backed by evidence from British Car Auctions, which reports that used market prices for Rover have rallied since the Phoenix buy-out, with the 75 regularly achieving up to 80% of retail price in single-badge and open auction events.