FLEET diesel sales continued their monthly year-on-year rise as company car drivers look to offset potentially higher benefit-in-kind tax bills from April 2002.

With next year's introduction of a carbon dioxide-based company car tax system high mileage drivers are turning to CO2-friendly diesel cars to offset higher bills which are likely to be received if they remain at the wheel of petrol-engined cars.

Last month's fleet diesel sales increased 0.4% year-on-year to 15,678 out of total new car diesel sales of 28,705. Although Peugeot remained the number one fleet diesel manufacturer it saw sales fall 13.9% to 3,314. As a result Ford took the number one best-selling diesel model accolade with the Ford Focus despite the manufacturer also seeing year-on-year sales fall by 21%. Vauxhall (up 11.3%), Volkswagen (up 9.9%) and Citroen (up 120.3%) all reported year-on-year sales rises among the leading fleet diesel manufacturers.

• Top 10 best-selling fleet diesel manufacturers in January were: Peugeot 3,314, Vauxhall 2,872, Ford 2,782, Volkswagen 1,793, Citroen 1,203, Renault 608, Audi 467, Rover 438, BMW 389, Mercedes-Benz 371.

• Top 10 best-selling fleet diesel models in January were: Ford Focus 1,642, Peugeot 406 1,579, Vauxhall Astra 1,461, Peugeot 306 920, Citroen Xsara 915, Volkswagen Golf 728, Vauxhall Vectra 689, Peugeot 206 591, Volkswagen Passat 438, Ford Galaxy 431.