I think it's important but in some companies the priority is saving the pennies. I used to do some IT work for a large publisher, the reps often complained that they could not claim for the odd car wash so the vehicle looked respectable when turning up to clients. However corporate entertainment seemed to have a blank cheque. If they bought everyone in the bar a drink on the company card it was never questioned. Not complaining, I benefited, hic :-)

Companies take a very serious view of how their company is portrayed, I used to be a service engineer with a company van emblazoned with the companies logo, we had to keep the vans clean and tidy and report any issues with them, image is everything, if you show up at a customers premises with a dirty dent covered van , then that’s the first thing the customer sees, the thinking is if they can’t be bothered to keep their van in good order, then what’s their workmanship and attitude going to be, of course it was a challenge to keep your van clean in the winter months…

Parked just along the road from my house was a quite young but very, very dirty van. This van also had an enormous dent which stretched along the N/S from the passenger door, right along the sliding door to the rear wheel arch.

Just for a bit of balance. The company in question has excellent customer reviews on Autotrader. With the amount of dirt on the roads just now, it's impossible to keep vehicles clean. BBD, if you've seen it at your house, it obviously does a fair bit travelling. Perhaps it got bashed in the last few days and repairs are delayed by insurance.

I'd personally go by a word of mouth recommendation, for a business, rather than judging them by a company vehicle.

Yeah, I had noticed the Autotrader reviews since I started the thread, and Dundee is a fair drive from Peterhead. Makes me wonder what they were doing here to justify a 170 mile round trip.

Out of curiosity I had a look at their premises on Google Street View (footage is from just over a year ago). The only thing that jumped out for me was the presence of a MK5 Cortina!.

At a slight tangent, Mercedes take their image very seriously. I was chatting a few years back to a dealer who had their marine engine franchise. It was standard practice for the visiting senior managers to look at boats in the nearby marina and ask the dealer about any engines (outboards I assume) that had been fitted to boats that they didn’t consider to be consistent with their brand values. Too scruffy or cheap in other words.

I wonder if this still happens? After all they fit Renault engines in some of their cars which must devalue the brand in some eyes.

At least one of their 'cars' actually is a Renault!

(the Citan)

... when I worked in Oman, there was actually a law (by decree of the Sultan, being an absolute monarchy) against having a dirty car! And it was enforced by the Royal Oman Police.

Thirty years ago there was a similar statute in Moscow (possibly in all Russia, I don't know) against dirty vehicles. I also don't know if there was any rule against unsafe ones.