At the end of the day, work vehicles are all about money - how much can you afford to lose on them and how much you have to spend on them. Looking at the decent sized vans (Transporter, Vito, Transit), if you're spending under £12,000, then it's worth going secondhand. Anything above this, it will save you money by going for a 3 or 4 year contract hire deal. If you add up all the costs, re-sale value, tax savings, at about £12,000 each deal costs the same, so it's only worth going secondhand if you want to spend less.