But wouldn’t you want that same beautiful, intelligent and caring lady in tip-top condition, rather than haggard, loose and enthusiastically used….if only it was within your reach?

Everyone’s experience is different

Bought two new cars in June one was in the dealers unregistered but it had done 128 miles and wasn’t the *exact* spec mrs rocket wanted but it was £5k under list. The oher one was an outgoing model fully loaded 7 miles on the clock still got £3k off it

There are plenty of cars you just have to shop around and more importantly go and look at some

I wouldn’t pay twice as much for the privilege – but then my standards are low

😆

Not quite the same as used – you can get some good deals if you do well, but you’re still on the cliff edge of depreciation at 6 months old – arguably all you’ve saved is the difference between ticket price and what the lease companies pay. You’ll certainly save a lot more money at 2-3yo.

Not that I’m entirely sure your figures add up – you’re not double counting the depreciation are you? I’m sure there are slightly better lease deals around, but a quick check on what seems towards the cheaper end for an SMax is £320 a month over 3 years with your mileage (don’t forget standard lease deals are lower mileage than you’re doing), plus £2.2k up front. That doesn’t include any servicing, so you can ignore that, and comes to a total of almost £14k over 3 years! How much did you say your depreciation over 6 years had cost you?

Cars tend to cost people in big slugs of money every now and again, but if you work it out over the period of your ownership then the cost per mile or cost per year is quite surprising.

I did my costs up there – what do you think I’ve missed? On the contrary it seems to be people doing leasing where they’re only paying X per month who seem not to realise the total cost of ownership.

People have been conned into thinking it’s ok to ‘just pay for the depreciation’ on a new car, then start again in 3 years’ time. You’re locking yourself in to perpetually paying max depreciation, which seems silly to me.

I ran bangers, partly out of necessity, for 10/15 years, so I reckoned I’d stored up a bit of an excuse to get a new car, but still ended up with a 1-year old and an ex-demo. New car feeling but the harshest of depreciation already done.

Paid for with a bank loan, low interest, and at the end of the term, the car is mine. I don’t have to give it back and sign on to another plan. I hate the thought of that. Like renting a house; throwing money away. I plan to keep these cars for 10 years or so which seems the best way to extract max. value.

I nearly succumbed to Showroom Fever a couple of times. But PCP/leasing? Nah.

We bought two new cars this summer and I was pretty surprised on both occasions how little we were pushed for finance and all the extra (Gap insurance, fancy wax protection, alloy insurance etc ….). I guess it’s dealership specific and to certain extent brand specific. Discounts were tough to get though when talking finance or cash.

Surely lack of discount is due to headline prices being pushed lower and lower from either customer pressure and competition or unimaginative marketing teams. There is simply no profit in the screen price to discount on new cars. Dealers make their profit from the add ons and this is why they are pushed.
Extras are added as a sweetener as the perceived value is significantly higher than the cost.

All – thanks for the input and some hilarity along the way. I know it’s an unusual situation and that by having a massive cash pot just gifted to me by a unicorn means I should pay full whack etc etc.
Anyhow, I have located and viewed a private sale this morning which looks like it could meet the criteria so I am discussing the price on that one. Should that fall through I will continue my search.

Deals come up all the time, you just need to look around.
We picked up a 13 month old with 826 miles (yeah that is eight hundred and twenty six) from a main dealer which was 8K off list and just under a 3rd of it’s list price.
It’s now 4 years old and still worth over half the original list price.
Deals are there to be had if you look around for long enough.

We bought a new-to-us car which was 9 months old with 7500 miles previously driven by someone at the dealer. The price was 24.5% less than new list, and they carried out the first service as part of agreement.
I’m sure we could have tried for a bit more from them, but it was in good nick, they weren’t pushy and it suited us. It is deeply unfashionable though, and not a “driver’s car”.

You can all stand down, just bought a lovely vehicle for 60% of its original purchase price, 16 months old, 14,000 miles. Collect Monday and a nice gentle pootle home.

Was it a Macan?

Yeah, a white one ?? 😆

This is what you need. No depreciation here…

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Alfa-Romeo-SZ-3-0-Zagato-44k-Miles-Number-167-800-/302112086992?hash=item4657489bd0:g:gWgAAOSwxKtYB2qp

It’s quite some time away yet, but I’m never again getting a loan for a second hand car. I’ll overpay mine to get rid of the loan in 15 months but I’ll either buy 3 years old outright or look at PCP new. I think the 3 year old quality motor will be the winner somehow.