I think it really comes down to how much value you place on reliability.

Pretty much this really. I always run older cars, and feel like I’m saving money because I’m not spending something every month .. the actual economics may be a bit closer than I like to think, especially with modern diesels.
May well go to a lease next year for the ‘family’ car, if I can chop in the current one as deposit. One problem too many with it.

Timely thread this.

My company lease car goes back tomorrow and I’m being forced off the car policy and onto an allowance scheme. I’ve been agonising over the same thing as the OP, and whether it’s a sensible thing to do or completely reckless and foolhardy.

I was looking at a PCP deal, but it’s like double the price of a lease per month – North of £400/month. The problem I’ve got with leasing though is finding the deposit (and the fact I’m stuck with the repayments if I lose my job I suppose).

As it is I’ve got a stay of execution, I’m in a pool car for a few months as of tomorrow.

I went through this at the start of the year. My wife had a Mini Cooper S that we bought at 5 years old and had owned for three. It had a few reliability issues, so decided it was time for a change. My wife doesn’t so massive miles, but needs a reliable car for work. I worked out what the Mini had cost us per month (including depreciation) over the three years and set that figure as a maximum for a lease price (including the deposit). Ended up getting a really good lease deal on a well specced Peugeot 208GTI for less than the Mini had cost us per month, plus it is under warranty for the contract so no unexpected bills. The fact it is 8 years newer means it is a much nicer car to spend time in compared to the Mini. Not for everyone, but it works for us.

I have had PCP cars for the past 10 years or so. I have taken them as an option rather than company cars, so was fairly relaxed about the ‘it’s a hire car’ part of having a lease car.

Edited to add: There are a lot of expensive lease deals out there, you need to shop around and be flexible on the car you want to get the best deal.

I’m still debating over this following my recent car rental thread. The thing I don’t like about the hire would be having to find a £2500 deposit every 2/3 years. That alone makes the monthly amount £100 more each month if you want to set aside money for that deposit. That puts it more on a par with PCP finance deals where I’d at least have an option to buy it.

Cougar, that is pretty much the set up I have with my work car. I took out a PCP deal on a 6 months old Audi, which worked out a lot cheaper than having the same car as a company car. Only one month deposit up front. It works if your mileage is low, once it get over 25k a year it makes less sense.

So pcp gives the option to buy?
Could pcp and NOT buying ever be cheaper?? Hmm…

DrP

I was in this quandary lately.

I was fed up with years of “bangernomics” vehicles and wanted something more reliable.

I disliked the idea of leasing a new car and never really owning it, having mileage restrictions etc.

So I took out a personal loan of £9k and bought a new Dacia outright.

All the advantages of a new car, none of the disadvantages of contract hire. But it is a Dacia!

Dr P, interesting….
I’ve been toying with these PCH deals for a few weeks and I really can’t see a downside – some of the ‘specials’ that come up are amazing.
But as a Victorian Dad I still struggle with the concept; it seems ‘dirty’ somehow to not own the car outright!
Slowly, surely I’m coming round to the opinion that I’ll probably go for something like this when I next change cars and I reckon it’ll save me money.
I think one factor to consider regarding ‘how can they do it’, is that the car stays within the Skoda group at the end of the deal, so second hand prices can be controlled more easily. Keep us posted…..

I think these threads are a great way for me to understand the car market, So here’s some lease questions

If I lease a car for 2 years then what happens if

1. It’s stolen? Do they insure it or do I. Do I have to worry about the dreaded gap

2. Does the warranty cover all repairs or just the notorious “defects in manafacture”

3. What happens with damage, broken springs, dented wings etc?

Thanks

John

Could pcp and NOT buying ever be cheaper?? Hmm…

It depends on the final value offered by the finance company. They have to guess what the car will be worth in 3 years time. In my experience that figure can vary by a fair bit. The difference is reflected in the monthly payments. Most dealer schemes will have a low final figure so that you have £1,000+ in equity in the car, which you can then use as a deposit towards a new one. Going away from dealer finance you tend to get higher final figures, with lower monthly payments – although you often don’t get the same incentives.

This is something I’ve thought about on and off for years.

We’ve always bought a 3yr old car for 10k and run it for around 10 years, then traded in and got another.

I did some work at a vehicle leasing company and it opened my eyes to the possibility of leasing one. The most desirable models are the best value as depreciation is lowest.
If you do go that route factor in £150 for a chips away and proper valet before you hand it back (advice from the leasing guys who go look at them) You’ll get no additional charges for sure where those that look tatty usually do.

They may offer for you to buy the car at the end – leasing companies love to sell to the person who leased (top money for them), dealers second (for desirable models), auction for the least desirable.

straight out of the sales mans handbook, who really worries unless they have a banger!??

By the sound of it, anyone who has a Vag group car that’s just out of warranty…

Given they’ve only had one oil change in 20k miles, I don’t blame them!

ampthill
1. You insure the car. I have had a PCP car stolen, the insurance claim was the same as normal. It is worth getting GAP insurance to cover the difference between insurance payout and the outstanding finance. GAP insurance is about 150 for the term of a PCP or lease policy. Depending on the lease or PCP you need to confirm with your insurance company that you don’t own the car – although I don’t think everyone does this.

2. It is the normal manufacturers warranty on a new car, which should cover most things. You are treated as if you bought the car for cash. The deals normally include breakdown cover too.

3. You are liable for that sort of damage. The way I view it is if I own the car I would pay to put damage right, so it makes no difference if I have to give the car back at some stage.

crosshair » Don’t forget the mileage and condition restrictions. They will examine it with some kind of nuclear microscope afterwards and foot you with a bill for repairs only second to touching up a scratch on the international space station.
When they collected my last lease car chap walked round it looked inside briefly and asked me to sign his PDA device that everything was ok and mileage was correct. All done in under 5 mins

This, pretty much. Some inspectors use iPads to take photos of the cars, but it depends on who’s doing the leasing.
VAG, BMW, Mercedes and, amazingly, Toyota, all have their cars inspected by a separate inspector, but not every car gets that treatment. Some, along with pretty much every other leased car, will get a check-over by the driver tasked with picking the car up and delivering it to wherever it’s required to be.
This is what I do. I pitch up at wherever the car happens to be, spend about fifteen-twenty minutes giving it a check over, marking any issues on a form, mostly ticking boxes and indicating on a diagram, it gets signed off by the person leasing the car then I drive it away.
It can be very interesting going to the auctions and seeing the sort of prices that cars can fetch.
[edit] Just checked tomorrow’s job sheets, and I’ve got a Mazda 6 and a Mini Countryman to pick up, both are being inspected before I take them away. Which is nice and easy for me, I just make a note of the mileage and go.
Piece of piss, really! 😀

Have discussed this with wife/friends/family recently.

I reckoned up our Volvo has cost us upto this point £1500 per year in depreciation,servicing and parts. Its now worth <£1000 so is bottomed out depreciation wise, the longer I can keep it going the lower its average annual cost.

Paying someone else to spanner it however would increase the costs level with leasing.

The other option my mate takes is to buy the cheapest most undesirable barge available, very occasional oil change if they are lucky and run till they explode. His long suffering Vectra died and he replaced it with the Kia below, 67k miles, mint condition, full KIA SH, all mots present, recent new Bosch battery and exhaust, brown leather steering wheel cover in the boot! £400.
I checked it out for him and it was good, has been fine in the month since. Scrap value is £70 so it effectively cost him £330.

[url=https://postimage.org/]photo storage[/url]

the Kia below, 67k miles, full KIA SH, all mots present, recent new Bosch battery and exhaust, brown leather steering wheel cover in the boot! £400.

Superb value, but was he parking it round the back of his work out of shame when he took that pic?

There’s a lot to be said for RNP’s mate’s route. A car like that Kia is going to be pretty reliable for some years to come, and for an outlay of £400, well, difficult to find an argument against it.
Other than there’s a decided lack of excitement about it…

If you have an interest in cars other than it is just a means of A to B then the KIA/undesirable banger route isn’t for you.
However if you want a vehicle that you absolutely do not care a single iota about then it is a very liberating way of owning cars.

Thanks Jason

Other than there’s a decided lack of excitement about it…

Au Contraire

Every day in Kia Picanto feels like I’m filming an episodoe of a Top Gear Challenge.

member of the family does RNPs mates approach .

I wont travel any distance in any of his previous cars as i always believe ill be pushing it home.

Was gifted an old motor when we needed a second car many moons ago and he had just bought a new one – he had had it 7 years and 100k miles. never had an oil change and ran like a bag of spanners+ front suspension was colapsed.

Pretty much went straight to the scrappers after i had it on the ramp for a gander.

I do as RNP does. Was in the garage looking at an 8 grand berlingo the other day while enquiring about some shims for valve clearance adjustment …. its nice but id rather 8 grand in the bank…. and i look after my motor so would have no qualms about driving to the south of france (after ive done the timing belt , waterpump and valve clearances on monday )

although i accept that if it was a normal person paying for this work it would have been scrapped long ago…..

if you want a vehicle that you absolutely do not care a single iota about then it is a very liberating way of owning cars.

As a previous owner of a Fiat Regatta and an 18-year-old gold Cavalier, I fully support this approach. Just couldn’t resist the gag.

🙂

I`d love to lease , but to have someone walk round it with a clipboard and pen after Mrs S has used it for two years could leave the family bankrupt! Shame as its never her fault 🙂

ah yes the complete beater. i had this in my frontera. It was a monster and cost nothing in trade for a cooked golf….

still wouldnt have driven it anywhere. on paper the worst car i ever owned in the real world it was brilliant…. sometimes you just get em… If i set out to buy a frontera tomorrow i probably couldnt buy one as reliable as that one was.

I challenged the finance guy asking how do they make money? If i were to buy the Yeti it’s about £28k. There’s no way I’d sell it after 2 years for more than £23k, so I’m ‘quids in’ that way.

Its because the £28k RRP is artificially inflated to make finance seem an attractive option.

Its been going on for years – the car manufacturers have colluded to make it so.

If you want VFM motoring, buy something unfashionable at 3 years old for peanuts and run into the ground. Take their PCP incentives and pay the finance off straight away.

People on STW do get their pants in a twist about paying for cars.

It’s not hard: on almost* all cars you pay for depreciation during your period of possession. So decide how much you are happy to pay over your chosen period of possession and crack on: cash buy, HP, PCP, PCH.

Then determine your risk appetite for known and unknown costs during that period and aim for used/new as appropriate.

As for mileage/handback checks – PCH and PCP are just the same on this. But just think of excess mileage charges as additional depreciation on your cash-bought car. And wear and tear costs are just the same.

The rest is just simple maths.

*Yes, we’re still in the midst of a massive classic car bubble right now.

We have that yeti on that deal. No need to buy at these prices.

Lease companies buy in bulk and do smart things with VAT.

It’s a myth about hand backs. There is a very reasonable code of conduct. We’ve never had any problems. Everyone just covers their arses.

Unless you are complete slob in which case your own car would suffer relevant depreciation.

We test drove a 1.2 TSi (one point two!!). That’s a cracking engine – the 1.4 tsi is meant to be great

We have both engines in two Yetis. I don’t like the 1.4tsi. It sounds rougher and doesn’t seem as urgent as the 1.2tsi. It’s a lot less frugal too.

The 1.4tsi l&k has lot of good toys though. Panoramic window is nice as is self parking etc.

However I have the 1.2tsi DSG SEL and it is the least fatigue inducing drive I ever had. That will always be it’s best attribute. That was £109 a month. The L&K was 135. Also 4×4 on that model.

My extra milage is 3ppm.

Every day in Kia Picanto feels like I’m filming an episodoe of a Top Gear Challenge.

😆 😆 😆

We too looked at leases and PCP twice in two years.
With higher miles, too costly.
With family, bikes and canoes, too risky.
I’m yet to regret an older car.

I’ve never run newer than 3 years old, or less than 35k. Usually North of 10 years and 100k.

As Trail Rat says – keep an eye out and on top of servicing, and a car is unlikely to suddenly fail these days. My old car may cost £1k/yr in servicing – but a lease or loan repayments are waaaay more than that. And I would rather spend the difference on bikes and holidays, even if I could afford newer or lease.

I bought a 3yr old yeti for 10k intend to keep it for a long time so works out better for me. Servicing and repairs arent a big worry or expense as its my day job. Leasing id off leased for 3yrs and would either need to start a new lease or pay the balance to own the car. This way im left with a yeti in what ever condition its in after 3 yrs hauling bikes about while not having to care about dings and dirt. Spending how ever many years paying out and having to care for a car thats not mine because i might be penalised for it would also do my tits in.

The downsides of a lease:

Have a crash, even if its not your fault. The lease company will seek the shortfall between payout and their perceived value based on their calculations at that (earlier than expected) point.

You lose your job 3months into a 24month lease? Guess who will want the 21months montly payments still.

Lots of lease/manufacturers are great with handback clauses, some go through your car very carefully. I had a great chat with a Manheim auctions appraiser who came to pick up my main dealer Citroen lease car. He said I was very much a rarity at handback. The stone chips that require a full bonnet respray clause surprised me the most on their clauses.

It does < 10km a year, it’s a nice car to drive

I think I would probably just walk if I was doing less than 30 metres a day.

Even if the car was really nice to drive 😆

We’ve had two Yetis on lease one after the other paying just under £5k for each two year lease. Sent them back without a penny to pay in damages, even with the last one having a car park door ‘ding’ in one door. The only costs we paid were one service and two new front tyres which were cheap Chinese ones at about £100 for the pair. Much cheap motoring!

The lease co pays much less than we would for the car, obtains cheap finance and aims to sell them on at a decent price to the trade.

Much cheap fixed cost motoring!

its not cheap.

Ive been looking and swithering on wether to replace the mighty blingo with something newer and more “reliable” as people put it .

im struggling with what makes a new car more trust worthy “reliable” than my old jalopy.

I find once all wear items are replace and so long as corrosion isn’t a problem your good for a few years relarively trouble free motoring.

Well that’s it isn’t it.

My berlingo = triggers broom 🙂

It’s hard a hard life but equally it never wants it’s had the bits it needs when it needs. I don’t tolerate storage noises long.i m still only into it for 2500 and it’s pretty much a new car as far as brakes suspension tires bearings in my ownership.

8k pays for the base van for our camper so I think we will be running the bingo a bit longer.

Me and a mate at work have this conversation.

He’s had a long line of top spec Audis and BMW’s on lease and I’ve generally had boggo cars bought as ex demos.
He makes the point that cars are not worth owning and your better of renting them but we both know thats just an excuse to own a fancy cars because it makes him happy.

I honestly don’t think theres a right and wrong. He gets a nicer car to drive around in and has done for many years whilst I get the confidence of owning something regardless of monthly payments and also this year get to give my son quite a nice car.

Well if you’re going to fiddle the figures. In reality it’s actually £219 a month if you include that.

Of course – it just seems that people leasing are reluctant to do the maths properly. Bought my current car 4 years ago, the total amount I’ve spent including an expected DMF replacement, tyres, MOTs etc. is about £130 a month on the basis of having paid for the total depreciation if it was worth nothing now (and of course it’s actually still a fully functional 8yo car which has been totally reliable – I’m still way off bangernomics). I appreciate people place a value on having a brand new car, but I could buy a blingy bike with what I’ve saved over leasing.

Of course – it just seems that people leasing are reluctant to do the maths properly.

Unfair. I find its the inability of the used car brigade to compare like for like that’s the issue.

It’s a new car. That’s your benchmark. I’ve had lots of used cars – some have been cheap some have been disasters. But none of them started life box fresh.

Enjoy driving your 8yr old car I won’t convince you otherwise .

Have a crash, even if its not your fault. The lease company will seek the shortfall between payout and their perceived value based on their calculations at that (earlier than expected) point

Gap 40 quid a year. And you really don’t need it the first year of a lease as most insurers will pay for new.

Surprised from reading this thread how common car leasing is vs PCP. I have recently signed up to my first ever PCP after many years of a Company Car. Now going onto a car allowance and didn’t really investigate leasing in much detail…

Quite happy with the deal on a 4 yr, 20k miles per annum PCP with low deposit, but must compare what a lease would be…