Muttley’s Lass & I need a new motor, the current one (vauxhall meriva) is showing it’s age and after the unforgetable experience of swapping the alternator last weekend 3 hrs just to get the sodding thing out – no room to get hands in – it’s got to go.

One of the things we are considering is to get the new car on Personal Contract Hire rather than a traditional HP arrangement. We are weighing up the pros & cons and we seem to fit the profile quite well. Our annual mileage is under 10k, we aren’t bothered about owning the car, being happy to hand it back at the end of the 3 year contract and sign up for another one.

We will be getting an additional “mucky” vehicle – probably a S1 or S2 Land Rover Discovery V8 on LPG as they are going for peanuts and I’m very familiar with care and feeding of) to cart dogs,bikes, tip runs and cope with winter weather etc. The contract hire car (we were thinking something like a fiesta or a polo is for “best” i.e. to get Muttley’s lass to work and back (I cycle commute), shopping and the occasional trip away without bikes/dogs/kids.

Anyone got any experience of this type of car “ownership / purchase / rental”.

If you are looking at PCP, then its worth looking at a lease as well.
You can get some very good PCP and lease deals – although on a lease, it ends up being expensive if you add options, so get a model with a good base spec.

Lease you don’t own it. PCP you do… except you don’t really 🙂

Mrs Monkeysfeet has done this for years. With Mini. No issues and a good scheme if you are not bothered about ownership. We use it as an affordabel way to run a new car.

Yeah lease was what I meant (where the cost is offset by the residual value at the end of the contract) lol. I have twigged that this can be the be the key to the cost – from some brief research I’ve found that its only slightly more expensive a month to lease a Landy 110 SW than a Polo GT or Fester ST

But it doesn’t fit the “sips fuel” requisite … humph 🙄

Is it better to stick with manufacturers plans via the dealers or hit the interwebs and shop about.

For Leases, have a look around online and on car forums – there are some amazing deals that crop up intermittently (whenever a brand wants its sales figures to look good, I guess). ‘Normal’ deals are pretty average but every now and again you’ll get something which looks too good to be true. Be flexible on what car you want and be prepared to sacrifice a bit to get the best deal.

I’ve got a Lease / Personal Contract Hire car now. It was pretty easy to set up. You get a brand new car, you don’t have to worry about tax/MOT/Servicing (depending on the plan of course) and it’s fixed with no surprises and costs quite a bit less overall than I was paying on a Hire Purchase on a much older car.

Mine came from here and I have nothing bad to say about them – Yet! Proof will come in the handback I suppose. But they seem efficient enough. http://www.gateway2lease.com/

Lease and PCP are different, you are talking about a PCP where your name is on the V5.
For a lease, you are essentially renting the car, and after 2, 3 or 4 years you just hand back the keys and walk away.

PCP the aim is that you have some equity that you can put towards another car. You can also pay off the final amount, or just hand it back and walk away.

I used to be a car salesman (For my sins), I didn’t deal with Contract hire but did a lot of PCP on new Fords. For me, its the only way I would have a brand new car again. Just don’t put in a large deposit at the start (keep it around 10% of the car price) that way you usually find a good balance of low outlay vs residual value at the end.
Also check out http://www.drivethedeal.com salesmen hate this site but it shows you the absolute cheapest that a car can be sold for. At Ford we found that a lot of the prices from this site resulted in a deal that lost money but if we sold enough of them the bonus from Ford made up for it

Ive found PCP’s the cheapest way to get a cheap small car.

We never put more than £500 deposit in and pay £150 a month insured and serviced.

Don’t put big deposits in.

Another +1 for drive the deal PCP. Nice new car for a stable predictable outgoing per month and lots of options at the end.

If you are really not fussed on the car you’ll be driving, and seeing as currently it is a Meriva I’ll assume so :-); just focus on the lowest deposit+cost-per-month and go shopping.

Just remember to add in servicing costs (keep to manufacturers standards to reduce additional costs on return risks) and find a colour you like.

also worth remembering that on a lease you need to hand the car back in a reasonable condition or you could get stung for repairs

Also check out http://www.drivethedeal.com salesmen hate this site but it shows you the absolute cheapest that a car can be sold for. At Ford we found that a lot of the prices from this site resulted in a deal that lost money but if we sold enough of them the bonus from Ford made up for it

That’s basically how the car industry works now, margins in a new car are very thin.

Sort of bothered about the car, the Meriva was inherited in a way.

Thanks for the assists folks, I’ll let you know what happens =0)

I was just quoted £200 a month (inc vat) on an Octavia VRS (tdi). £1800 down though.

Still, some amount of car for the money.