[Closed] Ex lease/hire cars?

Lease cars are a bit of a lottery. We lease all our courtesy cars, so they generally get driven by someone different every day - some customers take very good care of them - some pay the excess waiver and then delight in telling you how they had to wring the cars neck to "make progress", when they bring it back! You could get one of these, or you could get one which has had one driver who's looked after it really well. and done all those mile on the motorway. If you can find out who had the car previously, it may give you a clue.

Ford are well known for calling back in lease cars, my Brother had 5 new fiestas on the bounce - a new one every year.

They call up their customers "do you want a new car, same cost, no deposit" they don't exactly spell out the fact it extends their lease for another year, but they don't hide it either.

I found some paperwork in one of the side cubbies in the bin that suggests a young couple ran it - ties up with saved phones in the cars bluetooth (only found that because it tried to connect with my phone).

Bodywork and interior of car is almost A1. Tiny paint chip on one door from being opened onto wall or something, and little bit of kerb scuff to near side front wheel - easily repairable. No blue smoke or rattles.

Oh, and yes, it's a fiesta. Ford dealers seem to have shed loads of them all about same age & mileage at the moment, but a lot have tatty alloys - which kind of suggests to me that they may have had a rough life.

[I]but a lot have tatty alloys - which kind of suggests to me that they may have had a rough life. [/I]

Or more probable been city based and lots of on street parking.

I wouldn't worry about it, just pick one based on price/spec/miles/age/condition, as I always work on the theory that no one treats a car as bad as me so it's bound to have had an easier life than it's going to get 🙂

It's a con for the dealer normally, they buy at such discount and have targets to hit with Ford for shifting cars through. They're probably selling it after 1 year for what they paid for it originally after making a deposit and 12 months of payments off the buyer.

I have a car that used to be a lease car and got a cracking deal off Audi for the fact they had such a volume to shift on.

I had an ex hire Citroen Xantia. Great car. I only found out it was ex hire because one of my friends remembered the reg from when he hired it! Only registered owner was Citroen UK.

We bought an ex Avis hire car from Motorpoint about 20 years ago, and kept it 4 years. I wasn't expecting much, as it was a fairly boggo Fiat Punto - but it survived over 3 years of my OH's driving...;) and turned out to be a very reliable and robust car.

Managed to haggle £1100 off for cash (very close to Motorpoint prices) so tempted to go for it. My OH is just after a nippy compact runaround that's cheap to run, and has left me to sort it.....oh dear:) I've told her it's a 1.0L fiesta, but not that it's 140bhp on lowered suspension;) Wish me luck trying to get that one past her!

A lot are also used by employees, they only have them for 6-8 months then they go back to an airfield in Oxfordshire to be sent out as used stock to the dealers.
My friend moves them around on his transporter 11 at a time for weeks on end!

My job involves picking up ex-lease and ex-Motability cars from clients and dealers, and they can be variable, depending on who had the car and how long for. I've had an engineer's car, a VW Golf GTD, that had holes worn right through the carpet, clearly very well used, a Jag XF with nearly 80k on after four years, that showed use consistent with its miles, the bloke wanted to keep it but Jaguar wouldn't give him a good price, then there was the immaculate Maserati Ghibli I had a couple of weeks ago, ten months old, around 7800 miles on it, the owner was changing her job and home, had to hand the car back but would be getting another, that one I drove from Cornwall to Bruntingthorpe and whoever gets it will have a stunning car. There's a place down in Cornwall where the team and I fairly regularly pick up a batch of loan cars, all Corsas, all a year old, all SRi's with around 5-6000 on the clock, heated screens, the lot, and all of them in superb condition, and every one will be a fantastic little car for a new owner.
Scuffed alloys are a bit of a fact of life, although they're more likely to be damaged on Motab cars, lease ones will often have some scars, it's almost impossible to avoid, especially if the car has large diameter wheels with low profile tyres, there's little rubber over the edge to protect the metal; I picked up a rather tidy Scirocco last week from a young bloke who's handed it back early due to impending fatherhood, and unsurprisingly a couple of the alloys had scuffs on the rims, I can't see how it can really be avoided.
Motab cars can be rather abused, sadly, although some can be very clean and very low mileage, but mostly while the mileage is usually pretty low, be prepared for body and paint damage, and quite heavily stained interiors.
I picked up a lovely little VW Touran from a little old bloke who clearly couldn't drive his car any more, it was externally in need of a really good clean, where it had been stood, it was two years old with 2800 miles on it! Smashing car to drive, I dropped it off at a dealer over London way, the sales girl asked what it was like, and I said lovely, just needed a really good valeting, and she said good, 'cos I've just sold it!
Really, most such cars get serviced, are usually pretty good mileage, and any flaws are gonna be pretty obvious, so you can see what you're getting.
😀

Lots of fiestas, with the troublesome dsg gearbox? I wouldnt touch one

[quote=bowglie ]We bought an ex Avis hire car from Motorpoint about 20 years ago, and kept it 4 years. I wasn't expecting much, as it was a fairly boggo Fiat Punto - but it survived over 3 years of my OH's driving...;) and turned out to be a very reliable and robust car.

I'm not sure how useful such stories are as the OP's appears to be lease not hire, but mrs aracer bought an ex hire Focus from Motorpoint almost 18 years ago, and it's whats currently sitting on the drive! It's been a great car.

my company are on lease cars.

You could get my colleagues car- thrashed everywhere as she is permanently late, or another colleagues who treats it like their baby.

Buying it your would struggle to tell after it had been cleaned and valeted.

Same as any second hand car I would think!

[quote=tall_martin ]Buying it your would struggle to tell after it had been cleaned and valeted.

If you can't tell you may well find the one which has been "thrashed" is in reality no worse a buy - driving cars hard isn't necessarily that bad for them.

Could be a lease where they failed to keep up the payments ? A car that new with low miles I can't see being an issue. Good value vs brand new with a bit of discount ?

Not all lease / hire cars should be avoided. I really should have bought my mates ex-company lease car. He was a fastidious owner. Hire cars temd to have had a harder life although not if bought from Jersey !

I tend to end up with ex Lease cars, typically with no issues, well looked after because people want their deposit back. Even ex Company cars are good. If it was serviced when it should have been and shows no signs of major damage or repair all should be fine.

Obviously there are lemons out there and these can be hard to spot.

I suppose actually my car is ex lease - though not quite the same as we're talking about here as it had racked up 120k on the lease! Service history was very comprehensive though and it was cheap.

scuffs on the rims, I can't see how it can really be avoided.

Whu...?

IANADG

Managed to haggle £1100 off for cash (very close to Motorpoint prices) so tempted to go for it. My OH is just after a nippy compact runaround that's cheap to run, and has left me to sort it.....oh dear:) I've told her it's a 1.0L fiesta, but not that it's 140bhp on lowered suspension;) Wish me luck trying to get that one past her!

See if you you can haggle even more off taking their PCP finance, usually should get £500 or so dressed up as "deposit contribution" plus a couple of services.

Then the day after taking delivery of the car ring up and pay all the finance off with no penalty. Just don't tell the sales manager you are going to do this.

Thanks to the EU financial regulation you have a cooling off period for any loan allowing you to change your mind and pay it off without penalty.

See if you you can haggle even more off taking their PCP finance, usually should get £500 or so dressed up as "deposit contribution" plus a couple of services.

Then the day after taking delivery of the car ring up and pay all the finance off with no penalty. Just don't tell the sales manager you are going to do this.

Thanks to the EU financial regulation you have a cooling off period for any loan allowing you to change your mind and pay it off without penalty.

Oh bu**er, done the deal now, and forgot to use that one. Nice tactic for people to be aware of though. We used it when we bought the Octavia VRS we've just sold - got a stellar deal on that one, as it was one of the last facelifted Mark 2's before the current model came out. Managed to get a brand new 24k spec car for £18500 ....and 3 years servicing chucked in!

Done the deal on the fiesta (including refurb to the scuffed wheel and a full set of decent mats and boot liner). After sale of Octavia, we've managed to come out slightly up on the deal - and OH has been pleasantly surprised by difference in cost to tax and insure the fiesta compared to the VRS. Can't wait to collect the fiesta now - on the test drive, it reminded me of the performance of the classic 80/90's GTI's. According to the petrol head salesman, the fiesta has the same power to weight and 0-60 as the Pug 205GTi 1.6 ....

If it's the red top ie black / red roof or the right one with ( red and black roof )
They are cracking little car to drive my mate has one and he said its the best car he's ever owned and that's a lot of cars over many years .

Yes, it's a red one