Car leasing, anyone here do it??

I must have missed the ones where you can see some shoes you like and ask for a pair in your size

Have you lost your sense of humour?

Ah, sorry I missed your reply – so you’re paying £7.2k over 2 years – if we knock off £1.2k for the insurance, servicing and tax (which is a bit more than I’m paying) then if you spent the £6k on a s/h one instead you’d have a £4k asset at the end. I still don’t see how it is cheaper.

Don’t forget other be genral running costs. I’ve never claimed it was cheaper that buying a old car but if you want new it’s a big consideration.

Dubber you fit the secondhand market better than new so I’d look at that option.

Hence the discussion on whether leasing is good value, because it seems that whilst you like the idea of a new car, the bigger issue is your lack of funds.

There is no way it’s actually “cheaper” to lease a car than buy a similar model that’s 3 – 5 years old.

If you really want to pick up value for money cars, you can always take a “risk” and go to a car auction. They are full of 3 year old ex-lease vehicles.

I’ve bought 3 cars at auction in last 10 years and they have all been bargains.

if your subject to cashflow issues id be very wary about signing up to a lease for 3 years – you cant just flog the motor to get out of it .

some do have buy back clauses written into the contract but from what ive seen the consumer is the one that takes the hit.

😳 but, but, you forgot the smiley

Don’t forget other be genral running costs.

Such as? I presume you still have to pay for fuel? 😉

I’ve never claimed it was cheaper that buying a old car but if you want new it’s a big consideration.

Ah, well maybe we don’t disagree all that much – you confused me by seemingly agreeing with STATO:

Such as? I presume you still have to pay for fuel?

Yes. I presume your car has tyres and other such gubbins?

Stato is making the same point, I didn’t think he might buying a cheap secondhand.

I presume lease cars do as well – does your deal include tyres then?

Stato is making the same point

He’s saying it’s not much more – presumably almost twice as much falls within his definition of not much. We’re not talking really cheap or really old here – depreciation of a 3-4yo car is only ~£1.5k a year.

depreciation of a 3-4yo car is only ~£1.5k a year.

Really?

Most cars lose at least 50% of their value in the first 3 years.

You can pick up an average mileage BMW/Mercedes for about half the original price – 3 yr old 520d about £16k. Other makes depreciate more. So a typical £20k family car, will probably be worth £8 – 10k, which is at least £3.3k per year.

Really?

Most cars lose at least 50% of their value in the first 3 years.

You can pick up an average mileage BMW/Mercedes for about half the original price – 3 yr old 520d about £16k. Other makes depreciate more. So a typical £20k family car, will probably be worth £8 – 10k, which is at least £3.3k per year.
He means when a car reaches 4 years old it will only *continue* to depreciate at £1.5k a year thereafter.

He means when a car reaches 4 years old it will only *continue* to depreciate at £1.5k a year thereafter.

OK. Thanks for that, I wasn’t sure what point he was making.My mistake. 😳

I agree depreciation isn’t a lot on older cars.

My point was that if a person feels they can get a lease deal for the same net cost over against a s/h car over 2 years, then that’s why they will move to lease over buying. Clearly if your car doesn’t break down and you can keep it for 5 years you will win (apart from not having something new), but peoples expectations of astronomical repair or service costs make them believe this is not possible.

Possibly because the sort of person to lease is the sort of person who uses dealers or quickfit for servicing, again for same reasons as leasing such as peace of mind of a large chain and not having to deal with problems like dodgy back street mechanics (lets ignore the dodgy quickfit stories for now!), so the expected costs of s/h motoring for the average leaser is much higher than the reality of a confident amateur mechanic or person who is happy to hunt out and haggle with a private garage.

Modern cars (ie. within last 10 years) are very reliable, and the chance of a £1k plus repair being required is low, but there are still costs and not knowing how much a full brake service is, or why they might need a new CAT scares people.

My Dad has been running cheap s/h cars my whole life. His big Jeep broke recently (again, its a running joke but he loves it) so he just went out and bought a s/h astra for peanuts to go to work while the Jeep was fixed, he has had it 6 month now and we worked out its probably paid for itself in reduced fuel bills, but otherwise is solid as a rock. Heater is crap mind.

chance of a £1k plus repair being required is low

But it *can* happen. The 9 year old Mazda 3 that we have owned and regularly serviced from new (only 49k on the clock) has generally been okay despite a £500 MOT/service/repair bill last week. However when it was just out of warranty (ie about 3 years and 2 months) it developed a fault with the Stability Control System. It was a well-known and documented fault and many people were complaining that dealers/Mazda wouldn’t fix without charge with some people paying almost £2,000 to get it repaired. I managed to convince them to put 50% towards ours after showing them our service record and backing it up with lots of interweb evidence (such as this). It still meant it cost us £700. And that was on a three year old car with about 15,000 miles on the clock.

Ah fair enough – I was misinterpreting you by picking out one quote and ignoring all the stuff you’ve written I agree with. I’m assuming most people on here are more at the mechanical savvy end. I would claim I don’t do most car stuff any more, but then I do my own oil changes and a lot of minor stuff most people would throw at a garage – eg the bonnet cable on my Mondeo which is a common fault and would probably have cost over £100 in labour. As mentioned above I’ve had the £1k DMF/clutch repair, but then I was expecting that and factored it into my costs when I bought.

I shouldn’t complain, as it’s the people getting leases who supply the market for the cars I buy (my last 3 have been ex-lease I think).

aracer

As I said in the very first post, I now have better wages, by £120 per week, I sold the car I mentioned over 2yrs ago to reduce out goings.
There is no bigger issue on lack of funds but thanks for the post anyway

I’m very mechanical savvy and have access to people who could help me with stuff, but I’d prob still get a lease can as I can’t be arsed with the time. Time short money rich (relative) as they say. Only reason I’ve not is I’d wreck one puttin muddy shitty bikes and kit in it (oh and I don’t have a licence 🙄 )

I presume lease cars do as well – does your deal include tyres then?

I pay for fuel and the lease that’s it.

dubber, I have to say that (irrespective of the debate raging all around) in your particular position, leasing a car to sit on your drive seems a hell of a waste of money. Your money, your choice but your current system already works well from what I can see, have an old banger for occasional use, and don’t be scared to splash out on a rental when you’ve got a big trip. You can do that a lot for the cost of a lease car.

More generally, bangernomics really is a good way to go for someone who doesn’t need a reliable comfortable car for daily use. Once you need it for a commute, of course I can see the appeal of paying a bit more for reliability and comfort, but it’s not a position I’ve ever let myself get into. My two vehicles cost £4400 in total to buy (plus a significantly smaller amount on maintenance) for ~10y use so far, I only got rid of the first because I emigrated, and the second looks like it will keep going pretty much indefinitely so long as I’m not scared to spend a few quid every so often.

This thread is daft.

If you want a new car, and you can beat the depreciation by leasing – do it.

If you want to own and justify a second hand car – great. But it’s not a new car and doesn’t have the benefits of.

I’ve had loads of s/h cars. They have always lost loads of money and cost a fair bit to run in terms of servicing and wear and tear. That doesn’t mean you won’t pick up a bargain every now and again. But it will be the subject of market forces in terms of value.

It should actually be about leasing versus buying.

Is there something other than shiny? Dead easy to justify, because it’s significantly cheaper.

I’ve had loads of s/h cars. They have always lost loads of money

Well of course they do, all cars do, but the biggest hit is the first couple of years people leasing pay for.

Why anyone in their right mind would pay £xxx a month to rent a bland and dull Eurobox is beyond me! Oh but then it’s new I guess? Sh*t but new!

Including maintainence, the extra fuel, insurance and depreciation (now minimal) the 9 year old RS4 avant we have works out cheaper per month than if we leased something new but boring like a Passat or Mondeo estate. Know which one I’d rather be driving. Each to their own I guess.

My experience of s/h is limited but my last was a Focus that I’d had new, sold to my Mum, then bought back some 5yrs later. It was a great car and well looked after and never missed a beat until an unexpected £800 MOT bill which I paid. Around the same time the clutch began to slip, it was due a belt change and it had started to struggle to start when cold. A mechanic friend had a look and narrowed the problem down to 3 or 4 things. He said it could be a cheap fix, or far more expensive. At this point I traded it in as it was going to cost far more than it’s value to fix and I didn’t have the cash to take the chance. It went to auction and someone will have bought a very tidy looking car for £1500ish that was about to cost a lot more.

We got my wife a 3yr old car a year ago for 12.5k. Had no end of problems with it, luckily fixed under warranty but it still wasn’t just right (Had clearly been treated horrendously from new) and the Mrs lost faith in it. Just got rid at a fair old loss but before the warranty ran out. She’s now in a new version of the last car and is very happy.

Some of the s/h cars bought by workmates are always in the garage (A4’s seem the worst, especially around 10yr old). One had to replace the engine which then also blew a month outside the warranty!

You can be lucky with second hand but there’s plenty of trouble waiting for you, especially after 6/7/8+ years old.

As much as new costs more it’s worth it for us to have a couple of cars that need no thinking about, are great places to sit for 10k miles a year and turn in to another new car just as the gloss is fading. We’ve gone for PCP but same rules apply for lease.

If you’re happy in your old car then great, just stop trying to convince us it could pass for a new car or that the chances of a decent bill are slim. Modern cars cost a lot to fix when things wear out.

Oh, and having been in my brother in laws Berlingo I’m happy to pay the extra to not make the 20 mile work commute a soul destroying experience. 😉

I’m not – I’m suggesting that functionally there isn’t a difference even if it’s not as shiny, and that the amount you save is more than enough to pay for a few big bills. We’re talking thousands a year difference in basic cost.

and that the amount you save is more than enough to pay for a few big bills.

That’s dependent on quite a lot of variables though, no?

From my experience the money I saved would find a way of being spent so the big bills can cause a problem. I prefer the predictable monthly payment with no surprises route.

Lots of people couldn’t care less about their car and that’s fine. I do so would prefer to pay a bit more for a new one because new cars are ace. 8)

It also depends which lease car you’re comparing to. You can get them for around £100 per month if you want something basic.

Leasing needs to be compared buying new not bangers.

Everyone has different attitudes to spending money, and experiences with cars. All I can say is that historically, based on the eight cars my wife and I have owned over the last 20 years (all second hand, typically 3-4 years old when bought, sold after 2-4 years), we saved by not leasing. We’re very happy with this, even happier to have used the money saved to help pay off to mortgage.

You can be lucky with second hand but there’s plenty of trouble waiting for you, especially after 6/7/8+ years old.

Depends if you buy well, research on common faults and then actually look after the thing once you get it. Most people just don’t have a clue when it comes to this.

I always buy performance cars and normally you’ll find that the owners of such cars care more about msintainence and looking after the thing than more mundane metal. You can easily spot the owners who don’t. In over 20 years of buying performance machinery in the 5-10 yr old age range I’ve never yet broken down or had a horrendous bill that you couldn’t consider routine maintainence or unexpected. And I’ve saved 1,000’s over the years by driving rare and special cars, when I could have spent a lot more and had something bland and boring on lease.

You can’t compare leas g to running bangers, but it does compare well I think to buying something around the £8-10k price point assuming that you need some sort of finance to buy that car.

The bank loan for our 330 plus VED and MOT would have been more expensive than leasing a GTi at the time we bought it. With hindsight maybe I should have leased something.

If the intention is to keep a car for a long time then buying is the way to go, if you get bored and want to change every few years (I guess I’m the latter) then leasing suddenly looks pretty attractive because the monthly cost is fixed and you beat depreciation.

In the case of the OP, I’d stick with your old car if it spends most of its life on the drive not being used.

I’m enjoying the fact that lease cars are all brilliant and perfect, and then the day you hand them back they become unreliable heaps of crap that will cost thousands of pounds a year in repairs. I didn’t know that.

I’m enjoying the fact that lease cars are all brilliant and perfect, and then the day you hand them back they become unreliable heaps of crap that will cost thousands of pounds a year in repairs. I didn’t know that.

We’ll that’s what the industry would have you believe – they need to sell cars after all, and what better way to sell a new car than to convince someone that by spending £1,000’s on a brand new lease arrangement (that’s carefully split into manageable monthly chunks to hide the true cost) that they’re making a financially prudent decision and avoiding the certain financial ruin that a ‘catastrophic’ few hundred pound repair bill on a risky and unreliable 3 year old motor might bring?

That’s dependent on quite a lot of variables though, no?
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Well I suppose you could get a lot of big bills, but it’s extremely unlikely – because you’re saving thousands a year.

There is of course a middle way, which is what I’m comparing to – my car certainly isn’t a banger (though it was on the cheap end of 3-4yo cars).

and when you’d paid off your bank loan you’d have an asset sitting on your drive, which you could continue to run, or sell if you want to. As discussed above, the ling price (if you want me to use anything else for comparison you’ll have to give a link or provide prices) for a basic Focus is £200 a month, so £7200 over the course of 3 years. Here’s a 2yo one: http://www2.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201510077602808 – the PX on a 5yo one of those is listed at £5k – so that’s a £3.6k ownership cost (including VED) + cost of MOTs, leaving you £3.5k to cover those expensive bills. You’d have to be very unlucky to get anything like that on a 2yo car.

Dracs calculations are exactly where we got to with our Family car (Kuga) replacement decision. Notwithstanding accidental damage caused by the kids, the cost of getting a decent small estate / xc60-a-like vs lease for that purpose doesn’t stack up. We’ll be in the same “asset” position in a few years as we are now – we have an 8 year old no better than good condition Kuga in the garage which is worth £7k PX on a 2yo replacement.

Fine, but you’ll have a second hand car with the associated maintenance. In any other area you’d expect to pay more for a superior product. A new car is superior to a similar second hand so will cost more. If you are happy to pay it, good. If not, great.

I’m enjoying all the people insisting that second hand cars never go wrong while ignoring all the examples of second hand cars that have gone wrong. 😐

Depends if you buy well, research on common faults and then actually look after the thing once you get it. Most people just don’t have a clue when it comes to this.

Not necessarily. On the face of it my old Focus would have been a great buy as it had been in our family from new and been fully maintained. It was almost spotless inside and out. The clutch would be obvious to anyone with half an idea but the other issues could easily be missed.

To be fair our Kugas maintenance issues amount to one Alternator at £330. It kind of outweighs the lease costs – granted I may have been lucky…

Leasing needs to be compared buying new not bangers.

Wrong, leasing was purely devised as a way by the car industry to boost sales figures for the manufacturers.

It allows people who couldn’t otherwise afford to buy a new car, yet feel that they simply must ‘keep up with the Jones’ to now drive around in a new (probably white) car and feel good about themselves. Until of course after a few months of ownership, the car is now not quite as white as when it left the showroom, and the Jones new nanny across the road has leased a new Mini that comes in an even whiter shade of white than her dazzling white teeth (which she’s still paying off monthly), and certainly several shades whiter than your now 6 month old car. Damn and Bug*er !!!!

New cars never go wrong chest.

I have as many anecdotes for family and friends brand new cars going wrong terminally or worse – dealers refusing to fix their new cars on the warrnety ,,, as i do for second hand cars

You can get a brand new lemon as well.

As for your focus . It was at an auction – thats the clue to impending bills.

Dracs calculations are exactly where we got to with our Family car (Kuga) replacement decision. Notwithstanding accidental damage caused by the kids, the cost of getting a decent small estate / xc60-a-like vs lease for that purpose doesn’t stack up. We’ll be in the same “asset” position in a few years as we are now – we have an 8 year old no better than good condition Kuga in the garage which is worth £7k PX on a 2yo replacement.

One of the reasons we decided to change the car we got a year ago was that we got it at 3 years old, got a 9k loan over 5 years (12.5k paid) so at the end of the loan the car would be 8 years old with 100k+ on the clock and we’d be looking to replace it again. The value of our asset once the loan had been paid would realistically be around the amount we’d want as a deposit on the next so we’d be looking at a similar priced car (12.5k) with a similar loan required.

The new, higher spec version version costs about £100pm more than the loan but for that we get a much nicer car that we know the history of and one that should need minimal money spent on it during our ownership. The old one whould need more spending on it (Tyres, MOT’s, belts, etc) during the 5 years so that eats in to the £100 saved. Money well spent in my opinion.

As for your focus . It was at an auction – thats the clue to impending bills.

Only because it was too old to go on the franchised deal forecourt. It will have been bought, put on any number of second hand forecourts and sold on. It will have looked great polished up at the garage but further costs were on the way.

New cars never go wrong chest.

I have as many anecdotes for family and friends brand new cars going wrong terminally or worse – dealers refusing to fix their new cars on the warrnety ,,, as i do for second hand cars

Really? As many as second hand? If that’s the case you have some very unlucky new car buying friends.

Wrong, leasing was purely devised as a way by the car industry to boost sales figures for the manufacturers.

It allows people who couldn’t otherwise afford to buy a new car, yet feel that they simply must ‘keep up with the Jones’ to now drive around in a new (probably white) car and feel good about themselves. Until of course after a few months of ownership, the car is now not quite as white as when it left the showroom, and the Jones new nanny across the road has leased a new Mini that comes in an even whiter shade of white than her dazzling white teeth (which she’s still paying off monthly), and certainly several shades whiter than your now 6 month old car. Damn and Bug*er !!!!

I’m sure you didn’t mean it but that post gives the impression you’re sat behind your computer turning greener than the Hulk. Great generalization btw. 😉

No i have alot of friends that buy/rent/ new cars every other year……or at least used too… I imagine that kind of frivolity will be stopped now that the oil price is depressed.

Hence its skewed in the new cars non favour…