Legal advice please – cancelling a new car dispute

I’ve done it – I’ve read to the end!
Do I win a Spitty gift?

The thing is, those buyers of new cars don’t have to be private individuals paying out of their own pocket – still plenty of new cars being bought leased by companies or by people with car allowances. Though I’m quite happy for people to be mugs if they want – I doubt anything I write on here will make the slightest difference to the supply of s/h cars I’d be likely to buy.

I can understand wanting a flash car. I can understand buying new, especially for the peace of mind.

What I’ve always struggled with is why people spend so much relative to their income, especially when the car isn’t essential for that income.

I work with people who’ve taken out loans close to their yearly salary, that they’ll be paying off for years to come, to buy a car they use once a week.

Of course people buy all sorts of things on credit but cars really seem to go to people’s heads as a status symbol.

The obvious difference being that when you’ve paid the loan off you have an asset.

True but your £12.5k that you have spent will be worth maybe £5k, you have MOT and bills to worry about, and your car is no longer new and latest tech etc. I’ve just had 4 new tyres which would have cost >£1k. Insurance would be over £500 per year. All adds up

It’s all about what you prefer at the end of the day, but having an income to support which ever method is key, something the OP chose to ignore.

“I really want that flash car but I’m not buying it new it’s way overpriced”

Think what’d happen if everyone took that attitude eh.

If nobody bought new at current prices surely manufacturers would be forced to lower their prices or budget cars would become the norm. I know nothing about cars, but is this not simply supply and demand?

I wouldn’t have an expensive car even if I was very wealthy. Never understood it to be honest. For me they are akin to a hammer or screwdriver. A tool to do a job, but unlike a hammer, not much fun and a financial drain

That’s £5k more than you have at the end of your lease deal.

you have MOT and bills to worry about

I always see this mentioned by people leasing cars, but the cost of an MOT is 10% of your monthly payment and other annual bills at worst a couple of months worth (my current car is running at far less than that on average, but I’ve probably got some work needing doing soon – but then it’s 9yo and has done 155k). Typically a 3yo car costs very little to maintain. Though of course if you need that new car smell again you can always sell the car, bank the money and start again.

I’ve just had 4 new tyres which would have cost >£1k. Insurance would be over £500 per year.

On your £40k car – tyres and insurance for mine are less than half that. You’re not comparing like with like here in all sorts of ways (do most lease deals include insurance?)

£1k for tyres 😯 my bike tyres cost more than the ones on the car

I can see all sides to the purchase outright/carloan/lease/pcp etc. arguments.
Car companies these days rely on finance deals, indeed it has been argued that these days the likes of VAG are finance companies with a car manufacuring arm tagged on ( too simplistic of course)
it is very instructive going to a main dealer and explaining that you want to buy a car outright whether new or second hand.
The implication that if you are getting tyres, insurance etc. included in the deal and don’t need to worry about it is really that you are paying upfront on a monthly basis on the expecation you will need to get them, whilst others wait for the expense to arrive before paying. Again, I can understand why the former would appeal, and that for the latter people should budget accordingly. It depends on your finances and attitude, but what is undoubtedly true is that having the income to support either is important but circumstances can change. This is why I have never contemplated a leasing deal because I would rather have the flexibility to adjust my outgoings more quicky. It may certainly not be the most efficient financially but at least I am aware of it.

Keep it on topic – it’s Poop and Ling’s big day today, hence their absence.

Makes you feel all warm inside, like heated seats.

But then if you’re using a loan to buy a car that doesn’t really give you any more flexibility does it? It’s only really buying a car outright that gives you that – ultimately if you want to have less financial commitment with a car you need to either buy a cheaper model or buy s/h. How do you buy your cars?

I’m probably very unusual in that I’ve always bought my cars outright (admittedly that does mean I have no direct experience of financial arrangements for buying, but I can do maths) – I’ve never owned a new car, though I did pay £10k for the car before the one I own now when it was 18 months old. I’ve never really valued the “new car smell”, which no matter how much people might go on about maintenance costs on older cars is something you pay a lot of money for (either through direct depreciation or leasing costs).

We have to keep the thread going somehow though, and there are no exciting new developments on the main topic. We should probably move on from the usual leasing/buying argument though as it’s all been done before – can we go back to discussing how ling is breaking the law, I was enjoying that a lot more 😉

I’ve just had 4 new tyres which would have cost >£1k

What tyres are these?

I could get 255’s fitted for a lot less than £250 each. Of course if you went to the main stealer then they could easily cost that much.

kelron – Member

What I’ve always struggled with is why people spend so much relative to their income, especially when the car isn’t essential for that income.

Especially for some homologized Euroshitbox you’ll see on every street corner like a cheap Parisienne whore.

Grow a pair and get something interesting. 🙂

WTF are these tyres, the equivalent of 29+ for cars?

I read the beginning of this on Thursday, just seen it now! WOW!

I didn’t realise that tyres actually cost money !

I just go to Kwik Fit twice a year in my company car and thought they just replaced them free of charge because I’m a nice guy.

It’s all about what you prefer at the end of the day, but having an income to support which ever method is key, something the OP chose to ignore.

It’s comments like this that spoil this place at times…

There’s many personal reasons why me and the proposer embarked on this method of purchase and it goes like this.

Cars are money pits, hu can’t make money on them. We’ve both had car allowances and 45/25ppm arrangements in our employment and both gone out and bought fairly decent cars as we both did fairly high mileage.

We’ve both been in sales and in my case I worked in an industry which was solely reliant on the NHS. Despite the fact I blasted my target, I was bought out by the company and left with a car on a PCP… it cost me £2k to get rid of it.

Leasing wouldn’t work because I was doing 40k miles a year, so I bought it and whacked the PCP up to 35k a year to get the payments as high as possible to get some equity in the car.

Problem number 1 was I had all the risk and when I was paid off, yes I got a very handsome payoff but I had to put money into selling the car…

Problem 2 was when I went for a mortgage my car shows up on a credit file as a huge loan, the mortgage company don’t factor in most of that is in the car and they don’t factor in the car allowance as if you lose tour job the income isn’t there but the liability is.

So despite the fact I was earning more than enough to be in the 40% tax bracket my borrowing capacity was significantly reduced because of a bloody car.

As pointed out earlier many employers stipulate all sorts and a 3 year old car max was one of them.

With regards to the VW T6 I ordered last year… I cancelled simply cos the salesman lied. When the finance came through the balloon figure was nowhere near what he claimed it was, so I bailed out. I bought the Transit Sport instead as it’s total purchase price was less than the depreciation of the VW over a 4 year period. I had it for 12 months and sold it end of April.

The reason why we went lease this time was because the absolute max liability is 24 x 437 and the costs are fixed. Additional to that 50,000 mile lease i factored in 2 services and a set of tyres.

Having been long term unemployed I knew I wouldn’t get finance and as the arrangement I have as of November is on a self employed basis then that would kill it off too.

Up to now I’ve been hiring cars from rental cars.com on a month to month basis which for a corsa/Focus has been around £450 a month. I’ve been all over the country for interviews and public transport just isn’t viable on most occasions. So for the last 6 months I’ve been paying £450 a month for a fiesta/corsa type of car.

The ability to pay the £437 a month was never in doubt, if it was I wouldn’t have accepted the offer to help me out. As a fall back, the proposer has a fairly old car which he uses for his job and seeing as he would have to be on the insurance he’d take the car back and make him the main driver and he’d use it, but only as a fall back. Nothing wrong or illegal in that, the car would be paid and insured in accordance with the obligations he took out.

As of November the 1st I was due to start working with someone I know really closely who’s landed a property portfolio which from day one has an income value of £15k a month. She intimated this may be delayed slightly due to reasons behind her control and that was the point where I got nervous and decided play safe and tell my mate we should consider cancelling or postponing it for a month.

Did we jump the gun?? Possibly, but during the discussions of the last three months regarding this opportunity this date was as good as 99% and as I type this now it’s probably down to about 98% but later in the month.

When we discussed it my decided that he’d get a value on his car which also needs a ton of work done on it, so we asked Ling to allow us a week to establish the position.

He was going to see about wether he’d take it on for himself and I’d establish the new start date as well as wether I may go back into employment because I’d been contacted by two companies I’d been interviews by earlier in the year. So very quickly the landscape had changed for me, but my mate was thinking of taking the car on if it wasn’t going to pan out for me…

When he asked to cancel he was expecting some sort of “can we talk about this” but instead he got a an immediate threat of an invoice for £600 and a guaranteed win in the small claims court.

At that point we asked for some more time to consider the options which she agreed and he went off to get valuations for his car with a plan of putting that cash in an account and paying the lease with it and I came here for my perspective which as we know was how to get out of it. This could’ve well transpired into the ‘sale’ going through but her reaction and conduct on here killed that offf immediately.

Now she’s sniffing round his LinkedIn profile she’s brought herself into question again because the there’s a big cloud over what she’s doing with his sensitive data regarding his employers details etc.

Her insistence that he’s made a false finance application has probably led her to check on LinkedIn who he works for but this and the constant accusation he’s a fraudster has taken this to a whole new level so it’s going to rumble on and on….

Obviously it’s left me wide open to judgement on my financial management but SC knows my situation and had no qualms about it as it was above board.

This will have far reaching effects for us all no doubt but I’ve deffo taken something from this and I hope she has too…

Still no invoice though, apparently according to SC.

You do have flexibilty with an unsecured bank loan, you can sell the vehicle and pay it off. This may incur penalties of course but it is flexible.
If it is a loan through a finance company using the vehicle as security than it is more complicated but as long as you have paid for more than 50% of the vehicle (and the 50% includes any deposit ) by the time you have to cancel the agreement then you can relatievly easily but again fees might be incurred

So for the last 6 months I’ve been paying £450 a month for a fiesta/corsa type of car.

😯
There are literally thousands of cars you could have bought for that money.

Like three of mine sbob 😀

Shame you had to explain everything like that OP, I completely understand why you went about things the way you did.

Good luck and hope it all sorts itself out ASAP

I’ve deffo taken something from this and I hope she has too…

It’s interesting to consider how this thread, and your dispute, might have gone if your OP hadn’t mentioned who the supplier was. Ling wouldn’t have known about the thread, but the STW (real) lawyers might not have spotted it either if it was shorter.

When he asked to cancel he was expecting some sort of “can we talk about this” but instead he got a an immediate threat of an invoice for £600 and a guaranteed win in the small claims court.

Even though the form that had to be signed quite clearly states that if you sign you are commited to the car and there may be financial penalty if you subsequently pull out .

immediate threat of an invoice for £600

If we could stick to the correct nomenclature of £500 + VAT please

If we could stick to the correct nomenclature of £500 + VAT please

You could get a cheap runaround for that.

Only read half the first page, but normally (might be law?) that most things like this (loans/high ££ items) have “cooling off” period?

Only read half the first page, but normally (might be law?) that most things like this (loans/high ££ items) have “cooling off” period?

Nah, somebody would have pointed this out by now surely?

One wonders if the low profitability of this company comes from paying staff to scour the web defending all instances where their name might be brought into disrepute visciously.

Not that I ever considered renting a car long term but I do know one one company I won’t be using 🙂

Has this been sorted out yet? CBA to read it all.

Nah, somebody would have pointed this out by now surely?
[/quote]

Gosh, it would change things a bit if it was the case though – maybe Mick should look into it?

That video was from many years ago, I doubt the finacial status will still be the same.

I completely understand why you went about things the way you did

Really? Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Bloody hell… How did I miss this one!? I actually have a vested interest in this thread as I was going to make an enquiry about a car to ling on Monday.. Despite the God awful website.

As such I’ve just spent 2 hrs reading the entire thread..

Takeaway points..

– It’s a rare occasion that I 100% agree with junkyard and aracer, but in this case…I do entirely

– I love how the legal experts say one thing and the goons still try to argue to the contrary..

– Geordi mick is off the classifieds selling list..

– And I won’t be contacting ling on Monday.. She seems like a truly despicable individual whos childish responses have ensured I will never do business with her.. A close shave all in all.

2 outstanding questions though..

Ling seems to have lots of detailed records she’s been happy to share with us.. I’m assuming she also has records of where trading standards have confirmed her approach is legally just.. If she isn’t willing to provide this then I think we can all safely assume she is lying.

The fee of 600 covers what exactly.. I’m assuming she has incurred no losses and very minimal costs? How much are you actually out if pocket for?

Obviously she seems pretty adept at avoiding responding to any questions that out her as a bs merchant however..

In all this I am still amazed that folks will spend so much on hiring something. My brain doesn’t get it. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong, I just don’t get it.

After a lot of umm-ing and ah-ing (about two years’ worth), I’ve just done it.

I get where you’re coming from, and for the longest time I said I’d never have a new car, they depreciate vertically as soon as you drive them off the forecourt. But.

I’m in the process of moving from a company car to an allowance (I no longer do sufficient business miles to qualify for the scheme). I’ve just entered into a lease agreement with (ho ho!) Skoda, I get a fairly high-spec Octavia which worked out at about five grand over two years.

If I were to buy, that same 5k would net me say a seven year old Focus Titanium that wasn’t trashed. After two years I’d have an asset sure, but how much is a nine year old Focus worth and how much is it going to start costing me? What happens if the engine falls out a week after any warranty expires? At this point it’s a false economy, I might as well get something shiny than drive round in an eight-year old motor for the same money. And sure, there’s an element of heart vs head, I like cars.

Once of a time, “nearly new” was where the sensible money was. Get something maybe a year old that some other fool has paid the depreciation on, save yourself thousands. I’ve done this with a company car before now, a six-month old top-of-the-range motor cost the same on lease as a brand new poverty-spec one. But it seems that this is a dead market these days – I couldn’t find many great deals that improved on leasing. I think this is just because dealerships are doing good deals on new leases in order to shift new cars.

Which then just leaves us with bangernomics. Whilst I could no doubt bung a few hundred quid at a 1L Corsa that had been to the moon and back and run it into the ground, is that something I want to be turning up to business meetings or customer sites in? (Not that that happens very often, but still.) I don’t necessarily want or need a brand new car, but I do need something presentable.

– Geordi mick is off the classifieds selling list..

This sort of comment annoys me more than anything Ling has said to be honest. Unfounded pathetic comment. Anyone who actually knows me knows I don’t stitch people up and anything and everything I’ve sold on here or eBay (10 years 100% feedback) knows they purchased products that were perfectly fine and given I’ve spent well over £20k on bikes and bits and sold them all on and had ZERO comeback means I’ll sleep easy at night,

As a side issue… because I’ve been looking around for cars my Facebook feed is littered with lease deals, so taken it upon myself to directly ask the suppliers on their pages if there’s a 14 day cooling off period and surprise surprise they’ve all been very transparent and all said yes and pointed me in the direction of this:

https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/CONC/11/1.html

I’m begenning to wonder if the number of breaches in Limgs processes are going to match the number of comments on this page….

If I were to buy, that same 5k would net me say a seven year old Focus Titanium that wasn’t trashed. After two years I’d have an asset sure, but how much is a nine year old Focus worth and how much is it going to start costing me?

Maybe £2.5k. So for ease of maths you either pay £200 a month to drive a new car or £100 for a car 5-7 years older. Can’t see anything wrong with either of those choices, or indeed bangernomics where you’re looking at £0-£50 monthly, but probably at higher risk of an unexpected bill.

2.5k per year buys you an awful lot of repair and garage bills if it turns out to be necessary, which seems unlikely on a 9y car. Your choice of course, but in economic terms there really is quite a big difference.

Eventually the world will be divided into two populations. Those that have read the entirety of this thread and those which just read a couple of posts at the beginning then skipped to the end. You will be able to tell the two groups apart by the hollowed out stares of the first group. Those that skipped will ask ‘why?’, those that read will only be able to say ‘you wouldn’t understand, you weren’t there’.

Unfounded pathetic comment.

Its not really unfounded though is it?..I personally wouldn’t sell you anything off the clasifieds given you have a history of backing out on deals and you’ve already been caught out as someone who is prepared to tell porkies to worm themselves out of A deal…Are you debating that that isn’t the case?

I’m not the only one who will think this I’m sure, as other posters have indicated this sorry (but very entertaining) thread doesn’t paint you in a great light either I’m afraid to say.

Eventually the world will be divided into two populations. Those that have read the entirety of this thread and those which just read a couple of posts at the beginning then skipped to the end. You will be able to tell the two groups apart by the hollowed out stares of the first group. Those that skipped will ask ‘why?’, those that read will only be able to say ‘you wouldn’t understand, you weren’t there’.

It’s comments like this that make the whole thread worthwhile – bravo 😀