As above. Pro’s and con’s.

Watching this with interest

it depends….on loads of factors.

but generally (and assuming we’re talking a pure lease, as opposed to some PCP type deal) If the cost of leasing is less than the depreciation of buying and then selling over the same period of time, then yes.

Assuming we’re comparing apples with apples , ie leasing a new car vs buying the same new car then:-

pro’s – known and fixed cost up front, could well be less cost than the depreciation if you’d bought it as the lease company can usually negotiate a better deal with the manufacturer than you can. Leasing tends to work out better value if you know you only want the car for < 3 years, if you want to keep the car substantially longer, you’re probably better off buying.

Cons – Subject to mileage limits, which if you exceed you pay a per mile surcharge, leasing tends to be less worthwhile the higher the mileage you expect to do. Its also Subject to fair wear and tear clauses,which mean you might have to put right any dents/scratches etc before you hand it back. You’re usually tied into a lease, so if your circumstances change and you can no longer afford the monthly cost you’re out of luck, whereas if you’d bought it you can just sell it.

Yes, No, Maybe.

A lot of it boils down to personality – Cars will ALWAYS cost money, be it maintenance, depreciation or both – a PCP type deal takes a lot of the guesswork out of it – you pay £x a month in return you get a brand new car and in the unlikely event it goes wrong someone else fixes it.

I’ve seen some silly cheap deals over the years when a manufacturer has wanted to get a lot of cars on the road to build a market -£150 a month for a little Korean car (i20 maybe) over 2 years – figures like that can beat even bangernomics and what would you rather a brand new car, any colour you fancy that’ll never go wrong and do 80mpg or some £1500 100k banger that could shit it’s gearbox the day after you buy it and be straight off to the scrappy.

Some people want an asset though, something that’s theirs and some people have indeed got another 100k miles out of an already worn smooth motor.

There’s no right answer.

Well not really. £3600 to have an i20 for 2 years. I’ve spent a total of ~£5000 on mine which is far from a banger (just coming up to 7yo) and owned it for 2.5 years, so if it manages another year without major expenditure I’ll be ahead. Oh, and mine is a bit bigger than an i20.

I’m not sure £1500 cars are true bangernomics either – you can get something fairly decent for that, and if it lasts you 2 years you’re well ahead. £1800 a year really isn’t all that cheap for owning a small car.

A banger

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201503011338159/sort/default/price-to/3000/make/hyundai/postcode/wr24qe/page/1/quicksearch/true/onesearchad/used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew/model/i20/usedcars/radius/1500?logcode=p

Some sensible advice here!

I am just looking to see what is on the market as there are some very keen leasing deals at the moment.

Leasing is probably best if:

you are doing lots of miles (15k or more a year)

you don’t mind an outgoing model

you want to change every 2 years ( it used to be that 3 and 4 year deals were better, now it seems that 2 years is often cheaper!)

you can be a bit flexible in terms of car and manufacturer to take advantage of what is on offer, rather than needing a specific model / colour and spec etc.

There are some especially cheap mercedes deals at the moment

Hmm

Leasing not good for high mileage. The lease company want a desirable motor to sell at the end of the lease period, high mileage == undesirable so you pay more lease rate for higer mileage deals.

Depends how much you need the car. I only need one occasion so I’ve taken to just hiring them as needed. I get whatever is most appropriate at the time that way. Certainly cheaper than having one sat in my driveway AND somebody else cleans it…

Rachel

Perhaps Alibongo is finding 2yr deals are more attractive as his higher mileage makes the car depreciate too fast over a longer term. If he changes his criteria to 6k per year, would the 3 and 4 yr details become better value?

Only seems to make sense to me if i must have a car under x years by contrAct for work or for keeping up with the jone’s every other reason ive heard boils down to “i like shiny”

I do about 20k a year and Spooky is right, different miles do make quite a lot of difference in the value of a deal.,

Basically I think that a 2 year old car with say 40k miles is still newish (despite the highish miles)

The same car at 4 years with 80k miles seems more leggy by comparison and probably does not fetch as much pro rata

I do it, I like it, suits me.

There is no way I can keep up with the arseholes who live in our street.

shiny is good 😉 except its manky at present, not been at work to wash it.

There is no way I can keep up with the arseholes who live in our street.

Are they aresholes because they earn more money than you?

no just arseholes

Why would you want to keep up with them then?

How are you defining “pro rata”? Is the depreciation drop from new to 2yo/40k miles less than half the depreciation drop from new to 4yo/80k miles?

I like people like you though – got a bargain with my car which somebody had done 30k a year in.

I dont,if i did try to I’d end up like them….an arsehole

<jeepers> 🙄

No offense mate, just sounds a bit like jealousy because they have nicer stuff than you. See it a lot. I’m sure that’s not the case if you say so.

Ha ha ha…. err no! 😀

0% finance here from Vauxhall over 5 years, decent discount through work, lifetime warranty, fixed cost of motoring for me.

PCP always comes with “oh god, that dent/chip/scratch looks expensive”. However, if you look after it being able to swap every 2 and a bit years is nice.

My car will be worth bugger all after 5 years regardless of the state it’s in (the only clean bits are the windows and numberplates) but at least I don’t have to worry about it.

Slight difference for me as my (contracting LTD) company leases ‘my’ car. But for 50k miles over three years, it was about the same as buying new and dealing with the depreciation. No car, no cash for me, so I’m happy to hire something that is all paid for incl servicing and tyres, has a fixed price to run and if anything goes wrong, I get a spare car in 4 hours.

There’s not much in it financially, but when we weighed up all the options, it was the best. Agree that there are some great deals out there if you’re not fussy on exact spec.

It’s all very personal. The best thing you can do is park emotion and preconception at the door and look at it like an accountant.

How much are you prepared to spend, how much would the alternative cost you.

On that side as Rachel said above I now only hire cars, I can hire what I want every other weekend for less than owning either a banger or leasing something new. 3 out of 4 is break even but I don’t need it during the week.

Yup. I lease a toyota Aygo.£500 deposit, then £150 per month. New car,5 year warranty. Cheap as chips to run and zero road fund licence. Does me, can get the mtb in the back and will probably change in 2.5 years time. Dealer said probably get 0% next time too (no % this time as it is a new model)

I had a 5door Citroen C1 on a 3+23month deal at £110 inc vat for 15,000miles a year allowance.

Would I do it again?

No. I’m a mountain biker with a toddler. Its just too much stress. The odd ding annoys in a supermarket but when you know its going to cost you its not worth the stress. Thats worth ££££ alone.

If you do go down the leasing route play a few dealers off each other. Call and ask for the lease-bod and ask if they have cars they’d like rid/can do a deal on. Get their best, thank them then wait a few days to see if they call back…

Same with the nationwideleasing site- look on their for deals of the week etc and try and get someone who is signed upto the BVRLA terms.

I do big miles (>40,000 pa) so leasing is no use at all.

Instead of a 2 year lease with a balloon at the end, why not a loan over 3 years. After 2 years you can get another loan and be on your way.

And it’s your car so if you dent it, go over the miles or get fed up, you can change at any time. Not when the term is up.

I would never get a new car. The depreciation is too much. There’s lots of low mileage, 6 month old stuff out there with the big sting already paid for.

No. I’m a mountain biker with a toddler. Its just too much stress. The odd ding annoys in a supermarket but when you know its going to cost you its not worth the stress. Thats worth ££££ alone.

That’s not got anything to do with leasing though. That’s just you being a tightarse. You would worry the same about a new car you just bought outright (which is why you won’t ever have a new car again, leased or bought outright). Save a bit of money for the chipsaway man before you hand it back, and it could be a good option.

I would echo that it suits some but is not for everyone. I do relatively low mileage and got a deal with minimal deposit (or initial rentals), 0% and free servicing. It means i get a brand new car that i dont have to worry about mot, warranty, servicing costs or breakdown cover. Means i only have to worry about the wifes car.

It all depends what you want really. So if you want a nearly new car and don’t want a specific model then there will definitely be better “lease”deals out there. Fox example 250/month and 1500 down has got 2 friends of mine a brand new golf R and a C class diesel merc estate with all the toys. £7.5k over 2 years and 20k miles is certainly less than the depreciation would be.

However it’s still £7.5k over 2 years which is a lot of money to spend on cars. You can buy something at 5kish run it for the same period and it’ll be worth 3k and might cost 2k to run (with some generous slack) so for nearly half the price you can still get something decent.

I wouldn’t dream of doing it as contrary to what someone said above cars don’t have to cost you money – If you buy the right things at the right price, don’t keep them too long and are clever you can have free motoring but it takes work.

It pretty much boils down to if you want a spanking brand new car with 0 miles on the clock then there are a lot of deals which would be less than or equal to the depreciation of the same car if you bought it new in cash. However both of those options are in my personal opinion a complete waste of money.

Best bet is to always buy a car which is 3-4 years old. You will get something bigger and nicer for less money.

I wouldn’t dream of doing it as contrary to what someone said above cars don’t have to cost you money – If you buy the right things at the right price, don’t keep them too long and are clever you can have free motoring but it takes work.

This basically.

Julians pretty much nailed the pros and cons up there ^^^^

However if you work in a call centre and live with your parents and want a shiny white Audi then leasing all the way

Careless damage costs you regardless, unless you’re the sort to buy something and run it until it’s scrap.

Leasing works fine for me, it lets me drive a relatively expensive car for 2 years quite cheaply then hand it back. At which point I might do it again, I might not.

Do your sums and work out whether it’s worthwhile for you. Yes, it might be more expensive than running a 5 year old i20.

That’s not got anything to do with leasing though. That’s just you being a tightarse. You would worry the same about a new car you just bought outright (which is why you won’t ever have a new car again, leased or bought outright). Save a bit of money for the chipsaway man before you hand it back, and it could be a good option.

Roofbars – lifting, lowering the bike.

Putting things in the boot – round the apertures of boot plastics.

Parking in public carparks.

Parking anywhere really.

I used Chipsaway for two repairs- one where a (presumably) student in a badly keyed up Clio had parked on my bumper. That cost me £50 to put right.

Two days before handback I popped down to Tescos- ran in, ran out and someone had parked a trolley into the rear offside passenger door.

(£80).

I also had to buy brand new Citroen wheel covers (c£70).

Not too bad all in all but by contrast two residents blocked in my current car when I dared back outside their houses. I had no qualms about getting out of that space.

Roofbars – lifting, lowering the bike.

Putting things in the boot – round the apertures of boot plastics.

Parking in public carparks.

Yep, I manage to do all those things without damaging my car.

You are car owner perfection personified Sir

No might about it. Having a new i20 on a lease is far more expensive than running a 5yo i20. Fair enough if you want to run a brand new car, but it always seems like a lot of money to waste when there are plenty of other things you could spend it on.

For what monkeysfeet is paying over 2.5 years he could have bought this outright, which will still be in warranty in 2.5 years time and probably still worth £3000 http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201503021356717/sort/pricedesc/postcode/wr24qe/model/aygo/price-from/4500/radius/1500/price-to/5000/make/toyota/quicksearch/true/page/1/onesearchad/used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew/usedcars?logcode=p

Thats the thing. Alot of people (in their calculations) seem to think buying used means it’ll go bang at somepoint and be worth zero.

Leasing worked for me as I needed a car quick and it was a cheap deal for the mileage needed.

One thing that (personally) irked me was you have to get a letter/permission to take it overseas to Europe for a holiday. A minor thing but still.

“seem to think buying used means it’ll go bang at somepoint and be worth zero.”

a car is never worth zero.

for me its either got to be spanking new or 2k or less…. 2k is the figure at which ill take a punt on possibly buying someone else’s issues – i hope i know enough now to see through them but on the occasion it does happen ill cut my losses and walk away.

but ive never given a car away. the least ive taken was 300 quid for a non MOT’ble car …. one had a bent chassis from a crash the other had a rotten floor pan.