Just had a look at this, with thoughts it may be an easy way to get the XC40 Recharge we are looking for.   But – its bloody expensive !    48 months compared with PCP:

a) Subscription – £35k approx. / £735 a month

b) PCP – £24k approx, £330 a month and £8k deposit.

So thats £11k more and you don’t have an option to buy the car.  However, you can hand it back with 3 months notice, you can change it at any time for another model, servicing, tyres, breakdown, tax and MOT are included.

Seems a lot to pay for convenience, thats the size of many a mortgage.

The whole concept of buying a car of this value just blows my mind. Not very helpful i know. But i just can’t even imagine doing it.

The PCP figures don’t include maintenance and insurance, but its still a massive outlay to pay for convenience.

I suppose it will appeal to two groups of people

1) those that need a car , but don’t want to commit to extended leasing/contract hire and might otherwise rent a hire car.

2) those that must have the latest registration plate.

See also, JLR Pivotal, which is even pricier

https://www.landrover.co.uk/offers-and-finance/vehicle-subscription.html

Its being doing the same for me after I wrote it down at home.   Our current SUV is 12 years old with a Ford/Pug engine and Haldex 4wd, it may just be sticking around for a while.

As far as I can tell, I can get a month off them for nothing – bit like cancelling an Amazon Prime trial after 29 days

I know I am tight but F me, do people really have 700 odd quid a month to pay for a car? You could buy a nice bike every few months with that…

Bloody crazy! The same/similar deal is on offer here in Germany. Heard it on the radio today and we all guffawed at it.

But on the other hand I know folks who are paying 700/month on the lease for their 5 series.

People seem to lose all their senses when it comes to having a shiny powerful motor to sit in traffic in. Some deluded sense that it defines them as a person or maybe it gives them some sense of self worth.
I don’t know.

Seems a lot to pay for convenience, thats the size of many a mortgage.

Yeah but yeah but….. New shiny car.

do people really have 700 odd quid a month to pay for a car?

Currently maybe…. Give it another six months and there’ll be far fewer.

I know I am tight but F me, do people really have 700 odd quid a month to pay for a car? You could buy a nice bike every few months with that…

Thats more than double my mortgage 😁

Over twice what we pay for the house. I can see the appeal for the missus (She wants an XC40 to replace our ageing C30) but too much £££.

It’ll appeal to those who dont want the commitment of a minimum contract ect.

Have you had a look at the equivalent Land Rover subscription? (drive pivotal)

A disco sport/f-pace/evoque are the cheapest at £750 a month, on a sliding scale up to a full fat Range Rover for £1600 a month. A month! Ludicrous! Their justification for this?

Pivotal is aimed at the 20% of young professionals who wouldn’t ordinarily own a car.

Why would a ‘young professional’ who isn’t currently spending on a car, decide suddenly they wanted to spend at least £750 (+£550 joining fee) a month on a Land Rover?

Do these PCP, subscription schemes and the like mean there are more new cars being made? Or have they come about because new car sales fell?

More new cars being made than before can’t be a good thing.

its also pretty good value if you’re in the country for an extended period working or visiting folks. A mate of mine is over for 6 months and had to run the gauntlet of buying a 2nd hand car then flogging it again – avis @ £40 a day is nearly double the cost of the cheapest volvo rental, so maybe there’s another market there?

There’s a few of these rental services in the US that offer a wider range of cars and more swapping at short notice – so you can have a sports car for the weekend, sedan for the week, then a truck to do some man-stuff the following weekend. That level of flexibility seems worthwhile, swapping every quarter is less appealing

ie https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1126206_cadillac-s-car-subscription-service-to-return-in-2020

There are plenty of groups of customers who’ll be interested in this type of service I’m sure.

The one that springs to mind for me is the young bloke whose car seemingly does define them. Lots of my previous neighbours were in this group, living with parents, not drinking, but renting a £50k+ car. They’d spend all their free time driving around with their mates. Then a wedding would happen and the street would be lined with rented supercars. One family over the road spent £15k on cars for the weekend.

I doubt their hobby makes much financial sense to the majority but it made them happy, and I can see how a new rangie or an F Type every 3 months would be attractive to them. I suspect lots of manufacturers will be adopting the model in time.

A mate of mine is over for 6 months and had to run the gauntlet of buying a 2nd hand car then flogging it again

That’s surely a case for bangernomics. Or public transport and favours from mates.

Not everyone has the cyclist’s hair-shirt mentality of making their life as miserable as possible for themselves. They’ve got money and like to pay for comfort and convenience .

Not saying that’s me, but you have to remember this forum is not very representative of the population.

@Kryton57 guess you’ve got to ask yourself, do you need it compared to your current set up? Have you looked at all the options from bigger manufacturers do they appeal?

In regards to the deal, can you afford it without stretching your finances? Do you like the idea of changing cars often or see other cars and think that looks nice? What else could be done with the saving more weekends away biking or is time already stretched? And again what do the bigger manufacturers offer in terms of price If that’s a factor?

I was looking at a Volvo recently and older model v60 I think. Hideous interior and I was also worried about selling it on as it’s got a funny kind of none image, although there are more on the roads than I gave them credit for.

Not everyone has the cyclist’s hair-shirt mentality of making their life as miserable as possible for themselves. They’ve got money and like to pay for comfort and convenience .

Not saying that’s me, but you have to remember this forum is not very representative of the population.

I don’t disagree, everyone has the right to do as they will with whatever disposable income they have, but I think it’s fair to say a growing number of people are now exceeding their disposable income in order to park something “nice” on the drive…

There’s definitely a PCP bubble fit to burst in the UK, combined with a bow wave of post covid unemployment… You’d have to be feeling awfully secure to take on an extra £750 monthly bill right now, in fact if you happened to be flush enough to consider it, there’s probably much better deals available.

Tails, if you knew my history you’d know that the reason I’ve posted this is that a lifestyle I turn means I am certainly not buying this car and yes have done all the due diligence before arriving at this point.

It was to replace our 2008 Kuga – which owes us nothing – and gives Mrs K something nicer and more environmentally friendly to do School runs and trips to race events in.  She’s never owned her own car.  However, she is an odd one, not caring about “what people think” and several times has said she’s happy enough to stick with the Kuga.  I’m not sure she’s paying lip service though.  My only plus side is that it’s already succumbed to wear and tear, is haldex 4wd on all seasons for wet racing parking fields, has a towbar and Thule rack for the bikes and owes us nothing – bangernomics 101.  It’s a little expensive on VED and likely needs a patent DPF soon, but that’s in the region of £300.  I do believe the engine is the Ford / Pug version of the 2.0 tdci which should go on for more than the 83000 miles it had on it

I did start looking at Autotrader last night just to “move” her to something nicer but is seems you can’t buy a decent German Leather interior SUV for less than £8k without 100k miles on it.  And no, she won’t have a Skoda or Daicia.   I think we are likely going through 2021 as we are then looking at a second hand xc40, new Kuga, Tiguan or similar vehicle then.

Not everyone has the cyclist’s hair-shirt mentality of making their life as miserable as possible for themselves. They’ve got money and like to pay for comfort and convenience .

Not saying that’s me, but you have to remember this forum is not very representative of the population.

Fair point, I figured a group of people who think £4 or 5k for a bike that will be ridden around in circles on the weekend would have a reasonable amount of disposable income.

I think the issue is me, I mentioned above that I am tight but I am also stuck in the old days.

It was always drummed into me that you didn’t buy something if you couldn’t afford it and you want to see something for your money – in other words you own the car once you have paid xx months. I know that idea is outdated and doesn’t make sense with the way cars depreciate but I struggle to look past it when I hand my money over.

I have also owned several cars that cost less than £750 and they lasted me years 😉

This has all gotten a bit “when I was a lad….”

If the ‘PCP Bubble’ does indeed burst, will that meant the market will be flooded with ex pcp cars thus lowering the value?

If so then that would suit me fine (almost 100k 2016 Octavia that I’d like to swap for something newer/less miles)

Not sure questioning the relationship between consumer debt and good economics has anything to do with a hair shirt mentality. If you’re borrowing against your income to purchase a luxury item when there are affordable alternatives this says far more about financial literacy then anything else.

Apparently, according to our Tory overlords we can’t afford the furlough scheme. What we can’t afford is the mountain of consumer debt, which is effectively the state moving national borrowing into private hands and loading the risk onto private individuals.