It's nearly time to be thinking about getting a new car for my wife.

I got to thinking about private leasing ( as opposed to business ) instead of buying.

We can't afford a new car - but would like one.

I know one of the Con's is you never own the car so there is no residual value to tap into at the end of the lease.

Has anybody got experience in this area ? Does anybody do it and if so have you got any advice please.

Any recommended companies to look at, or steer clear of ?

Thanks

Rob

Hi Rob,

I currently have a car from Lings linky no issues and good company to deal with.

I also have a car on a PCP which is a form of HP but the effect is about the same - low deposit and monthly payments based on an expected mileage.

Low deposit deals are the way forward so it isn't a problem when you want to change it having no equity because there never was any.

I tend to not want to tie up any of my money in a daily driver so paying for it as I use it is the way forward for me.

Hope that helps

Cheers

Mark

Just make sure you get good enough GAP insurance.

My main restriction is the rental agreement depends on a maximum number of miles, either as part of the agreement or as the 'final value'. Considering I've exceeded 12,000 miles a year for the last ten years, I'd have to pay through the nose for a high mileage rental, or have an end-of-agreement payment waiting for me.

The opposite is true for my wife's car, she does so few miles that we'd pay over the odds for the same car, and yet it would be the hire company that benefited from the low mileage car that we'd be returning to them.

quote:

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Originally posted by Slimy38
My main restriction is the rental agreement depends on a maximum number of miles, either as part of the agreement or as the 'final value'. Considering I've exceeded 12,000 miles a year for the last ten years, I'd have to pay through the nose for a high mileage rental, or have an end-of-agreement payment waiting for me.

The opposite is true for my wife's car, she does so few miles that we'd pay over the odds for the same car, and yet it would be the hire company that benefited from the low mileage car that we'd be returning to them.

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This is the first time ive done it like this, but I've just bought a new 120d M Sport for the wife on a PCP plan (baloon payment) and here's why.

I previously had a 530d M Sport which I bought outright with a parental loan that I never actually paid back (thanks dad!!). I had this for 2 years to the day, and when we chopped it in it actually cost me over £370 per month in depreciation !!
The new car costs me £300 per month in rent, so I'm quids in. I know it's not like for like but the wife did find it really had to park and this one does galactic miles to the gallon.
I'm just fed up with loosing so much money on cars, I'm just going to rent them from now on. When it comes up for me to pay the final payment I'm just going to chop it in for a new one and start over again. New at every 3 years.

Of course, if this experience is bad ill have to buy one outright again in 3 years time, but for the moment it is keeping me happy.

Work for North Yorkshire council like my wife, they can get a lease car on salary sacrifice so deducted before tax. the lease also includes everything, tax insurance, services parts etc - everything but the petrol. Brand new 107 for £147 per month

[Edited on 11/1/13 by jabs]

I bought a car once in an auction for £110, drove round in it for 7 years and sold it for £250.

£400 for a new head, snapped belt.
Discs and pads a couple times
One rear silencer.

IMO new cars are for mugs, the cost of them is not worth what they are and rentings just the same!

These days I see how much cash I have and then look for the newest for the money.

I spend the rest of my cash on kit cars (and beer)

quote:

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Originally posted by coozer
I bought a car once in an auction for £110, drove round in it for 7 years and sold it for £250.

£400 for a new head, snapped belt.
Discs and pads a couple times
One rear silencer.

IMO new cars are for mugs, the cost of them is not worth what they are and rentings just the same!

These days I see how much cash I have and then look for the newest for the money.

I spend the rest of my cash on kit cars (and beer)

---

Scares me to think how much people waste on new cars. Someone has to be the mug though, so we can have 2nd hand ones cheap.

my current drive is a 53 plate Cat C mondeo estate purchased about 3 years ago for 1500, only needed a bonnet which i picked up in eaxctly the right colour for £50 and a windscreen that cost me £120. apart from service stuff its had a dual mass to single mass clutch flywheel conversion and 4 new injectors, but the good news its done approx 76k in 3 years so im well in the money!

The other way to go is to buy a relatively high mileage, ex-company car. Last year I got a 2006 BMW 320D Touring that way with about 100k miles on the clock. Sounds like high mileage, but for a BMW diesel its not that much. Pulls like a train and I am getting the stated mpg, so still a good strong engine. Its history is that it was bought from new by a company, full main dealer service history (so anything that needed doing was done, and probably more!), part exchanged back to main dealer for a new company car (I guess they had a 100k miles exchange policy).

Because BMW do not want to sell cars with that mileage, they do deals with local sole traders to take them off their hands and then you buy from them. You get a main dealer serviced and tidied up car for not much more that private sale price.

I came across this method whilst looking for a private sale on Auto Trader - they are easy to find, although you do have to treat it like a private sale in terms of inspecting the car as I also saw one that looked great, but had some electrical problems that made me walk away from it (they said that they would fix, probably very minor, but I didn't want to take the chance).

Are you talking about a PCP sype lease or a straight forward lease car based on something like a 3+36 months arrangement?

I'm looking at the latter at the moment, although it'll be going through my company so I can recover the VAT plus other efficiencies over doing it on a personal basis.

There can be some really good deals around if you do some research - it seems to depend on what cars the manufacturers are pushing out at the time. For instance, at the moment some Merc models are looking like good value against BMW, presumably on the basis that Mercedes UK is trying to undercut BMW in an effort to grab a share of their customers. So I could get a SLK 250 CDI for the same cost as a 1.6 Focus TDCi...