renting a car vs buying

last_emperor

Hey everyone,

I've been looking slightly ahead to a time when i'm probably going to want and be able to afford a nice car. Originally i assumed the best thing to do was buy a new or decent second hand car, but it was recently suggested to me that hiring a car long term could be a better option.

The site below is run by a slightly wacky, but seemingly very capable lady who sorts out these types of rentals and sounds like she is extremely helpful to boot.

www.lingscars.com

To precis the idea:

You want a new car, worth £20,000. Instead of buying it, you rent it from a company at, say, £250 (guess) per month for a fixed 2 year period. You then give it back, and can get a new contract on a new car, if you wish. Ignoring interest over the period, it would cost £6000. So, if the resale value of the two year old car is less than £14,000, you're quids in. Right? The company is also responsible for things like car tax and some other charges a car owner would normally incur.

Well i have a pretty good head for numbers, but know very little about cars, so my questions are:

1. Is this likely to be a good deal? How much do cars lose on their value in 2 years?

2. Does anyone out there do this? Can you recommend for/against it?

3. Does anyone know of alternative sites/other sources for this type of service? I have no idea if the one site i found is offering low prices or not!

thanks!

tomstickland

So it costs £6K per 2 years. Would you buy a new car for £6K and then give it away after 2 years? Most people wouldn't.
You'd be better of buying a 2 year old car for around 60% (or whatever) of its new price and then running it for a number of years.

I've spent 4 months of your rental on a complete car and managed 12 months and 25K on that at no extra cost apart from petrol and some minor regualr service parts.