£500 per month for a car. Help please

anthony1967

Hi there. First post and would really appreciate some help.

In my new job I am given £500 per month for travel. I will need to pay for my insurance, road tax and petrol out of this as well as the car. I have been looking at leasing a car (it is a 24month contract) but wondered if anyone knew of how to lease or do a pcp on a used car instead. Strikes me that I should be able to get more bang for my buck that way. Any pointers would be appreciated and suggestions for cars too.

Thanks

motorguy

anthony1967 wrote: »

Hi there. First post and would really appreciate some help.

In my new job I am given £500 per month for travel. I will need to pay for my insurance, road tax and petrol out of this as well as the car. I have been looking at leasing a car (it is a 24month contract) but wondered if anyone knew of how to lease or do a pcp on a used car instead. Strikes me that I should be able to get more bang for my buck that way. Any pointers would be appreciated and suggestions for cars too.

Thanks

Are you restricted to an particular maximum age or type of car? (eg, 4 door, estate car, hatchback?)

Do you know how many miles you will be doing ?

Kilty_2

PCP on a used car isn't going to be possible because it relies on residual values. You could of course buy it on HP but it's probably not a good idea if you're changing it every 2 years.

There's some cracking lease deals around on the likes of the Passat CC atm....

anthony1967

pgilc1 wrote: »

Are you restricted to an particular maximum age or type of car? (eg, 4 door, estate car, hatchback?)

Do you know how many miles you will be doing ?

No more than 15k miles per year. Not restricted in anyway as to what I can get. Was hoping for a second hand porsche cayman but think it will come in at too much.

I'm 28 and have no kids so don't really fancy a saloon. Thinking of being boring and getting a golf.

getmore4less

Don't forget to take off the tax.

then the fuel for the business use.

That will tell you whats left(asuming you planned to have a car anyway).

I see two choice

blow it all on the best you can get even considering throwing in some of your own money.

The risk is you loose the job and are stuck with an expensive car to fund especialy risky if you borrowed a lot.

OR

Go cheap have it paid off as soon as possible and save the rest for a future buy that will also be paid off quickly.

trade up as you accumulate the funds but remain relatively debt free.


Cheapest funding would probably be from a personal loan or even a 0% purchase Credit card.

harveybobbles

Get a loan for £10,000 and use the £500 you get per month to pay ot off and buy something insane

motorguy

Kilty wrote: »

PCP on a used car isn't going to be possible because it relies on residual values. You could of course buy it on HP but it's probably not a good idea if you're changing it every 2 years.

There's some cracking lease deals around on the likes of the Passat CC atm....

Sorry, explain again why PCP on a used car isnt possible?

Kilty_2

pgilc1 wrote: »

Sorry, explain again why PCP on a used car isnt possible?

It's possible but it's not a particularly good idea - the payments rely on the car being worth a certain amount at the end, being easy to sell, etc. An older car fails on most of these points.

With some of the lease deals around I don't see why you would want to.

JQ.

The £500 will be a gross figure so if you're a higher rate tax payer you'll receive £245 per month and if taxed at the lower rate it'll be £345. Take off fuel, running costs and insurance I guess you're budget will be £170 to £270 pcm for the car.

motorguy

Kilty wrote: »

It's possible but it's not a particularly good idea - the payments rely on the car being worth a certain amount at the end, being easy to sell, etc. An older car fails on most of these points.

With some of the lease deals around I don't see why you would want to.

BMW have been doing it very successfully for years.

wattywattwatt

Kilty wrote: »

PCP on a used car isn't going to be possible because it relies on residual values. You could of course buy it on HP but it's probably not a good idea if you're changing it every 2 years.

There's some cracking lease deals around on the likes of the Passat CC atm....

Not true. I recently bought a one year old Toyota on a PCP and got a great deal, the incentives from Toyota were excellent and it worked out much better than HP. At the end of the three years I will owe slightly less than I would if I had bought the car on HP (over 5 years) and the repayments were considerably less than on HP. Its not for everyone, though, if you are a high mileage driver maybe not such a good deal.