Mileage penalty on a HP Car

boostini

I took HP out on a car in Jan 2009. The contract states that I will have to pay 6p for every mile I travel over 10000 in a 12 month period. I have kept up with all the payments. I would like to hand the car back but the finance company says that I can not do this until 50% of the total finance is paid. This will not be until September.
If I hand the car back early, do I have to pay for any extra mileage I have done even though the car will be worth more that the outstanding balance of the finance?

ILW

If you hand it back before the 50% has been paid you will have to make up the missed payments to the 50% mark.

paddyrg

If you hand it back early, and pay upto the 50% mark, you would then be able to expect a mileage consistent with 10000 miles/year up to that point. Ask them. If not, it may be cheaper to hold on to the car until you hit that 50% mark.

smitchy73

Handing the car back prior to the end of the agreemment, all that they should do is charge you on a pro tata basis for the mileage, so say you have had it for 18months of a 36 month lease period, then your allowance would be 15,000 miles over those 18 months, so if you've done 16,000 miles excpect a bill of around £60 for the excess mileage, if you've used a lot less you should get a rebate of the same.
You should also remember the car is only worth what they sell it on for not for what it may be worth, but if your rental can be ended when you have reached 50% the final value shouldn't come in to it.
I've done this before and it ended up being a bit of a nightmare, they wanted to charge me to fix the aircon(it was a used car) but it hadn't worked since I had got it and asked them to prove that it had worked, of course they couldn't they didn't inspect the car when it was sold. So know you're car before it's handed back, some user's have also suggested taking photo's or a video of it and time stamped(using a daily newspaper is good) before it is collected or handed back so that you have prove as to the state it is in when returned, this is to protect yourself, some lease/finance companies are ruthless.