Need a car for work! So many options and problems

dombox

Hi Everyone,

Been using Money Saving Expert for a while now but never had a reason to come to the forums until now, so I'm hoping you guys welcome me and don't mind sparing some time to give me some much needed advise. I need to have a car for 2nd of Jan when i start a new job and time is marching on! i don't know what car to get or in which way to get the car! its pretty safe to say that i am clueless, treat me as a complete novice!

The car allowance is 350/month and i need a reasonable car for visiting clients.
I'm 25 and haven't driven for 4 years. I have never been down as the the main driver for car insurance and therefore have no claims bonus. The nearest thing i have is 3 years no claims as a named driver.

as it stands i cant get a company car lease, i have to provide my own car and i feel really stuck i don't know what to do. I have looked at these options so far;

1) If I'm right in thinking ill get taxed and NI'd on the car allowance so £350 - 33% leaves me with £241.50. If i'm lucky i can get insurance at £55 per month which leaves me with a monthly budget of £196.50 which i need to get a 15000/year leased car. That doesn't seem alot to me at all plus i will be tied into a 2-4 year contract, the job seems solid and safe but i couldn't afford the payments if anything went wrong and i was unemployed. The only plus i can see is that i wouldn't have to worry about future car costs and the car would be brand new.

2) The other option i was thinking of was getting a loan for around £5800 and buying a car using the £196.50 to pay for loan repayments and car servicing mot , tax etc
If i assign £1,200 to the running of the car (excluding petrol) for 3 years that leaves me with £163.16 for loan repayments and a budget to buy a used car for £5800. obviously if the car goes kaput i'm screwed but i could get one from a good dealer. also at the end of the 3 years. unlike the lease i have a car and if anything went wrong with work i can sell the car to pay for the loan.

3) Some told me a bout a hire purchase scheme but i have very little knowledge on this does any one know a good one or can recommend one to investigate. I've seen these require a deposit, i could probably rustle up £1500 as a deposit but do you get this back if you don't choose to buy the car at the end of it?

4) The other option i'm thinking of is to approach the company i'm going to work for to ask if they could put me on their company car car lease (my sales role isn't currently entitled to this, although non sales roles are) and to take away all / a portion of my car allowance? am i right in thinking they might be up for this as they can claim back part/all of the VAT? they could also put me on their fleet insurance which would save me loads. If i offered all my car allowance for this would i end up just being even worse off from being taxed more?

As i said above i don't have a clue what to do or what car to get.

If anyone can offer any advice or give their comments it would be much appreciated!

Thanks so so much!

Dom

Enfieldian

Thrifty.co.uk

They do 1 to 6 month rentals on a wide variety of vehicles with your choice of mileage.

You should be able to put something aside to buy your own or just get a new car twice a year.....

steve-L

How secure is the new job?
Its worth considering that you pay for the car and have say 3 months probation and circumstances change.... if that's the case then obviously you don't want to be stuck with a large loan or lease you are locked into....

Course... you a bit damned if you do.... or don't.....

Personally, I'd avoid a loan of that amount on a new job....

Do you need the car immediately and everyday?
Could you hire one over the first month .... if you are likely to not need it everyday?

Your option sounds safest.... you might lose out some for the first year on tax but on the plus side its no risk. At the end of the year when you see how the land lies you might have saved enough to buy outright or a much smaller loan.

Strangely most car type loans seem to drop the rate at £7500, I remember calculating and it was cheaper for me to take £7500 than £6000???? So somewhere you might be better borrowing 2000-3000 or 7500..... (check the exact crossover, 7500 is from memory)

TrickyWicky

I wouldn't take a loan for a car for a job that is new and not known to be secure. If things go wrong for any reason you're stuck in a big pile of ****.

banner188

Why do any of that?
Just get a loan for £1500 and buy any japanese car with full service history and below 70,000 miles, it will be bulletproof and reliable for you. You won't end up in stupid debt if job goes wrong.

banner188

for instance, check this out, you can't go wrong. Why pay a stupid price for a car that will be likely less for the money than this.


http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201211204300787/sort/default/usedcars/maximum-mileage/up_to_80000_miles/price-from/1000/fuel-type/petrol/maximum-age/up_to_7_years_old/price-to/2000/make/nissan/onesearchad/used/onesearchad/nearlynew/onesearchad/new/postcode/wf134de/keywords/full_service/page/1/radius/1500?logcode=p

forgotmyname

A dealer with just a mobile number. Doesnt that shout trustworthy.

marlot

You're right about being taxed on the car allowance.

Are they also paying an amount per mile (to cover fuel etc)? If so, and it is less than the HMRC maximum then you can claim a small tax refund on the difference between what they pay you and the HMRC limit. If you do a lot of miles, this can add up.

If you give up the car allowance and go for a company car instead, you'll be liable to company car tax. This is based on the emissions of the car you get given.

dombox

Got my company car spec and i cant have a car older than 5 years. That means if i get a 3 year finance deals it will have to be on a car no more than 2 years old. I want something that retains its value so i am thinking something like a Golf

I have decided i am going down the finance route and im off to see the dealers tomorrow to start looking around.

Marlot - Thanks i only found out about this yesterday, i have done hours of research and still cant get my head around car mileage. If you could cast your eyes over this thread it would be much appreciated. (i started a new thread as i thought it was an entirely different topic hope thats ok)

The thread is called "Car Mileage Allowance - please confirm.." o would post the link but MSE wont let me encase i am a spammer!

Strider590

dombox wrote: »

4) The other option i'm thinking of is to approach the company i'm going to work for to ask if they could put me on their company car car lease (my sales role isn't currently entitled to this, although non sales roles are)

That's a VERY odd setup, sales staff normally get company cars before all others, because it's a company image thing....... I'd be inclined to do some asking around, find out how long sales people generally tend to last at this company. Personally i'd be cautious about spending large sums of money and committing to lease hire contracts.

forgotmyname

But by buying a car that retains its value your paying more for it in the 1st place.

Then the next facelift model comes out and the value of your car is not what you expected.

The mags used to say buy a Merv it only depreciates by 30% over 3 years.

But they forget to mention that 30% is more money than the average car cost anyway.

Buy a Merc for £20,000 in 3 years its worth say £14,000 or buy a Ford for £6000 and throw it away after 3 years. Any money you get for it is a bonus.