Car Leasing benefits/drawbacks?

SLITHER99

Ignoring the gas fumes in this thread:

I don't like the idea of leasing personally; it seems like an awful lot of money for something you don't eventually own anyway. I did it once, but only because I had it sub'd from work. I basically got a brand new VW Golf for about £70 a month of my own money; work paid the lease/tax/petrol. Bargain for me! But I'd never do it with my own money.

If this is a commute car, you need to be OK with the fact that whatever car you get, you will essentially brutalise with mileage - depending on how far your commute is. I have a Porsche Boxter which is garaged in winter but comes out for the Summer and (getting) another car which although has the basic necessities of aircon, elec windows, etc, I won't be too bothered in three years when it's passed the 150k mark and fit for ebay. I don't think anyone gets attached to Ford Focuses or Vauxhall Astras.

That's how I do. My last commuter car was a Mercedes A class which is reported to be the worst car you could ever buy yet gave me practically zero problems.

forgotmyname

Figures suggest it should do 52MPG. If you do short journeys that will drop. But that will be the case for any car you buy. The quoted MPG will be less.

My car does 60+ mpg but it can also do less than 30mpg. Depending on the weather and journey types.

£10,000 buys a LOT of fuel....

oliverr

You'd pay less for an equivalent 1.6 diesel Golf on a lease deal. Pretty much the same car, made by the same group.

rummy

hieveryone wrote: »

Any maths whizzes out there can work out if I would just be better buying a second hand one then? I'd probably spend about £10-£12k on a decent one with low mileage, and aim for around a £1500 deposit.

SLITHER99 wrote: »

I don't like the idea of leasing personally; it seems like an awful lot of money for something you don't eventually own anyway. I did it once....But I'd never do it with my own money.

hieveryone - I agree with Slither99, I would not recommend leasing.

Advantages:
- Brand new car, you're the only owner and just like anything else brand new, it's nice to be the first to try it out.
- Comes with warranty / breakdown cover in most cases
- I think they pay the road tax for you

Disadvantages:
- You will need to pay for it to be serviced (you have to get it done so it retains its value and it has to be with a genuine dealer, in your case Audi)
- You will need to be super careful with the car, any dents above 1cm, large scratches, alloy damages etc need to be repaired by yourself and they always say at an authorised dealer (they hire experts before the car is returned and they can tell when dodgy work has been done). Of course some wear and tear is allowed but if the car is only 2/3 years old they expect it back in a excellent condition.
- You still have to pay insurance in most cases and an Audi insurance won't come for cheap I suspect. My second year of insurance was stupidly double that of my first year, no idea why.
- As Cardozo mentions, most car lease companies only allow £10k per year rising in increments of 5k but charging more for each 5k so if you're doing 30k a year you would be well above the allowance and would have to pay out more on your rental. I doubt £250 would be suffice.
- You pay half the value for the car in the end only to give it up in two /three years.

I leased a car for two years and it was my biggest nightmare. At first I loved it but then it started causing problems, there was some clicky noise when the door would open/shut, some things just randomly fell out. I accidentally smacked the wing mirror while going through those tight poles one day and knocked the entire mirror out (bad judgement but accidents happen). The car needed servicing and to be on the safe side, I did both years of the lease (although the final one would have just been enough). Then there was the problem, when I would take it anywhere I'd be scared of leaving it. My neighbour who is a complete b****** and was useless at parking would regularly smack it while reversing and his exhaust pipe made a small crack on the front plastic reg plate. Unfortunately, I never caught him in the act (another neighbour came and told me). I had a chip on the windscreen but luckily it was so tiny that it was able to be overlooked. Then there was a dent on my car that was 1cm so again I was lucky as it was just within there guidelines. There was alot of scuffing at the back from my parking and also from cars that have gone past it and brushed against it but the worst was this huge 10cm deep scratch on the rear side back of the car where a vehicle had gone by and scratched it. That certainly would not pass the returns test. I had loads of other scratches and stuff but that came under wear and tear so I was lucky. I was so petrified especially when I knew I had to get repair work done on it, I started to micromanage anybody who would get in my car and it wasn't pleasant for them to sit in it.

It was a Citroen C2 and I paid £170 p/m when it was at 17.5% tax (obviously, when the tax changed, this went up) and that was for a 2 year contract with 3 initial payments and up to 10k per year. In the end I was so afraid of ever taking it anywhere, I did no more than 3k over two years!

Just the renting alone came to a total of: £4,590 (actually abit more than that when the tax went up to 20%). I paid about £800 to get the car repaired and that was the cheapest I could get and I didn't have the dent removed as I was told it would be overlooked since the dent was within their guideline limits. I paid an additional £350 for service (a £100 could have been avoided if I didn't do it in the first year but I didn't want to risk it). I also paid £40 to get genuine wheel caps replaced and another £20 to get the wing mirror replaced. The company who did the repairs on my car also had a service offered for lease cars which I took advantage of and they returned my car back to Citroen and took care of the guy who came to look at the car to see if it met standards.

When I took out the lease, they added the entire cost of the car onto my credit report and it came to £10,150. I paid almost half of that just having it myself - had I just bought it from new, it probably would have been cheaper and less hassle and I wouldn't have had to worry about all those scratches, dents, people getting in my car etc.

I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, there are loads of people on here who would recommend lease but I would never ever ever consider a leased car again. Infact I just bought my own VW Polo and although it was overpriced and there are problems with it, I'm just glad it's mine and up to me when I want to sort the issue out. For example, one of my window winder handles was suddenly missing and I had to get a replacement for it but it wasn't something urgent and second hand parts would do.

If you say you have 10k to spend, I would seriously just buy a second hand car straight from Audi. If you can't afford the price up front, you can do monthly payments with them and if you're 100% sure finance wouldn't be an issue then they can offer that also. And it should come with 1 years warranty I think in which time you would hopefully notice any major problems, if any.

I know when I am in a better position financially that is exactly what I plan to do - buy it second hand from a dealer.

hieveryone

forgotmyname wrote: »

Figures suggest it should do 52MPG. If you do short journeys that will drop. But that will be the case for any car you buy. The quoted MPG will be less.

My car does 60+ mpg but it can also do less than 30mpg. Depending on the weather and journey types.

£10,000 buys a LOT of fuel....

There's no way my car does 52mpg. Maybe I should get it a really good service, see if there's something 'amiss'. It is very noisy when driving.

The journey to my new work is around 50 miles. 40 of those are motorways/dual carriageways.

hieveryone

rummy wrote: »

hieveryone - I agree with Slither99, I would not recommend leasing.

Advantages:
- Brand new car, you're the only owner and just like anything else brand new, it's nice to be the first to try it out.
- Comes with warranty / breakdown cover in most cases
- I think they pay the road tax for you

Disadvantages:
- You will need to pay for it to be serviced (you have to get it done so it retains its value and it has to be with a genuine dealer, in your case Audi)
- You will need to be super careful with the car, any dents above 1cm, large scratches, alloy damages etc need to be repaired by yourself and they always say at an authorised dealer (they hire experts before the car is returned and they can tell when dodgy work has been done). Of course some wear and tear is allowed but if the car is only 2/3 years old they expect it back in a excellent condition.
- You still have to pay insurance in most cases and an Audi insurance won't come for cheap I suspect. My second year of insurance was stupidly double that of my first year, no idea why.
- As Cardozo mentions, most car lease companies only allow £10k per year rising in increments of 5k but charging more for each 5k so if you're doing 30k a year you would be well above the allowance and would have to pay out more on your rental. I doubt £250 would be suffice.
- You pay half the value for the car in the end only to give it up in two /three years.

I leased a car for two years and it was my biggest nightmare. At first I loved it but then it started causing problems, there was some clicky noise when the door would open/shut, some things just randomly fell out. I accidentally smacked the wing mirror while going through those tight poles one day and knocked the entire mirror out (bad judgement but accidents happen). The car needed servicing and to be on the safe side, I did both years of the lease (although the final one would have just been enough). Then there was the problem, when I would take it anywhere I'd be scared of leaving it. My neighbour who is a complete b****** and was useless at parking would regularly smack it while reversing and his exhaust pipe made a small crack on the front plastic reg plate. Unfortunately, I never caught him in the act (another neighbour came and told me). I had a chip on the windscreen but luckily it was so tiny that it was able to be overlooked. Then there was a dent on my car that was 1cm so again I was lucky as it was just within there guidelines. There was alot of scuffing at the back from my parking and also from cars that have gone past it and brushed against it but the worst was this huge 10cm deep scratch on the rear side back of the car where a vehicle had gone by and scratched it. That certainly would not pass the returns test. I had loads of other scratches and stuff but that came under wear and tear so I was lucky. I was so petrified especially when I knew I had to get repair work done on it, I started to micromanage anybody who would get in my car and it wasn't pleasant for them to sit in it.

It was a Citroen C2 and I paid £170 p/m when it was at 17.5% tax (obviously, when the tax changed, this went up) and that was for a 2 year contract with 3 initial payments and up to 10k per year. In the end I was so afraid of ever taking it anywhere, I did no more than 3k over two years!

Just the renting alone came to a total of: £4,590 (actually abit more than that when the tax went up to 20%). I paid about £800 to get the car repaired and that was the cheapest I could get and I didn't have the dent removed as I was told it would be overlooked since the dent was within their guideline limits. I paid an additional £350 for service (a £100 could have been avoided if I didn't do it in the first year but I didn't want to risk it). I also paid £40 to get genuine wheel caps replaced and another £20 to get the wing mirror replaced. The company who did the repairs on my car also had a service offered for lease cars which I took advantage of and they returned my car back to Citroen and took care of the guy who came to look at the car to see if it met standards.

When I took out the lease, they added the entire cost of the car onto my credit report and it came to £10,150. I paid almost half of that just having it myself - had I just bought it from new, it probably would have been cheaper and less hassle and I wouldn't have had to worry about all those scratches, dents, people getting in my car etc.

I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, there are loads of people on here who would recommend lease but I would never ever ever consider a leased car again. Infact I just bought my own VW Polo and although it was overpriced and there are problems with it, I'm just glad it's mine and up to me when I want to sort the issue out. For example, one of my window winder handles was suddenly missing and I had to get a replacement for it but it wasn't something urgent and second hand parts would do.

If you say you have 10k to spend, I would seriously just buy a second hand car straight from Audi. If you can't afford the price up front, you can do monthly payments with them and if you're 100% sure finance wouldn't be an issue then they can offer that also. And it should come with 1 years warranty I think in which time you would hopefully notice any major problems, if any.

I know when I am in a better position financially that is exactly what I plan to do - buy it second hand from a dealer.

Thank you Rummy, that was very informative and useful to me.

rummy

You're most welcome hieveryone. Best of luck with whatever choice you make. x