Can I get a personal contract purchase car with a high annual mileage?

geek1981

Herzlos wrote: »

How would that work? The car would still be worth a lot less and there would be pretty severe mileage penalties for putting an extra 60,000 miles on it (£6k in fees at 10p/mile)

No, you have to worry about mileage penalty ONLY if you are handing it back to the finance company. You can sell the car privately or trade it in to a dealer any time and the buyer can pay your outstanding balance during the transaction. Depending on your GFV you will also get an equity on your car which is normally used to buy your next car if you are going through the dealer. It's very unlikely GFV is is higher than the real value of your car which is the case you have to pay the mileage penalty.

bigjl

As others have said.

Buy used, three years old or so, ex company or lease car with high motorway miles for around a 1/4 of the new price and drive it till it dies.

Buy high mileage cars only as then your extra miles make little difference as it had no value to begin with.

I do between 25k and 30k a year.

I bought my V50 for £4700 at auction when just over 3 years old with 101k.

Now had 152k and is still worth around £5k odd.

I have just serviced it, though recently it has needed the heater fan changed.

Stick to fleet cars, Mondeo, Insignia, Focus etc.

As already mentioned you will be looking at 5 oil changes a year minimum and at least one complete set of tyres if you buy decent ones like Michelin and rotate them a coulpe every 10k to even out the wear.

I have GoodYear winter tyres on, didn't use the car much last summer so left them on, they don't last aswell as normal tyres as they are softer but there is over 30k on them now and two have 5mm of tread left and two have 6mm of tread left which i must admit has really surprised me.

With quality tyres 50/60k a set of four with regular rotation is a real possibility.

Learn how to do your own maintenace as it will save you lots of dosh.

Give up the idea of a PCP as you will basically finance the depreciation with a PCP and you will be running the car into the ground as a three yr old car with 150k or a four yr old with 200k is not worth an awful lot.

Little or no residuals means mega high PCP payments.

Ask anybody that does minicab or taxi work how much they pay for a lease or PCP.

Or try one of the minicab specific leasing companies such as CabDirect, they do Mondeos for £70 a week + Vat with a cashback deal helping with the deposit.

These schemes pretty much assume the car will be worthless after the deal ends.

OddballJamie

pulliptears wrote: »

I'm following this with interest as we are currently looking for a solution to a similar problem....

OH's commute is approx 120/130 miles a day (round trip). Moving closer is most certainly NOT an option here for various personal reasons. (though he is job hunting locally still)

We thought of the 'buy a 3/4 year old car and run it into the ground' option ourselves, which is why we now have an 07 plate Astra 1.9 CDTi thats just cost nearly £3k in gearbox replacement. We now know (benefit of hindsight) that the next thing to go will be turbo, closely followed by swirl flaps, power steering pump and lastly the gearbox again which is only guaranteed for 12,000 miles - a figure we'll reach around september/october time.

We are also wondering where to go from here really. High mileage lease? Banger? Either way with the sale of our car we'd have about £5k to play with so I'm watching replies here with interest.

£3k for a gearbox in an Astra!?!

pulliptears

OddballJamie wrote: »

£3k for a gearbox in an Astra!?!

Yep, took out the clutch and flywheel in its wake as well. The 1.9CDTi engines have this problem across several of the vauxhall models.
I think final total was £2,675 with labour and tow etc

OddballJamie

pulliptears wrote: »

Yep, took out the clutch and flywheel in its wake as well. The 1.9CDTi engines have this problem across several of the vauxhall models.
I think final total was £2,675 with labour and tow etc

I feel for you, my heart sunk when I read that. So glad I went with the 1.8VVT petrol now, I had a quick Google and it looks like it's any Astra with a turbo that's affected.
http://www.astraownersclub.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-295660.html

pulliptears

OddballJamie wrote: »

I feel for you, my heart sunk when I read that. So glad I went with the 1.8VVT petrol now, I had a quick Google and it looks like it's any Astra with a turbo that's affected.
http://www.astraownersclub.com/vb/archive/index.php/t-295660.html

If I'd known then what I know now believe me I'd have run a mile. So many in the owners network have had the issues yet Vauxhall wont admit there is a problem. The only saving grace was it went in such a way that OH was able to pull off the motorway to safety, I've heard tell of them failing catastrophically at 70 in the outside lane. Could have been much much worse in hindsight.

We are now looking for a high miler diesel to just run into the ground.

OddballJamie

pulliptears wrote: »

If I'd known then what I know now believe me I'd have run a mile. So many in the owners network have had the issues yet Vauxhall wont admit there is a problem. The only saving grace was it went in such a way that OH was able to pull off the motorway to safety, I've heard tell of them failing catastrophically at 70 in the outside lane. Could have been much much worse in hindsight.

We are now looking for a high miler diesel to just run into the ground.

Don't blame you. I had a 307 HDi 136 and had heaps of problems with the engine. I hear older 1.8 diesel Focus(s?) are pretty decent, before the FAP filters, just avoid the 1.6 and 2.0 as it's a Peugeot engine.

pulliptears

OddballJamie wrote: »

Don't blame you. I had a 307 HDi 136 and had heaps of problems with the engine. I hear older 1.8 diesel Focus(s?) are pretty decent, before the FAP filters, just avoid the 1.6 and 2.0 as it's a Peugeot engine.

We are looking for cheaper fuel economy and something with a bit of motorway power. OH is looking at older Audi's, I'm wary and think the likes of Toyota and Honda may be better.

OddballJamie

pulliptears wrote: »

We are looking for cheaper fuel economy and something with a bit of motorway power. OH is looking at older Audi's, I'm wary and think the likes of Toyota and Honda may be better.

Toyota would be a good choice, think the diesels use fuel to burn off the soot rather than a fluid when they re-generate.

Mobeer

OddballJamie wrote: »

Toyota would be a good choice, think the diesels use fuel to burn off the soot rather than a fluid when they re-generate.

120-130 miles a day on a motorway suggests the DFP will rarely ever need to regenerate - it will be cleaned by all the motorway driving.