Financing a private car purchase with 0% credit cards ?

muddymickey

Hi all

I'm hoping to change my car early next year.
My current car is worth around £3k, and the car I'm looking to buy will be around £14k.

My original intention was to buy from a dealer, trade my car in, pay the balance across a couple of cards, then apply for a card that would allow 0% balance transfer - effectively offering an interest free loan.

However, I may have the chance to purchase the car I'm after, from a private individual.

Is there any way I can pay an individual for the car, and somehow fund it off a 0% card for as long as I can ?

Or are there better/cheaper ways of doing it ?

Any thoughts would be gratefully received.

Thanks!

bigadaj

Probably going to struggle even with the dealer option you'd be charged a card fee for paying them. £11k is a fair bit of credit, so you'll need to get cards with that amount available, and limited to cards that will balance transfer to a current account, mbna do and some others. There's obviously a fee to pay. And you need a plan to pay it off over time, there's no guarantee you'll be able to flip it onto other zero % cards.

Honest answer is probably you can't afford £14k for a car.

grumbler

muddymickey wrote: »

I'm hoping to change my car early next year.
My current car is worth around £3k, and the car I'm looking to buy will be around £14k.

My original intention was to buy from a dealer, trade my car in, pay the balance across a couple of cards, then apply for a card that would allow 0% balance transfer - effectively offering an interest free loan.

Would it not be more reasonable just to apply for a card with 0% on purchases instead, and before, not after?

Is there any way I can pay an individual for the car, and somehow fund it off a 0% card for as long as I can ?

• Super transfers

Any thoughts would be gratefully received.

I totally agree with the affordability point risen in the above post.

ChopperST

Recently purchased a car from a dealership.

They allowed £2k on credit card for no fee.

Anything above that incurred a 2% charge.

Nebulous2

As said above, check affordability. If you are convinced you can afford it, then I would say personal loan. An MBNA card will charge you 5% to transfer to your current aqccount, for possibly 15 months or so. You'll get a personal loan at 5% apr, so not a great deal in it. The good thing about a loan is you have no option but pay it down. You get to the time to swap the car again and the debt is gone. If you keep juggling 0% finance you might get to a point where the car is worth very little and all the debt remains.

surrey_jim

If paying a private seller could you use Paypal?

jonesMUFCforever

Personally wouldn't even think of buying a car privately for that amount.
Buyer beware - no s75 protection should you find a way to fund this by credit card.

gwapenut

surrey_jim wrote: »

If paying a private seller could you use Paypal?

I think you possibly could - but you would lose all S75 credit card protection because of paypal being an intermediary.

One other cheap SBT option may be the M&S Sterling travellers cheque trick at a cost of 1% for about 15 months interest free credit. You need to be sure you can cash TCs with no fees though (eg nationwide flexaccount still?) and I've not done it for a few years so do not know if there are any other pitfalls.

I bought my new car from a dealer using a CC - they only charged me a 1% fee and I got that back in rewards points plus interest free for many months. Affordability may or may not be an issue for OP, I wouldn't jump to conclusions - in my case, I didn't want to break into my cash ISAs to fund it, and hoped I would get a work bonus a couple of years later that covered the debt (which I did). Failure to get bonus simply means raiding the ISAs when the debt is due to be repaid.

If dealer tries to charge > 1% fee then that is yet another easy negotiation point when clinching the deal.

Wise precaution to at least pay the deposit on CC for S75 protection, and many dealers will allow a good £1k of deposit with no CC fee.

YorkshireBoy

gwapenut wrote: »

One other cheap SBT option may be the M&S Sterling travellers cheque trick at a cost of 1% for about 15 months interest free credit. You need to be sure you can cash TCs with no fees though (eg nationwide flexaccount still?) and I've not done it for a few years so do not know if there are any other pitfalls.

Not so much a "pitfall", more a block!...but M&S no longer issue travellers cheques.


Other providers are available...but OP is not going to get anywhere near the £11K required (because that would require a £22K limit from Tesco, for example, due to the '50% rule').

RobertoMoir

gwapenut wrote: »

I think you possibly could - but you would lose all S75 credit card protection because of paypal being an intermediary.

Wouldn't that be lost either way if its a private purchase?

gwapenut

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Wouldn't that be lost either way if its a private purchase?

Good point - I'm not sure about that. Whether the transaction being private overrides the credit card company providing credit for something not fit for purpose. I guess the crux would be "what is fit for purpose" in a private sale, I think rights extend to it being MOT-worthy and that's about it.

Thanks YB for the update about M&S Sterling TCs - I hadn't realised that, and am glad I found out before I intended relying on it!