Lease/Buy

ACG

To be honest the firm my dad works for should be fine. If hes working on getting me a deal i would trust my dad over other firms.

There is no specific car im after, more of a cross over i suppose but i have not set my heart on one particular. The deal on offer is probably going to be biggest factor.

bigjl

WellKnownSid wrote: »

Not always. I do own a couple of cars but also lease one car for business use. On paper it would cost £17k to buy, but over the two year / 30,000 mile lease will cost me a total of £4k + VAT (10% as I'm VAT registered). It'll depreciate at least double that in the time I've leased it. No matter how favourable you make the maths, or how long you intend to keep the car as a private purchase - buying will be more expensive in the long run (especially as servicing, repairs and MoT costs mount).

There's no catch particularly - when you lease, the car will never be yours but will instead be owned by a finance company who'll probably be buying 10,000 similar cars from the same manufacturer. As a result they'll be buying the car for a hefty (say, 50%) discount, not available to a retail customer (manufacturers put restrictions on the deal to prevent this). Plus there are also tax benefits too if you run a business.

The trick - as always - is to find the best deal rather than going for a particular vehicle.

The downsides? It's a new car - so you'll have to look after it - although they won't expect a showroom condition car on its return, they will expect reasonable care to have been taken.

Insurance may be higher - you won't actually be the owner or the registered keeper, and some insurers don't like that - so with limited experience / no claims history as well it may limit your options for cheap cover. Get quotes.

You'll need a special form from the finance company if you want to take the car overseas. Once again, because it's not your car.

Hope that helps!

You have quoted me a little out of context as i mention business use.

But thanks for the extra details

WellKnownSid

WillyWonga wrote: »

Search Lings Cars - and have a look at the model you are interested in to give you an idea of price for lease. Its an whacky website but they are quick and efficient.

Lings worked out at almost exactly twice the cost overall for the model I leased - reinforcing that it's the deal rather than the model / broker you should go for. In that respect Lings are just another aggregator - that said I understand they have a good reputation. Just don't be afraid to compare prices (and when looking at lease deals always add the deposit to the total of the monthly repayments to give you an accurate true cost).

ALL manufacturers discount fleet sales heavily - not just the unpopular or runout makes / models, but where they simply want to buy market share. About 18 months ago you could lease an A3 for less than a Polo... It's all to do with targets, bonuses and market share, look carefully and real gems will appear.