motability

smudger1946

Evening all,

Advice please, we could if we wanted, get a Motability car as we qualify, is it best to go down this route or is there a cheaper alternative?
At this moment we have a two year old Skoda Fabia that we bought privately, we have been very pleased with it, it has been advised that we sell Skoda now, for this is the time to get the best price for it.

So the question is do we buy privately or use the Motability scheme or another scheme?

Regards Smudge

atrixblue.-MFR-.

I would not part ex a bought outright car against a motability car.


What I would do is sell the car back to the dealership for cash.


and order a nil or low deposit motability vehicle, your going to be handing it back, in 3yrs or 65k miles which ever sooner and ordering another (if your PIP/DLA is still applicable to you).


basic things still have to be paid for, wash fluid, oil top ups, water antifreeze top ups (although dealerships don't usually pass on that cost of a small top up to motability users some will) windscreen wipers, bulbs and general small upkeeps of the car.


please bare in mind, although it is a motability vehicle, hand it back damaged, they will charge you for them if its outside of fair wear and tear, at every service, your handed a condition report, this is also kept on file at the dealership and motability gets a copy when car is handed back.


If you know before hand when ordering your going to be exceeding 65k in 3 year perios (or whatever limit is placed on the vehicle) you really need to inform the sales person at point of ordering to get a extended miles permission or youll be charged per mile exceeding the stated mileage limit.

There usually a money incentive at the end of the "lease" for keeping it in top condition usually £250.


Is it worth it? I would say its a way to free up some equity in your skoda and put that aside as savings for a rainy day.


if you lose DLA or PIP for whatever reason and need to hand the car back you could always use the money from the skoda to purchase another car outright and be back on the road asap.


its free motoring practically for those who are disabled, all you do is add fuel.


negative side, any NCB on a private insurance policy you may have will start to decrease in 3 yrs oldest to recent NCB accrued, Motability at end of lease will provide a letter to how many years claim free you had been with them but insurers don't have to discount for them and can revert back to existing NCB accrued on a private policy.


Hope this helps.

harveybobbles

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

its free motoring practically for those who are disabled, all you do is add fuel

Not really free, as you give up the mobility ellement of DLA/PIP which is £56.75 per week as this pays for the car.

Spicy_McHaggis

harveybobbles wrote: »

Not really free, as you give up the mobility ellement of DLA/PIP which is £56.75 per week as this pays for the car.

Or £8,853 over three years.

As you say hardly free.

forgotmyname

Cheaper alternative = keep your current car. Unless it costs more than £56 a week to tax and insure and service. Which is unlikely.

Joe_Horner

We had a motability car in my wife's name for 3 years and kept accurate costs for it as well as my private banger for the whole time.

Including the DLA payments the motability worked out at 35.5p per mile over 3 years / 35k miles.

My 1972 Daf worked out at 19.2p per mile over the same 3 years and about 20k miles. That included all repairs and a quick respray as well as insurance, running costs etc.

To be fair, the Daf was very cheap insurance (around £90/ year fully comp) and I do all repairs myself, which helped to keep costs down, but it was still £3200 cheaper over the 3 years than the motability one would have been, and still belonged to us at the end of it. That roughly £1100 per year (plus resale value) would pay for a lot of servicing etc!

Try to work out what your current car has cost you in pence per mile over your ownership. Be as honest as you can with yourself. Use average fuel consumption over the miles you've done and allow around £1.25 per litre if it's been over the past couple of years - that'll be close enough for fuel costs. remember all those little things like screen wash, oil top-ups and so on, and any servicing, tyres, repairs and so on. Also remember that you're entitled to free road tax on your own car if you qualify for motability. Don't forget to include the cost of buying the car and take off what you expect you'd be able to sell it for at the end of another 3 years.

Finally, remember that with your own car there's always the risk of an unexpected big bill, or even something that makes it uneconomic to repair, in which case you'll be looking for a rplacement with only scrap value back on the old one.

Motability isn't a particularly cheap way to run a car, but it is easy, hassle free and gives a certain amount of peace of mind seeing as any big bills won't be your problem. The costs are known ahead of time, it avoids credit checks, and the money can't get dribbled away on other stuff because it's paid directly.

Whether those benefits are worth the higher cost is really something for you to work out yourself!

JJ_Egan

If you qualify for Motability then i would go down that route .
Even more so if the disability requires you to have peace of mind regarding car transport .
I have done both methods and at the end of you using Motability you have no collateral as you would in a used vehicle .
Visit dealers decide what model then sign the papers and arrange delivery . Insurance included road tax included all services included all repairs and breakdown included .
Two and a half years later you start to decide on your next car .

smudger1946

Very helpful discussion, thank you all for the information.
Great site for useful advice/information.
Thank you
Smudger

timothyskinner

A comparison of HP versus motability payments is worth doing.
I found HP coming out at a half to two-thirds the cost of motability just for arranging my own insurance and maintenance. A car with high retention value (slow depreciation) such as a Yeti brings cost below half. A car that does a high mileage (rare with disabled drivers) pushes HP above two-thirds as at end of 3 years the car has less retained value.

Overall though I was surprised how much it does cost to run even a low insurance car. After some thought I decided to buy and run an old Golf 1.4 that has no rust showing.
The biggest financial factor (over 50% except for old cars more than 10 years old) in car ownership is depreciation.

Car_54

Joe_Horner wrote: »

We had a motability car in my wife's name for 3 years and kept accurate costs for it as well as my private banger for the whole time.

Including the DLA payments the motability worked out at 35.5p per mile over 3 years / 35k miles.

My 1972 Daf worked out at 19.2p per mile over the same 3 years and about 20k miles. That included all repairs and a quick respray as well as insurance, running costs etc.

To be fair, the Daf was very cheap insurance (around £90/ year fully comp) and I do all repairs myself, which helped to keep costs down, but it was still £3200 cheaper over the 3 years than the motability one would have been, and still belonged to us at the end of it. That roughly £1100 per year (plus resale value) would pay for a lot of servicing etc!

So for £1,100 a year you can drive a brand new car with all the modern comforts and state-of-the art safety features instead of a 40-odd year-old heap. Sounds like a bargain to me.:)

Nilrem

My personal opinion, having had to make use of the motobility scheme in the past is thus.

If you've got a current car that is in good working order keep it.
Put the mobility money (or everything bar the cost of running the car) to one side.

If your current car is only two years old there is a very good chance that by the time it becomes uneconomical to run you could have the better part of 5-10 years of mobility saved up to outright buy another car.

Motorbility tends to be good under three conditions imo.
1: You have the award and need a new car now, but can't afford to buy another way.
2: You need a specific car for your disability/needs and can't afford it another way.
3: You want a new car every 3 years.

Remember you are giving your full mobility component to Motorbility and won't have anything at the end of the lease, and it will still cost you fuel to run the car.
You also unfortunately with motobility have zero real gurantee of having the car even under lease for the full term - I know several people who due to DLA/DWP screw ups have lost their motorbility cars when the incompetents at the DWP reviewed their cases and couldn't read their own doctors notes (in one case a person with a life time disability had her car taken away at about 6 weeks notice and was left without one for 18 months whilst it went to a tribunal who awarded the money back with a profuse apology for the mess as soon as she got through the door, but that didn't help with the fact that for 18 months she was stuck without a car and paying for expensive taxis).

My parents after a similar mess bought a new Kia about 12 years ago, kept it running until they gave it to my Sister about 2 years ago and even after buying (for cash) another, much better Kia worked out on top compared to having used motorbility.
I think it worked out that even after paying for all the insurances/maintenance work plus the cost of the cars themselves they'd saved about 5K+, not including the fact that they now have 3 more years of nothing other than insurance/fuel on the new car, so another 10k+ over that time and it looks like it'll keep piling up.
They actually did some quite detailed sums before buying the first car and worked out they only had to keep it running for 3-4 years for it to work out cheaper than the Motorbility Scheme (so years 5-8 paid for the next one), and with the modern warranties on a lot of cars it's getting easier to keep them running reasonably cheaply.

Of course this math only really works if you're happy with cars that cost <£20k new, and are happy running a 3-5 year old car (and have either the money up front to buy starter car, or a working car already to run whilst you save the cash).

It's worth remembering that some manufacturers finance schemes can/do take longer DLA/PIP mobility awards as suitable income for finance.