How to compare car PCP between dealers?

abssorb

Another annoying thing with this, is that there's an "admin" fee of £175 charged twice, one at the start and again at the end of the agreement.

A total of £350 for pushing some paper. OK, that's steep, but the really unpalatable thing is they add it to the loan amount, and so I get charged interest on it.

If it's truly an administration fee for an actual administration service, I should be able to pay it up front. But no. It's only possible inside the finance.

In this case I wasn't actually advised of this finance fee. The dealer took me through the finance quote, but didn't point out the fee to me. I would have thought this was an obligation.
So then I paid a deposit on the car and made a deal.

When it came to sign the finance paperwork at collection time I saw the £350 and felt very negative about it. It's a legal scam.

SeanG79

abssorb wrote: »

Another annoying thing with this, is that there's an "admin" fee of £175 charged twice, one at the start and again at the end of the agreement.

A total of £350 for pushing some paper. OK, that's steep, but the really unpalatable thing is they add it to the loan amount, and so I get charged interest on it.

If it's truly an administration fee for an actual administration service, I should be able to pay it up front. But no. It's only possible inside the finance.

In this case I wasn't actually advised of this finance fee. The dealer took me through the finance quote, but didn't point out the fee to me. I would have thought this was an obligation.
So then I paid a deposit on the car and made a deal.

When it came to sign the finance paperwork at collection time I saw the £350 and felt very negative about it. It's a legal scam.

If you increase your deposit by the admin fee, you effectively pay it up front, although it is still in the agreement.

The dealer has quoted you an APR and a monthly payment, and those payments and APR took those admin fee(s) into consideration.

You should have received a pre-contract with all the fees, before you signed the contract and to be fair you never signed the agreement without knowing the fees as you mention you saw the £350 and were negative about it. You could have opted not to sign the agreement and rather to finance the vehicle by another means (personal loan possibly), or found another vehicle finance provider.

Admin fees vary from lender to lender. With some lenders, you have the option of paying the admin fee up front or spread across the term, many time a portion of the admin fee is paid to the dealer if the admin fee is spread. Most times these fees can be negotiated if you insist.