PCP advertising

Pablosammy

Quick rant...

Does anyone else find the current PCP advertising tactics a little odd?

"FROM £299 PER MONTH!!!

With £5,999 deposit

Well, first of all, it's a bit sneaky hiding the large deposit in the T&Cs, but secondly... surely if I put an even bigger deposit in the monthly cost would be even less? Why not "From £250 PER MONTH!!! With £7,999 deposit"? Or "FROM £199 PER MONTH!!! With £9,999 deposit"? "NO MONTHLY PAYMENTS!!! With full payment up front". Who picks the arbitrary "from" figure, because it's completely meaningless, and why haven't trading standards taken an interest in these made up numbers?

They're normally quite coy about announcing the high interest rates too...

It puts me off ever buying a new car, rather than tempting me into the dealership.

AnotherJoe

Yeh you can see the same with the Renault Zoe.
!! Only £200 month !!

mandatory battery lease £99/month
£3,500 initial payment

Which actually is £400 a month !


Or you could get the new Jaguar iPace.

Only £807/month

£17,500 initial payment :eek:

Clive_Woody

I think they cap the maximum deposit (max around 30%) as they want you paying interest on a decent chunk of money so the from £xxx is accurate as that's probably as low as you can go with the maximum permitted deposit.

Jonesya

Odd?

No, it's exactly what you'd expect. They want to sell cars, so want to make them appear as cheap and affordable as possible to get people interested and try to sell them, hence the big text for the low monthly price and the large deposits in very small print. Once they've got you in to the show room they can start the sales tactics.

They could advertise them as "£25,000 - for many people this'll be every penny you earn after tax for a whole year" but I can't see people flocking to buy that.

Not when that dealer over there is offering that nice car for just a couple of hundred pounds a month, I could afford that, perhaps I'll wander over and take a look....

Ultimately a sale is a sale, whether it's to a gullible buyer or a financially savvy buyer, but I'd guess it's easier to sell PCP deals to the former.

Svein_Forkbeard

It's the same when leasing, I get annoyed when the deposit is anymore than 3 months. The rest is all smoke and mirrors but it is easy enough to calculate the full amount due or the real monthly amount.

System

Pablosammy wrote: »

Well, first of all, it's a bit sneaky hiding the large deposit in the T&Cs, but secondly... surely if I put an even bigger deposit in the monthly cost would be even less? Why not "From £250 PER MONTH!!! With £7,999 deposit"? Or "FROM £199 PER MONTH!!! With £9,999 deposit"? "NO MONTHLY PAYMENTS!!! With full payment up front". Who picks the arbitrary "from" figure, because it's completely meaningless, and why haven't trading standards taken an interest in these made up numbers?

If you go on the manufacturers website you'll find those figures in the advert are "typical" figures and they'll show figures with lower and higher deposits. Certainly on Mazda's website they show three examples.

At the end of the day what the monthly payments are depends on what your deposit is and what deal you do so they can only give an illustration of a typical example. If you want to find out what it will cost with the deposit you put down you need to do the maths or ask them.

almillar

Yep, the deposit is in small print, and could go up or down, sneaky. The deposit is often another car. Which you use first time. Then when it comes to change time, you've got NO deposit, and your monthlies go up! That's the PCP trap, it's about never owning a car, for better or worse.
And none of your offers mention mileage either - that's often hidden and the 'from' offer will usually be for 5-8,000 miles per year. Do more than that, residuals go down, monthly cost goes up.
People budget monthly, and when you walk into a dealership, they'll ask you how much you want to spend per month - that's the way we do it, and that's the way the car industry likes it. They work as hard to sell you the finance package, as they do the car!

Ganga

What about the car adverts on tv,such and such a car from only £x,in small print at the bottom of the screen,car shown is the all singing,all dancing model with flash paint and super duper alloys etc.