Leasing a Car? Pro's/Con's?

sohurt

Hi all

I am going to work in America over the summer/maybe go some travelling. I expect to be away from June - August/September.

I have a car at the moment with a loan being paid on it (not through finance). It has £3000 left to pay. The car is worth roughly £3500-£4000 at a push.

I pay £150 (min payment £100) each month on it, then there is road tax (£200 per year) and my insurance (about £150ish) and petrol - it's a 1.6 and eats petrol like no ones business.

Anyway, I am thinking about selling the car before I go away and maybe leasing a car when I get back. I don't have any real need to actually own a car because at the moment if anything goes wrong with this one (which is happening at the moment, I need to pay it.)

The leasing companies I have been looking at pay your road tax for you, also if anything goes wrong with the car it is covered by their warranty. It looks like a win-win situation to me.

Any thoughts?

Thanks for any replies.

zeon999

Advantages of leasing would be its actually cheaper to lease most cars depending on the leasing deal you get as long as you want to renew the vehicle every 2 or 3 years, it also saves the hassle of buying and selling vehicles every few years.

If you don’t mind keeping a vehicle for 5 years or more then normally buying is a better option.

Also as you have mentioned leasing a vehicle with maintenance in with the contract then means you don’t have to worry about any other costs other than insurance.

Drawback are the fact the car is not actually yours, if you like to make modifications to the cars you use then leasing is defiantly not for you as this is not allowed.

Other problems with leasing can be if you don’t get the right contract in the first place it can be very costly, for example if you take up a contract for 10,000 miles per year but end up doing more like 15,000 miles year, at the end of the contract you will be left with a big bill for the excess mileage and at very expensive rates.

To avoid this think carefully about what mileage you plan to do and give yourself a bit to play with, the extra cost if you take up a contract with higher mileage is normally quite small and a fraction of the cost compared to the price of the miles that exceed the contract.

I hope that have I have given you something’s to think about, also I use Total Fleet Services for all my leasing they are priced well and really look after me well, so I would check them out also if you decide that leasing is right for you.

sohurt

Hi

Thanks for your reply, had a look at that website, looks very expensive. I have seen some offers for roughly £120-£150 for Fiat Punto/Clio etc.

Do main dealers do any sort of 'leasing' deal?

Thanks

zeon999

Yeah there are normally leasing options available from dealers but they are not normally as competative genrally but well worth checking out as you know they will be a reliable source.

If your after a car as small/cheap as a Fiat Punto or Renault Clio I would check your figures as to wether its worth going down the leasing path normally leasing works better for cars a bit more expensive.

Also be careful when looking for the cheapest leasing company, there are alot of new bedroom brokers cropping up all over the place. Some of them are offering some good prices but will then catch you out with hidden costs and if anything goes wrong sometimes dont offer very good service.

Also I would advise contacting companies for quotes as the deals on the websites are not always upto date, sometimes old deals are not available and sometimes new deals are out but not being advertised on the brokers sites.

sohurt

Thanks, will need to look into that. Don't really want to pay more than what I currently am...
Thanks again

taff007

zeon999 wrote: »

If your after a car as small/cheap as a Fiat Punto or Renault Clio I would check your figures as to wether its worth going down the leasing path normally leasing works better for cars a bit more expensive.

I would confirm zeon999's comments. Leasing deals seem to get better with lower depreciating cars. For example, when I was looking last year the difference between a fairly standard ford focus and and fairly standard BMW 3 series worked out at around only £20 - £30 a month. I felt the difference was worth paying but it comes down to personal choice.

So far I've been really impressed with leasing as it has given me a nice car that I couldn't have afforded to buy outright. It's taxed, I've got a full maintenance package and it is covered by the dealer warranty (with RAC breakdown cover) so it is relatively worry free motoring. The leasing company advised me to look after the car as if I owned it to reduce any penalty charges when the car is returned.

One issue I have had some problem is with insurance. Some companies will not cover personal leases, and very few have the option to select leased cars online so I've missed out of a couple of quidco payments but this is a minor problem.

Hintza

taff007 wrote: »

One issue I have had some problem is with insurance. Some companies will not cover personal leases, and very few have the option to select leased cars online so I've missed out of a couple of quidco payments but this is a minor problem.

Interestingly our latest Jeep is apparently registered in our name which made insurance a lot easier (not that we see the V5)

Just now might be a good idea to lease especially if a larger car as I can see the residuals in these coming down as the budget implications become more apparent hence raising the monthly cost.

My experience says look for the deal and not the car if you are flexible in what you drive you can get some great deals but if you are fixed on a popular car then you will struggle to make it work on the sums.

You need a nifty spreadsheet to calcualte it all out.