Car leasing vs buying

I get it totally. I'm just a tight old b*****d.

 

Bumpity bump.

How you getting on with this @Squibba?

I had a very long chat with an owner of a small chain of independent garages on Sunday whilst we were watching our kids at hockey. He mentioned that all new 'marquee' vehicle have been built with a 3 year lifetime - totally geared to the leasing market. He said that my idea of 'bangernomics' was too old fashioned due to all cars (since the rise of leasing) being built to last just 36 months of driving...

Something I did find very interesting was when I asked him what he would buy new today it was Hyundai, SsangYong or a Dacia Duster.

 

Funnily enough just into the first month of the contract of my Mercedes.

Insurance was £900 for the year paid it upfront. 2.8k depo and £311 p/m with maintenance on a fully loaded A Class.

Very happy. I can't imagine a Mercedes only being built to last 36 months, they have a reputation to uphold..

 

I said exactly the same to the bloke...

 

I got my first lease in March. Very happy with it and it works for me.

The only ****er was some bint in a car park putting a dink in my door within a week of getting it. I try and park as far away as possible but some twonk still managed it.

 

His contention makes no sense.

Leases are calculated based on residuals. If a car only lasts 36 months then the residual will be non-existent, therefore the lease cost would skyrocket.

It's utter ********.

 

Dunno I think the "...last 36 months..." is just moron-speak for "....the appreciative risk of the vehicle developing a fault that repair of would have a significant impact on said vehicle's residual value after three years..." and TBF I keep seeing quite a lot of three year old marque vehicles in the car auctions and also for sale in the dealers (I'm assuming the alrightish ones go to the dealers - the rest to the auctions especially as they're also serviced/MOT'd 'in house' I would assume the companies can spot these during the three years).

 

How do you design a product to only last for a set time? There are 2 options: you design the moving and sliding parts to wear at a certain rate; or you design the structure to fatigue at a certain number of load cycles. Both are technically feasible. In fact most engineered products have a calculated design life.

However what is not feasible is expecting every car to be driven in exactly the same way, under the same loads, and for the same distances and durations. You have no constants on which to make the calculations. A 3 year old lease car might have 10,000 miles on the clock or 100,000.

Its technically impossible, aside from the fact why would a car manufacturer, for which brand value is everything, deliberately choose to trash their brand.

 

When my daughter needed a car for work, we did the maths. She had saved £5,000 (well actually a lot of that was gifts), so could put a down payment on a lease deal. Her boyfriend recommended a Mini Cooper on a three year lease. Excel suggested a 2 year old Skoda Fabia Monte Carlo (it's basically an Audi A1 ugly twin).

So like most things it depends on the finances you have at your disposal and what the true value you put on having something brand new. The Skoda is virtually road tax free, came with a main dealers extended warranty and after two years she has saved money on ownership compared to a new Fabia lease deal.

My personal view is buy a four year old Toyota or Honda and ten years later keep grinning and bearing the comments about your boring old car, from Mercedes owners with tales of engine ystem failures, steering collapses and rusty seals.

 

Only just come across this thread and was looking at the options of a new car but having read this I'm no better off. My current car will be 10 years old next year and will have around 100k on the clock so probably not worth a great deal, maybe £1000-£1500. I do around 12000 miles a year and need a car with a big boot for dogs, football kit, golf clubs etc. I drove a Ford Edge while in America earlier this year and really liked it and am really not fussed about a flashy name or car plus the likes of BMW don't seem to have any boot space. Any recommendation on a car or whether I should buy or lease.

 

Ford Mondeo or Skoda Octavia estate.

 

https://www.ssangyonggb.co.uk/new/ssangyong/musso

https://www.dacia.co.uk/vehicles/duster.html

https://configure.hyundai.co.uk/build/tucson/

 

I like both, but the Mondeo is quite a bit bigger. The Octavia is a stretched VW Golf. Good size. If you want bigger the Skoda Superb is better than a Passat. The Mazda 6 and Toyaota Avensis are pretty bulletproof. If you are happy to consider Peugeot and SUV look at a 3008. They have a range of impressive petrol engined options.

 

Comes down to what you're looking for.

If you're the type who trades in frequently, lease.

If you're the type who drives it until it dies, buy.

When leasing, you essentially only pay for the sell price of the car minus the residual, which is based on estimated sell price when the lease expires (plus interest, if financing, and excluding external factors like maintenance).

If you buy the car, it will depreciate in price at the same rate so there's no gain or loss, but when buying you pay for the full value of the car in each payment. This is why lease payments are generally lower; you only finance the depreciation in value.

For someone who switches up cars every 3 years, they should generally be leasing (unless they are driving an absolutely STUPID amount of mileage every year). It protects them if the car's actual value turns out to be lower than the estimated value. If the car happens to be worth more than the buyout, you can actually trade a leased vehicle in (something a lot of people don't know), so it's slanted in favour of the buyer.

For someone who drives a car until it dies, you'll generally want to buy, although there may sometimes be case for leasing for X years and then purchasing the vehicle at the end of the lease.

It comes down to intent. Financing options, manufacturer rebates etc. can also be a factor. The most important thing to do, however, is work out how long you plan on keeping the new vehicle.

 

I used to buy and have now swapped to leasing (on my third lease) .

When I started looking at costs I realise I was paying £400+ a month for a car loan + deposit. I was swapping every two years so never generating any equity in the car, and normally finding that the car was worth less than left on the loan. At least with leasing I can just walk away every two years.

 

Are you still looking for some wheels @hornmeister? These will get you lots of attention*?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ONE-DIRE...STERY-MACHINE-DAY-VAN-CAMPER-VAN/173989152178

*Possibly from Operation Yewtree.

 

Meistermobile, not mysterymachine

And yes considering it. I have the main meistermobile and meisterdad's old vw currently on SORN, so thinking of dumping the meistermobile for something a little less practical and usign the VW shed as a daily drive. The only issue is I' need to put my Meister plate on retention as it's date locked and getting something a little more impractical means older if it's going to be interesting.

 

I pretty much always buy my own car, a nice car but 2-3 years old for £14k-£20k and aim to run it for 4 or 5 years then trade in. Economically that is the cheapest way to drive what would be a £30k car to buy or an expensive lease cost over 4-5 years. I'm not that fussed about fashionable brands so I love my spacious comfy mazda cx5.
However if you want to drive a brand new car and change every 2-3 years that doesn't work.
I like to stick with a car for a good few years as it takes me 6 months to feel comfortable in a car having worked out how to operate all the switches, management system, remember where the petrol cap release and bonnet release are etc...
The car I have now actually started out as a lease as I could get a special deal through the company as FD.....don't ask.....

 

If I go new again it'll likely be hybrid or electric and imho you'd be crazy to buy outright given battery longevity issues and potential standards changes.

 

Here’s another question for the petrol heads here. The lad wants to get his first car and obviously at 18 he’ll get hit hard for insurance.

Anyone have experience of black box telemetry? I can see it reduces cost, but is it used fairly? Do you get penalised for doing 6mph in a 5mph car park or 31 in a 30 (which you shouldn’t do, but is easy to do). Can it leave you uncovered?

 

I've just bought a nearly new Hyundai Ioniq plug in through the company. For next year the benefit in kind is 10% which means for basic rate tax if I can engineer it the tax cost will be about £900. Which is a pretty good way of getting £25k out of the company. (I'll buy it back out for a massively depreciated figure in a few years!) Have done about 2000 miles so far, including runs to Birmingham, Durham and Scarborough, and the combined mpg is 105. Hyundai have an 8 year 125,000 battery warranty.
For the money it's fantastic, got everything - adaptive cruise, lane warning/assist, emergency braking, memory seats, heated/aircon seats, heated steering wheel (a revelation) front & rear parking sensors, rear camera, dab, satnav, android auto, great stereo...
Not a particularly involving car to drive, but quick enough - I've got motorcycles for fun driving!

 

My son was 'asked' by his insurers to park his car at his 'registered address' and not at his girlfriend's repeatedly (he had moved in with her).

You can't get 'done' for speeding in a car park as they're private land (or not a thoroughfare/highway).

ISTR the insurance company 'studied' his driving record at renewal time (when he had got 1 year's NCB) and did significantly decrease the premium offered that was bettered by another company that also had access to his driving record.

His friend had a daylight driving only policy for a year (using a blackbox) and whilst her original premium was a bit lower, when she got the NCB it was pretty much the same as my son's.

 

My son had one and had no problems. Had an app to track his data so always knew how they rated his driving. If you do bad things you get warned, ignore the warnings and you lose your insurance.

 

They're damn good cars which explains the waiting list.

You might want to have a holiday over here for some EV chat
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/forum.asp?h=0&f=247

 

Miss D Jnr is currently driving around with one in her car, from MoreThan insurance. I can see her scores for speed, smoothness and useage, plus individual journeys. She seems to get hammered on the smoothness. She seems to think it's when she stalls the car that she gets marked down which I can understand as it's usually a quick stop/judder. Worse thing about the black box is when I have to use her car and "always" have some **** right on my backside.

Her elder sister had a black box for a year but how they drive in that first year makes no odds at renewal time unless you want to stay with that insurer. As BH has already mentioned, with a years NCD the insurance world is your oyster, the black box can be burnt at the stake.

 

Some surprising cars are cheap to insure. Ones that are not nickable or seldom driven by youngsters for example.
Big old volvos for example.

Deffo take the hit and get 1 year NCB, it won't get cheaper in the future. Also see if it reduces costs by adding them as named driver on other cars and you on theirs. Bizarrely despite my brother being a higher insurance risk then me, putting him down as a named driver on the meistermobile saved me 50 quid.

 

Anyone got advice about buying a cheap older motor? How to identify dealers you can trust/should avoid? How avoid buying a wreck?

 

Can you still get the reasonably cheap AA/RAC checks before you buy ? Their output is probably full of caveats but might be worth consideration if you're spending money ?

 

Enfield Car Auctions. All but one of my motors (from bangers to the three year old C4 grand picasso VTR+ for £1500) have come from there and the only 'lemon' I've ever bought was from the Great Trade Centre (CarGiant) that 'someone' had 'disconnected/disabled' the oil level/condition sensor on AND the extended parts warranty I also bought with it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Also Harringtons in Shenley specialise in very low mileage ex-motability (non-adapted) vehicles.

 

Yep that’s a good point and it seems some cars on the AA/RAC sites already have had a check. Complicated by the lad demanding that he buys an older car with ‘character’. For me that’s the last thing I’d want in a car.

 

Ooooo

What's the budget and requirements. I'll have a little lunchtime shop around.
Currently MX-5 s are good value

 

Nice one. Hows it going now?

Current meistermobile is a 2016 A250 4Matic and I'm on the whole very pleased. Is a little thirsty and tyre hungry but I think that's really my right foot's fault.

Looking at the new A250e as a potential replacement as the majority of my driving is short local trips which will be inside the electric range.

 

Beautifully!

I do about 300 miles a week and not a single problem yet.

Only an A180D but Premium Plus inside so nice sun roof, LED lighting inside.

Will be nicer in the summer, I don’t enjoy driving in the freezing cold it’s just a means to a must but summer cruises will be fun!


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