I am toying with the idea of moving over the NHS fleet car scheme next year. I currently own a 8 year old Fiesta which I own outright and is fine, but I'm aware It's some upcoming costs on the horizon (cambelt change, various wear and tear issues) so I'm debating whether to stick with it or change to a new vehicle rather than throw loads of cash at an ageing car.
On the back of this I've changed jobs recently and now have a community rather than ward nursing based job, so I'm driving more and obviously with increasing petrol costs etc I'm debating moving over to an electric car, but there's no way I could afford to buy one myself.
I looked into the NHS fleet car scheme and through them I could get an electric car (was looking at the Nissan Leaf) from between £230-295ish) a month dependent on the exact model, which includes tax, insurance, servicing, repairs and breakdown cover, and of course no petrol costs being an electric car (although I appreciate obviously there will be a bit of a rise to my electric bill from charging). To be honest this is probably not far off what I have to budget each month anyway for car running costs by the time I'm paying £100-125 most months in petrol costs, and money aside for insurance, servicing etc.
Has anyone done this? Are there any major drawbacks? I get that it obviously affects your pension contributions etc as a pre-deductions payment. Also what happens if you bump or scratch it? Do you get charged a fortune in repair costs?
Would be interested to hear people's experiences.
Thank you. 