To buy a car outright?

[tumericmasala]

I'm in a conundrum. We need a new car - our car is 10 years old we've spent a lot on it this year. The manufacturer and an independent mechanic have both said that the repairs are not with it.

My family say buy a car outright. So we're looking at 3 year old cars (to take into account depreciation but to account that it's still fairly new). My BF always leases but it doesn't make sense. I suppose we've always bought a car about 3 years old then just ran it til it's end of life.

But now I'm thinking rather than a huge £20k outlay on a new car (I want a decent and safe SUV) are we better off leasing?

I am a bangernomics driver too. Look at
www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/.
I wouldn't go for a BMW, VW or Audi as repairs are likely to be expensive but would go for Ford, Vauxhall, Honda or Toyota because of reliability.

We bought our first new car recently, on HP. Pay a couple of hundred a month and either a balloon payment at the end or hand back. If you shop around there are some good deals to be had.

Hellena. That's a PCP, not HP.

And also, if you add up how much you pay monthly plus deposit you’ve normally pretty much paid the value of the car after 4 or 5 years. And then you have to hand the car back or pay the final payments. It’s way more in total.

u didnt buy it youre still on a lease hellena its not yours

And if you took it on HP, it's not "yours" until it's paid off either.

We got fed up of spending £1000+on buying a car, spending loads on fixing it and then making a loss when we needed to upgrade.

2 years ago we stumbled on pcp and was the best way to go. We knew we would want a bigger car within a few years so next year while our car is still in positive equity on the pcp we can trade it in and use it against a newer bigger car and start the pcp again.

I am fortunate I have a relative who is a mechanic so advises me on the most reliable and best car on the market to suit our needs so we just need to find one.

All we have had to pay for so far is mot and services, new tyres and wiper blades. Very low tax bracket.

Touch wood nothing else has gone wrong and we will carry on with this method for a while now.

Cookit. Thanks for explaining the concept of interest to those who might not be able to afford to buy a car outright for "kesh".

If you add up all your mortgage payments, it is, shock horror, more than you borrowed.

I bought my current car outright but bought a pre registered one. Effectively I got a new car but saved around £6k

We do both. We have two cars, one large family Car and one small fuel-efficient runaraound. We bought the family car outright as it was much more cost effective and we lease the runaround as the payments are much lower and we change this one every 3 years so it remains the most fuel efficient on the market. Plus no MOT or tax to think about.

Wrong letters, but I know the ownership of my car, don't worry 😂

I would ignore the generic comments about SUVs not being safe. Volvo XC90 would be a good choice. People will wheel out the old cliches but you can find all the statistics of cars online. Pedestrian and passenger stats are all there.

www.autoexpress.co.uk/volvo/xc90/103233/no-fatalities-ever-recorded-in-a-volvo-xc90-in-the-uk

But to answer your question, it depends if you have the cash upfront versus having the car you want.
We have just bought a brand new car but will not change it for at least 10-15 years.

It depends on the car/purpose I think. Our family car is a 2nd hand xc90 bought outright as this was the most cost effective option. We also had a fiat 500 runaround on HCP, only cost the same as monthly travel card & was very efficient.

I tend to bump my cars into walls and dent them, and don't want to worry about the value on the car, so leasing isn't an option for me :)

It is best when it is my car and my wall. I like to buy cars that are 2-3 years old and drive them for 4-6 years.

As a third option, if the dealer is offering any deals if you lease a car, you might look at how long you are "tied in" to the lease.

We found we got cashback + free services for 2 years if we signed up to a lease, but the small print said to qualify for this that we only had to pay the lease for one month, and could then pay off the whole car value and it would be ours.

So something worth looking into.

Following are options:

BMW 5 series estate
Discovery Sport 7 seater
Xc60 or xc90 Volvo

I'll definitely buy and keep.

If I could have bought a house outright I would have done but houses gain value!

Priority is a safe car. Ideally 7 seater - we have a large extended family so eg would like to take my widowed mother on UK holidays with us as she gets older. Without expecting her to drive 100s of miles to Cornwall/Devon etc

Anyway we need to do our research

My car's on 0% finance. The interest on my money may be tiny but it's more than nothing.

I always buy outright. Leases just don't work for me as I don't want to have a new one every 3 years just for novelty/showing off value. Sometimes I buy brand new, other times it's a 2/3 year old. Usually run them for 5-10 years. When I buy brand new, I won't buy unless I can get 20/25% off the list price - that means I don't suffer the automatic depreciation just by driving it off the forecourt. I've bought brand new 3 times and got 20-25% off every time - garages are open to negotiation and I'm happy to walk away if they won't deal. My first brand new car I ran for about 9 years and got it up to 190,000 miles before it finally died - that was a massive saving against what I'd have been in leasing a car for 9 years. I've bought 2-3 year old cars occasionally and likewise ran them several years. Once or twice, I've sold a car earlier, but usually due to lifestyle changes, i.e. once because I needed extra space for the pram, etc. Currently got 2 cars outside, both bought new, one is now 10 years old, the other 3 years old, both costing me next to nothing (annual service, occasional new tyres, etc) and far less than leasing would cost.

If you shop around there are some good deals to be had.

Only if you compare against list price. Only mugs pay anywhere near list price for a new car. If you negotiate/haggle, you can get 20/25% off list price and then leasing seems very expensive!

Never bought a new car in my life and would never pay over 1500 for a car last one i bought in 2015 paid 1000 and it's 24yrs old

@tumericmasala have a look at the BMW 2 series Gran Tourer. That’s a 7 seater. We’ve got the Active Tourer which is a 5 seater. It’s a lovely car, it’s higher up so easy to get in and of and it’s incredibly economical.

We have always bought and paid cash. Usually a nearly new car.
Last time we bought a car it was clear that the dealer was making more money from selling finance than he was from selling cars. Wouldn't budge an inch on price.
I wondered whether it was worth getting a car on PCP or whatever , to get the better deal and then paying it all off? Can you do that?

Driving an SUV is vulgar.

We have always bought and paid cash. Usually a nearly new car.

I am agog that people have the money seemingly stashed away to drop on a new or nearly new car. As and when the need arises I have never spent more than £1,600 on a car and then I was in cold sweats about the cost.