would you buy a car on finance if you had debts?

[Slartybartfast]

and what sort of finance?
assuming the debt people allowed this

ONLY if all the other permutations of a solution were less financially attractive (car hire, taxis, care clubs, public transport etc).

in order of preference if I HAD to get a car:

1. Try and haggle a deal for cash/with family loan (prob out of the question in this scenario?)
2. Try and haggle a deal theoretically based on their car finance scheme, but at the last moment pay with an alternative method. Car places will often cut a better deal if they think you will take their finance, but you need to have some brass ovaries to go all the way on this one as they will not be happy!
3. Try and get a bank loan or long term cc 0% card as these are invariably cheaper than car finance.
4. Lease or pcp agreement, knowing you will be stuck with onerous mileage limitations and will have to see the monthly payment as a sunk cost and not end up paying the balloon payment at the end - just walk away.

^ That's all on the basis of a decent quality second hand (2-5k), but I guess #4 may entail a brand new motor?

No. I stupidly did this and it left me in an even bigger mess with debt. If you must have a car buy a very cheap run around. I wish id just stuck to public transport.

Thing is, there aren't as many cheap runarounds left now. The scrappage scheme a few years back sucked thousands of them in and took them out of the secondhand market. I think there's another slightly less hysterical version of it going on now too?

So the pool of available reliable cheap runarounds is much smaller than the pool of people wanting them (and obviously everyone wants the "reliable runner anyway!). It's a compelling case for Bangernomics if you are handy with a spanner though...

(I sold a 10yo car on ebay just after the first scheme ended and I had double-digit numbers of people contacting me asking to come same day to view, messaging me multiple times etc the day the listing went online. First viewer bought it cash in hand.)

Thanks so much