Lease or buy car? How much is yours?

[minimouse456]

Thinking about leasing a car. How much does yours cost per month and do you think it is a good deal? Thank you

I just always feel like leasing is wasted money. Bought my car £20k with 3k miles on the clock. Will use this for the next 8 years at least

@kindlyplay up till now each lease has been 12 months, from now on every lease has to be 18 months.

I've just leased my first car used to do pcp but it's cheaper to lease.

It's a Honda Civic RS Cost new is almost £21K.

We paid up front payment of 9 months. Our monthly payment including the deposit, fees works out at £231 per month over the term. 3 year deal 8000 miles. It was £259 at Honda garage and would still need to pay car tax on top of that if we had got pcp.

One thing that really puts me off though is that you need to make your payments plus save money towards a deposit for your next new lease deal. Am I right?

I have a 2017 KIA Sportage £160 a month on pcp, put down £1,500 deposit

I just always feel like leasing is wasted money
It depends. If you intention is to keep a car until it does on you, even taking into consideration costs of maintenance an d repairs, you are probably better off. If your intention though is to replace your car after 5 to 8 years or less, you are probably better off leasing.

Don't lease from a ma ufacturer dire tly, their APR is much higher and at the end of the deal you are stuck with going elsewhere or getting another car from the same manufacturers. They are excellent lease companies that will offer much better deals and the option to get just a out any car.

How much it costs depends on many factors, type of car and model of course, mileage and deposit, whether maintenance is included or not, length of contract. Some take little or no deposit but of course, this will mean higher monthly payment.

I've done lease for 10 years and love it. Nice new shiny car every 3 years and no worry selling. The only thing is you need to watch your mileage and inform them if it changes significantly. You wa t to be sure not to be over at the end. Also be especially careful about looking after it although I have been surprised how lenient they are with wear and tear. I've returned cars with bad scratches in and out and been charged nothing.

How do you get a premium car for £280 a month?! I want to know, as I want one!

I have an Audi Q5 and pay £380 a month lease. The feeling of never having to worry about it working , after previously having an old banger, is amazing.

up till now each lease has been 12 months, from now on every lease has to be 18 months.

I can't help but think that leasing for 12 months is simply throwing money away to be showy (although you have a qashqai).

Do you not have a huge deposit and then huge payments, plus all the time thinking about the next car?

I think my car is probably a PCP rather than a lease. I usually have them for 3 years, this one I have for 4 years. At the end I can pay what’s left and keep the car or hand it back and start another one. Which is what I do.

There are some good deals if you take a stock car, which we did with the Audi and our van as well
We change cars every 2-3 years depending but would try to keep them for 3 years because otherwise you lose the down payment

Honestly the tyres are almost 400 £ for our car (each!) so paying say £12 a month for the maintenance which means fi anything does go wrong incl wear and tear on tyres then that is included

The Audi has started to have problems now it's older then three and I honestly think that manufacturers do design flaws into their vehicles.

I can't wait for the new car

Interesting question OP, have been thinking the same! We’ve previously bought for cash, of which we have a large lump sum at the moment, & wondering whether to buy a much newer car outright (less of the old banger style) or whether we are missing a trick not leasing.

That's just it @itsinthebank!! I don't know either. I feel like leasing sounds too good to be true.

I mean, someone is making a profit on car leasing & it isn’t you... right?

I don't get it either, how can leasing be so cheap? Who's making a profit and how? Where do they sell off the ex lease cars?

Don't even attempt to understand the motor trade profit system!

Dh is management in a prestige brand. He quite often authorises his sales team to sell cars at a loss of thousands to move a unit due to huge (1/2 million £) back end bonuses from the manufacturer. (don't ask me what that actually means

Ex lease cars mainly go through auction and main dealerships buy them in bulk. Same as ex lease cars (Hertz etc), and are then sold as one owner

Basically, cars are never (well, VERY rarely), an appreciating asset. So accept they will cost you money.

Now all you need to decide, is how much value you put on confort, style, and reliability.

Add up cost of buying a second hand car. Add MOT, service, tax, emergency repair fund, breakdown assistance and additional warranty. Get an annual figure.

Add the cost of leasing annually.

Decide which figure works best for you.

I either buy new (only when I can get 20/25% discount from list price from the dealer), or low mileage one less than 2 years old from a proper dealership. I keep them several years. Never had any problems with used cars and we've had about 10 between us. I bought my current car just over 10 years ago new - never spent more than a couple of hundred per year servicing it which is just tyres, brake pads and spark plugs. I'd have paid tens of thousands more over the years if I'd leased.

@kindlyplay it's a lease from Nissan through their employee scheme. So choice of car is limited - hence the make and model 😂

Dh is management in a prestige brand. He quite often authorises his sales team to sell cars at a loss of thousands to move a unit due to huge (1/2 million £) back end bonuses from the manufacturer.

Yep, that's the way the motor trade works. That's how I buy new cars at up to 25% discount. My OH bought a brand new car 3 years ago with a 60% discount - it was £20k list price which he bought for £14k. He went in the day before the quarter end and they were almost begging him to buy it - he reckoned he could have got another thousand or two knocked off. They get retro bonuses. So, eg, if they sell 50 cars they get £1000 per car, but if they sell 100 they get £2000 per car. Selling one more car can easily mean their retro bonus increases by tens of thousands.

I looked into it recently. Got a high spec car 2 years old with a 3 year loan. In 3 years I own all of it and can sell it / trade in..I'll aim to keep it running until it's much older though. I always thinking leasing looks attractive until I spot the line of final settlement

I've never known a 60%!! Wow!

Best we've done is 20% but that was on an £80k car.

Also makes me smile when people throw their weight around and think they should get their arses licked as they are buying £50k+ cars. Nope. Those ones are ballaches. The cheap £20k are the bread and butter and I'd rather shift 10 of those a week.

Still don't quite understand how it works though

People are so judgemental about leasing, aren't they.

It does cost more. That's because you're paying for peace of mind, convenience and lack of hassle, as well as the safety and comfort of a brand new car. Not everyone wants to always save money. It's not throwing money away, it's just having different priorities.

I don't get it either, how can leasing be so cheap? Who's making a profit and how? Where do they sell off the ex lease cars?

List prices are ridiculously over-priced. Only the gullible pay them. A leasing firm may be paying only 75% or less of the list price simply because they buy so many, and they usually buy direct so there is no retailer's profit to pay. To get a low price lease, it has to be low mileage and returned in near perfect condition. After the 3 years, a low mileage, perfect car will sell for probably 50-75% of list price when new. The car owner has paid 3 years of lease rentals, but the lease company hasn't lost much on the difference between purchase and sale price (because they got it cheap in the first place and sold it high due to good condition) - all they've paid is the service costs each year, for which the garage will have charged them "trade" prices which are usually 20-25% cheaper than they'd charge a car owner (again due to bulk buying power).

@Badbadbunny £14k instead of £20k is 30% off - still amazing though!

I've got a Mini Cooper S on lease. We put £5k down, and it's £200 a month for 3 years. I don't do a lot of miles so my mileage agreement is 8k a year. We may buy it at the end, but that depends on how problematic it is over the 3 years.

DH leases his through his business, he's got a RR Evoque at the moment which is around £600 a month, he can do up to 18k miles on that and it's for 3 years.

We choose to lease as we've had nightmares with cars in the past. DH had a 4 year old VW Golf GTI that he paid over £25k for and it was in the garage more than it was on the road. He ended up spending around £3k replacing the turbo in the end and we couldn't sell it quickly enough. A new car doesn't = a reliable car sadly, so now we lease as a) we can afford it and b) we like replacing them every 3 years. However you have a car, it will lose money.