Buy or lease a car?

[Boobahs]

I'm toying with the idea of leasing a car in the near future as I really need to swap mine. We have approximately £4000 left on a personal loan which pays for both our cars at the moment. I could sell mine, pay off the loan and then pay the same monthly rate for the lease of a newer car.

Looking for a medium SUV such a Qashqai, Tucson, Sportage type of size. I'm not bothered about it being brand new.

Does anyone here lease a car? How do you find it? Is it a good idea?

I'm sure someone will be along with better advice, but fwiw I lease my car (BMW) and have no regrets. I can afford a better car than I could if buying outright, long lease and relatively low annual mileage keeps it affordable, but crucially new cars are a depreciating asset -- you lose money as soon as you drive off the forecourt. Leasing has been a bit of a psychological adjustment (in that I'm allergic to "debt") but it makes total sense for me and can't see me buying a car "outright" for the foreseeable (though love current one so much, I could be tempted to buy it in 3 years if price is right)

I love leasing. I’m not bothered about a really flash car but I love the reliability of a new car, knowing your car won’t have any major issues and should there be any, it’s under warranty. DH and I look at all the options every time we change and always go back to leasing. I understand there’s an argument for buying second hand but for the type of money I’d have to put up front to buy one, it would be pretty old so I have to take out a loan anyway so I don’t really see the point in paying a monthly payment to own an old car at the end that won’t be worth much and might go wrong before I’ve even paid it off. PCP is another option I suppose if you want to own the car but again, you can probably get the same thing cheaper per month on lease then just give it back after 3 years and start again in a new car with no hassle.

If you're going to lease then please consider an EV. I hire or subscribe to a Kia from ONTO - same monthly price as per leasing petrol cars, but no road tax, insurance all paid for and electricity charge free from the company. So no other costs except monthly lease cost.

Ps if you have a drive way you can also top up charge at home overnight, which is super cheap.

I always thought leasing was way more expensive in the long run than owning your own car outright. I wouldn’t bother leasing unless I wanted something really fancy- I don’t mind second hand etc at all so I prefer to just buy. Also I feel quite reassured by not having any debt, and knowing my car quite well ‘technically’ - I get the impression if you lease a car and it goes bang you still pay the repairs after a short time frame and they insist it’s fixed by the dealer plus strict mileage limits or big balloon payments which is also expensive. I might be wrong on that but that’s my general impression of typical lease deals. I like my old quirky car (I have a convertible beetle) but I also have a good mechanic 😬 xo

I lease mine. 2l top of the range Ford mondeo costs me £385 a month. That assumes quite a high mileage and also includes full maintenance

Don't forget you'll need to stump up 3-6 months payments as a lump sum deposit.

I prefer full maintenance as a new tyre, break down etc is covered. Road licence covered too

@MalteserGeezee @Mackmama where do you lease from ? Do they have a website please x

@Mackmama

I love leasing. I’m not bothered about a really flash car but I love the reliability of a new car, knowing your car won’t have any major issues and should there be any, it’s under warranty. DH and I look at all the options every time we change and always go back to leasing. I understand there’s an argument for buying second hand but for the type of money I’d have to put up front to buy one, it would be pretty old so I have to take out a loan anyway so I don’t really see the point in paying a monthly payment to own an old car at the end that won’t be worth much and might go wrong before I’ve even paid it off. PCP is another option I suppose if you want to own the car but again, you can probably get the same thing cheaper per month on lease then just give it back after 3 years and start again in a new car with no hassle.

This. Brand new cara are lush

@Duckgoesquackquack

If you're going to lease then please consider an EV. I hire or subscribe to a Kia from ONTO - same monthly price as per leasing petrol cars, but no road tax, insurance all paid for and electricity charge free from the company. So no other costs except monthly lease cost.

Can you suggest a good ev leasing site. Since being made redundant I need to be looking at £200 pm on a lease car. Can't find any decent websites.

I used to lease when I did a lot of driving and loved it, I would swap it when the lease was up rather than pay the final fee to own it so constantly driving new cars before they needed MOTs etc. It's worth shopping around though as some have high charges if you go over agreed annual mileage etc. If you don't use your car too much then might be better to buy one and just keep it until its not worth fixing anymore; but to be honest depending what lease you go for I think that can end up being pretty pricey!

We lease our seat Leon fr for less than £200 a month and it suits us.

Thanks all. I only tend to do 10k-12k miles per year (if that) so hopefully extra mileage charges shouldn't be a problem.

I have just tended to buy second hand cars and run them for 7-8 years but then stuff starts going wrong and we end up paying a fortune to have them fixed (like my current 2014 one 🙈).

I think the all inclusive maintenance costs is swaying my decision, but I need to do a bit more research 🤔

I think if you're going to be in a financial position to lease for a while so can continue payments then honestly its great. If you're doing 12k max a year should be able to find a reasonably priced deal, not having to worry about maintenance costs and MOTs is pretty great both time wise and money wise.

We've done both. Our current lease we took out in Feb 2020, the car has done £6k miles since then so it's been a waste of money for a weekly trip to the supermarket since Ive been WFH.
We're getting a cheap banger next as it will suit our circumstances better.
Generally I like leasing though and the peace of mind of having a new reliable vehicle is useful.

Am interested to see how many people saying lease. I bought a fairly decent skoda second hand from a reputable dealer and own it outright. Nothing that would impress anyone but when I lost my job over lockdown I was glad I owned it outright. Now employed again in the new world order it barely leaves the house but I still just own it. It costs me feck all except mot and service but am glad that I own it so if I lose this job am still mobile in an old tank.

It all depends on whether have a very new car is important to you, I buy outright then save up for a replacement. Last car lasted 13 years

I can see the advantages of leasing, as already mentioned on this thread. But be aware that cars have to be in near perfect condition when they are returned which can be costly if you have any scratches /dents which need to be put right.

I have always been lucky enough to own fairly boring cars outright apart from one period where we had a lease car. However if you can afford a lease, I’d lease. I’ve worked out that my current car as cost me the same over the last four years as a lease because it’s constantly needing repairs, servicing costs, tyres etc. To a certain extent I’ve been unlucky but I’m sick to death of the hassle and unexpected costs. I’ll be leasing once this stupid Skoda has died it’s death. The only positive is not having to worry about scratches and dents.

@TipseyTorvey I agree. No job is ever completely secure. Covid is a great example of why I would never lease or finance. I handled 100s of staff redundancies after the financial crisis of 2006 and then again after the oil crash in 2015. Scary stuff.

I don’t think you can answer that question for leasing in general. It depends on the deal you are offered and the cost of the new car. We did the sums for a few models and even with a very good deal on iirc a peugeot 208 leasing always cost at least 3K more total (making pessimistic assumptions about the cost of the insurance and the resale value), but the amount more varied. The car we ended up buying has several years warranty anyway so we have the same piece of mind regarding repairs as you would with a lease.

Peace of mind

The only positive is not having to worry about scratches and dents

How fussy are the standards on return? I always worry about the slight scratches which just happen when it's parked.

The good thing about the EV subscription is that it's literally a subscription like Netflix as oppose to a traditional lease. Therefore you can cancel at anytime and pay no more. Helpful if you have job uncertainty.

we always buy older cars 2nd hand. my DH can fix lots of problems himself though and does the servicing etc. the last car we sold was a 9 year old hyundai i20 which we had for 3 years, only work we did in that time was a new battery and tyres replaced and then we sold it for a couple of hundred under what we bought it for. we always buy and sell privately too but again that'd because dh is used to doing that and generally car savvy. we currently run a 53 plate rover 75 as our run around/tip run car and a 10 plate Audi A6 quattro as our family car. interested to look into the subscription for EVs though as we'd really like one as our next car but the 2nd hand market is currently too expensive for us.