How can anyone afford a car?

[PoisedGoldBiscuit]

So we've leased cars for the last 14 years or so. Have paid a non-refundable deposit of between £500 (for a regular hatchback) to around £900 for a SUV. I pay just under £300 p/m now for a Qashqai that includes maintenance (so services, MOTs, most repairs not covered by the warranty or caused by accidental damage). I also don't need to pay car tax.

I'm conscious of the fact that this is a debt that I'll essentially never pay off as I'm not gaining any equity in the car and just hand it back. I've looked at other options and they seem so far out of reach.

• buying cars second hand, friends who have done this seem to regularly spend £££ on maintenance issues, even for cars that are only a few years old.
• buying cars new but with a warranty, the monthly payments are huge and the car seems to drop so much in value that it's not worth the payments.

-taking out a PCP/ other scheme where you can hand the car back or pay a balloon payment, again, these seem to have huge monthly payments. Dealerships have never been able to get anywhere near the lease payments (and then have a huge balloon payment).

Am I missing something?

Yes I havent bought a car in the last 3 years.

I just did a little experiment for myself, so copied your parameters (as I wouldnt ordinarily be concerned about age or mileage and I normally search within 100 miles), although Im a lot more limited than you probably because I can only drive automatic.

If I need ULEZ then I only have 1 result which needs an oil pump

If I search for both manual and automatic, I get 75 results. Thats with a minimum price of 3k as well. But no ULEZ on that search

Add ULEZ in to auto and manual and I get 30

I wouldnt have a problem with any of the ones at the top of the search but then Im not really a car person so Im sure others would!

Sorry yes I should have said - I searched for petrol only - similar to all those 10 yo ford ecos, it would be a fool's errand to buy diesel now.

30 isn't a lot is it, for a 75 mile radius. I wonder how many of the sellers are legit. None of the ones within the £5k price bracket near me were, that weren't flogging a busted Ford.

I was wondering this about diesel. A lot of the more energy efficient ones are disel and of course they have cheaper tax a lot of them so it is tempting but then I thought it might be a risk given what happened before

Also unlike you, I wouldnt know if someone is a dodgy dealer, not sure how I would spot this.

Checking the MOT history can help assess low mileage. We are generally less concerned by a 10yo car that's done 30k and consistently has done 3000 a year Vs one that had done 28k 3-5 years ago and then has been barely used in more recent years.

Also unlike you, I wouldnt know if someone is a dodgy dealer, not sure how I would spot this.

I know because word gets around. I guess if you're buying from 100 miles away word wouldn't have reached you.

I buy nearly new (cars between 1-5 years old) on finance from the garage & aim to pay them off over 3-5, then I own them. I keep my cars between 8-10 years.

Yes thats a good point

We do this too. We’ve just had to scrap our car that we’d had for 12yrs 😩

Just bought a 15yr old citroen for £700 as I can’t afford a newer one atm. If it lasts me a year I’ll be happy!

I looked into leasing and finance before buying my current car in 2020 and the %interest was eye watering. I ended up talking out a £12k bank loan at 3% interest, part exchanging my old car £4.5k and paying the loan off early. I plan to keep the current car (a Séat Leon) and run it into the ground. It's done nearly 100k miles now with no problems other than minor wear and tear stuff like brakes and a couple of suspension springs needing to be replaced at the last mot.

I needed a "new" second hand car earlier this year and was stuck stuck stuck for £20k cash to buy one.

I took out two 0% credit cards and got money advances on them (cash into your account basically). I then "paid cash" using that.

I'll not have paid it off before the 0% ends in December and obviously I'll have to move them to another longer term 0%.

Still cheaper with balance transfer fees than paying 11% car finance. It also means I control the debt.

It did take a while to buy this way though as you have to wait for it all to come through obvs.

Meant to add - this was for a car with a decent manufacturer warranty (KIA).

I have a plan to pay it off before the warranty ends

@MuffinsAreJustCakesAtBreakfast

Don't you have to pay a 'cash advance' fee for withdrawing money from a credit card? Are you paying zero percent on the balance?

Yes there was a cash advance fee - sorry I called it a balance transfer fee by mistake. it was about 3.5%

and yes you still only pay 0% on the balance for however many months