My daily commute has turned into torture. I bought a 'cheap hack' to get me there and back, and to give me something to kick about in as required, but it’s turned into an unreliable money pit to match the Coupé.

At the moment, I have two cars parked outside my house with a puddle of oil under each while I’m getting the train to work (taking twice as long as driving). A pal of mine recently got a Kia on a lease deal so I’ve been looking into that as the idea of something that is comfortable and has a few modern toys is really starting to appeal! Something Clarkson said in the last Top Gear episode (I don’t acknowledge the new version) has resonated with me too. “You don’t buy a classic TV, so why would you buy a classic car”. Yep, I think I’m done with old cars.

Having worked out what he Saab has cost me, how much more it needs doing and therefore what it will cost me over a two year period, I have a mean figure of £350 a month.

With this in mind, I’m looking at a 24 month personal lease. Here’s the criteria:
- Estate. It may as well be as I often have stuff that needs carting around
- Petrol. I can’t own a diesel and no hybrids make economic sense, yet
- Economical. 40mpg absolute minimum
- Toys for the commute:

• Adaptive cruise control Adaptive cruise control
• DAB radio
• Automatic
• Sat nav
• Means of playing music / audio files

All this for under £350 a month all-in including, over the course of two years:
- monthly payment
- fuel
- gap insurance
- motor insurance
- initial payment (including set-up fee)

Here’s what I’m actually excited about!
Skoda Octavia Estate 1.0 TSI SE Technology 5dr DSG

I think my plan would be to sell / burn the Saab now, get this lease car and then put a cover over (and under) the Coop and just leave it for a year. If I don’t have the love back by then, I’ll probably sell it and then buy something really interesting a year after that.

Now I’m not sure exactly why I wanted to post all this up if I’m honest so I think I’ll just leave it there and see what people have to say.

I had a Kia Sportage on a 3yr lease 2012 to 2015. It was a really nice car and we didn't have a single issue with it. At the time it cost me £349 a month but when I was looking again the prices were down around £310. Dont forget on a lease you have to front an initial payment which is usually 3 x monthly upfront. I didnt go for another lease and instead opted to buy a land rover discovery (aka: the most unreliable and needlessly expensive car ever) ... probably should have got another lease. This site gives a good indication for pricing www.lingscars.com if your eyes can handle the colour scheme. Oh and also, having had a lease car, I can say that when it goes back and it dawns on you that you've spent 'X' amount on it over the time you had it and now have nothing to show for it ... that hurts a little bit.

Thanks for that

I'm always suprised how few people seem to have personal lease cars. Or at least talk about it... I read on a chap's post on another forum the other day that saying he considers a lease car a service like any other. Almost like utility bill I suppose. I'm warming to that all the time now.

Here's my breakdown from the spreadsheet I have for this

Initial payment 3
Months 23
Initial £570.72
Additional fees £298.80
Gap insurance £95.00
Weekly fuel £31.00
Road tax £0
Montly Rental £190.24

Year 1 costs £3,057.16
Yearly tax £0
Yearly fuel £1,426.00
Year 2 costs £2,282.88

Total £8,192.04
Monthly cost £341.34

By the time I factor in the fuel bill on the Saab (£15 a week more) add tax and the maintenance estimate based on the current to do list (and tyres, service, MOT and anything else that will only go wrong and need fixing), the Octavia works out £6 a month less. I really can't see a 15 year old Saab being worth much in two years. If the difference was £1,000 I'd consider that money well spent just having had a decent year of motoring.

Edit: Oh that site made my eyes bleed!!

PCH is just that really, a long term hire, except you are paying the servicing costs instead of Avis or Hertz, etc. On that basis, £200 a month is £50 a week, not bad for a long term hire. But yes, nothing to show for it at the end, whereas with PCP, you're buying a portion of the car and can use that value as a deposit on the next car. Both are worth considering if you don't have all the money up front to buy the car outright, or don't want to take out a loan to help pay for it.

I've only ever bought cars outright with real cash money but that explains why I tend to keep them a long time so that they eventually become "classics" (unless they have rusted away first) and why I have owned so few cars over the years compared to some of you youngsters

With my car repair hat on, I would never advise anyone to get a personal lease car (a business lease can make more sense).

We see dozens of cars needing work doing before being returned, often with shockingly high costs levied by the lease companies - who don't get the work carried out, but whack the car to auction before the lease-holder's finger prints are off the key fob.

If you do get a lease, carefully read the information given by the BVRLA about exactly what they expect when you return the vehicle. If you are taking another car, the costs will often be remarkably negotiable, of course, but if you decide not to, be prepared!

Pesonally, I would be looking for one of the flood of ex-lease cars at an auction house near you...

Or get a Fiat lease where getting them even to look at it is a challenge let alone take it away afterwards...

Prior to the company car i used look at this.

However with PCP/Hire etc i could never make it add up from just buying a 2 - 3 year old car, taking out a 2 year warranty and trading it at the end.

I had a BMW 1 series, brought on 50k kept for 2 years, sold on 93k. Only cost to me was rear disks. Brought for £10,200 + £200 for the rear brakes - traded in for £6400 - Total cost £166 per month (I brought outright normally, although the 3series i did take out a top up loan, but bank rate was less than PCP)

Next i had a Alfa Giulietta, brought for £12700 2.5 year old, 12k on it, kept for 30 months (i think) - cost me nothing bar servicing. Traded on 65k for £5400 = £243 per month

Then i had a F30 3 series, brought for £14,700 on 17k, company car forced it out of my hands early so only had it for about 20months. Again cost me nothing (not even servicing in this case as it had a service pack when i brought it!) Traded in on 62k for £9000 = £285 per month (would of been less had I kept it another 6months of so as planned)

Thing that put me off PCP etc (aside from the fact it never quite worked out as cheap especially when i needed you adjust for 27k-30k a year) was the fact its their car, so they can stipulate it going back to them for servicing (without service packs this can be quite inflated)

Buy smart and dont hold onto it for too long, especially if your a high miler.

We have 2 lease cars and one has gone back recently.

I feel privileged to drive a new car after so many bangers so we generally pick the best deals cars at the time and only pick cars with no deposit.
1+23 and mine is 1+11 at the moment as my situation is likely to change.

Our aim is to beat the depreciation of a new car.
Our previous car did exactly that. The Corsa vxr.
It was 21k brand new. We leased for two years at £171 a month. No deposit and about £4100 paid over that term.
Our car then went straight to an auction when it was collected.
The car i know is now a forecourt for £10200. That's around £11k depreciation. We also didn't have to pay for any road tax in that time which was an extra saving. It worked perfectly.

There are great deal on the Kia optima estate but is a diesel?

https://www.contracthireandleasing.com/independent-brokers/yes-lease-limited/kia/optima/265315473/

With my distances, a lease car would never work for me - but Ling's site is *fantastic* and well worth the thread.

When comparing, one has to also look at the discounted price of a new car or nearly new used and not the list price. The gap closes up a fair bit then. If you take a 1 year old KIA, you would still have 6 years warranty. Sell it after 2 years still with 4 years warranty. You could take an SUV like the Suzuki Vitara (about 14k) which will probably be reliable, do the estate bit and hold its value well as SUVs don't look like they are going out of fashion anytime soon.

Agree with Neil there. If I ever do lease a car I'm going to Lings

Thanks for the feedback all

I had a good look at the PCP option yesterday. It seems that the more you read on the subject, the more complicted it gets (for me anyway!). In a nutshell, it's a more sensible option because you aren't pouring everything you put into it away... in theory.

The thing I don't get is how it really differs from leasing... If I go through an example, can you have a look and help me understand it?

For argument's sake you 'bought' aSkoda Yeti on PCP, as follows:

Total £20,255.00
Deposit £4,576.50
Dealer cont. £1,500.00
Interest Rate 0.0%
No. of payments 42
Payments £139.03
Total over term £10,415.60
Final payment £8,339.40

Now at the end of the three years you can
1) hand it back and walk away
2) pay off the £8,339.40
3) trade it in for a new model

Option 3) is what gets me.

Firstly, is the GFV basically the final payment?

Secondly, residual values. Now as you have put down a total of £10,415.60 over that period and this is 51% of the original value of the car. The Skoda Yeti reportedly has a residual value of 69% so this is what you'd be looking at...

Residual value 69%
Value after three years £13,975.95
Deposit to carry over to next car £5,636.55 (£13,975.95 - £8,339.40)
Actual cost £4,779.05 (£10,415.60 - £5,636.55)

Is this right?

I'm going to pick up my first lease car soon. An Alfa Giulia veloce for £262 p/m.

Having an Alfa GT 3.2 as my daily previously, offsetting the fuel and road tax savings brings it down to about half that.

Have you driven one?

Performance Figures

Leasing is hiring, at the end you hand it back.

PCP you could trade it in for another car and if the cars value is greater than the GFV then you have that as a deposit towards your next car.

You example is a 42 month deal and so looking at Yeti's on Autotrader models from 2014 tend to be sold for £8 - £9k. Assuming you would trade in after 42 months then it's likely the GFV you quote above is going to be fairly accurate as you'd get a trade price rather than a sale to public price, i.e. you would be left with £0 to put towards your next car as a deposit.

So IF the GFV is approximately what the car will be worth, you have £0 to put towards the next car AND you never really owned the car, then what's the difference?

As far as I can see, you'd get car on PCP if you wanted to keep it and modify it. Anything else may as well be a lease, preferably a business lease.

On that note, I have a limited company so it is an option. The problem is that 'business use' doesn't include travel to and from work apparently... Which means I'd incur full BIK tax and that pretty much offsets the VAT saving

I totally agree with you Trappy, with that in mind there is effectively no different between PCP and leasing, except typically leasing has a lower up front cost 9-12 months rental vs multiple £k.

I had a chat with my accountant earlier on the subjet of leasing a business car. Apparently, because I'm freelance, my commute does count as business mileage because my business is registered from home. Every job I go to is therefore business travel - result!

So I've done a bit more digging and ended up looking at a Golf GTE

According to reviews, they do 60-80mpg for the sort of mileage I'm looking at and qualify for £45 a month BIK tax. If my sums are right, then you could drive one for two years and save £30 a month over the Octavia 1.0tsi.

That's a £31k car that for less money than a £20k car...

All our company cars are leased, we usual use a company called Synergy leasing.
Worth a look on there website

For me to PCP our corsa vxr would have been £3000 down and £330 a month.
PCH was £171 with no deposit.

If you don't intend to keep the car at the end of the PCP then why go that route?
Also benefit of no road tax in that period makes it even more viable.

Golf R Estate with DSG. The new ones are well specced with virtual cockpit and what not all standard.

inc VAT per Month
(SAVINGS £292.53 inc VAT)

Contract Length 24 Months
Initial Rental £3,000.00 inc VAT
23 Months @ £191.99 inc VAT per Month
Annual Mileage 8,000
Admin Fee £180.00 inc VAT

https://centralukvehicleleasing.co.uk/le...~~5EPTA4~6.htm/

Or a lower deposit option on the Golf R

Volkswagen Golf Estate 2.0 TSI 310 R 5dr 4MOTION DSG

Term: 3 + 23
3 Payments Upfront (£863.64)
+ 23 Monthly Payments
Mileage: 8,000mpa
Monthly: £287.88 (Inc VAT)

https://www.whatcar.com/car-leasing/enquiry.php?deal_id=2417633&price_id=28286117


Or how about and Audi A6 Black Edition 1.8 TFSI with S Tronic

http://www.gbvehicleleasing.co.uk/person...ronic-257635218

I think i saw the GTE on offer for around 22k including dealer discount and government incentive, but that may have been the older model being discounted at the end of the run.

There is an ongoing GTE test car. The electric part works really well at low speeds.

I was thinking of buying one, the downside is that the electric part doesn't really work at motorway speeds as it drains quickly at those speeds. I have a 100 mile commute and at least 25 of those are at <40 mph so it makes sense. It could cut my fuel bill in half saving about £100 per month.

I am now leaning towards an UP/Mii or Citygo as the lease costs are low, the engines small and light and they are surprisingly large inside with good economy. Overall cost will be much lower.

They are due to release the Up! GTi next year, could be worth consideration if not too expensive.

How about a Cupra estate? Golf R/Audi S3 engine but much cheaper and better specced.

http://www.seatwarrington.co.uk/newcars/details/seat/leon-sport-tourer/20-tsi-cupra-300-5dr/17258

Great shout. They also do a 4 wheel drive and i'd have the DSG box.

Little update.

I went to look at a Golf GTE the other day. Couldn't drive it as another customer was with it and had booked a test drive weeks before. Turned out it was the only example within 150 miles

So I booked up a test drive and walked away, dead set on getting the car.

Three days later I got a call from the dealer saying they were sorry but VW have stopped taking orders on the car because they can't meet the demand. Current wait time is 6 months to a year.

So, having had a huge sulk, I went through the other suggestions on here and watched / read every review I can find on all of them

I'm going to get a Golf R Estate DSG. 'All the car you'll ever need'. Hopefully I'll get to take one out over the Christmas break but I really need to get my order in quick - me showing an interest in anything is usually the kiss of death so I can't hang around!

Great choice and presumably this ticks all your boxes, bar the 40mpg part

I'll just have to drive it like Miss Daisy

Great choice.

Get some pics up when it arrives.

I've heard the same on the GTE.

Little update. I got quotes from about five different lease companies having seen those deals saying <£290 a month on a 3+23 deal. Most, in fact, turned put to be £340-380 "because of a recent VW price hike". In all fairness, the hatch was £390 at the time so it must have been some kind of cock-up across the various systems?

Having pretty much settled on the £340 a month deal, I took a manual Golf R hatch out for a test drive. Very nice, but the old duffer next to me would have died if I put my foot down I'm sure. Bottom end torque is astounding though! The VW dealer quoted me a 3+23 plan at £659 a month!!

Just a few days ago I got a return call from a leasing company actually honouring their advertised £318 a month at 10k miles a year. I could pay an extra £575 for Deep Black Pearl or £635 for Lapiz Blue and wait seven weeks or take a Pure White was available within three weeks due to a cancelled order.

So having put my sensible hat on, the white one is being delivered in three weeks

p.s.
The heating started playing up in the coop on the way in this morning

So £950 down and 23 payments of £318?

Billy bargain!

Well done, they look very nice in the Pure White.

£179 admin fee too actually. The £954 goes down a week or two after delivery.

Yeah, seems like a lot of car for £318 a month. I'm hoping to get a road trip in soon after delivery to break it in and get to know it

Bargain Trappy, I'm sure you'll be very pleased when youre in the driving seat. Leasing really does make a lot of sense for a new car.

Trappy, has your car been delivered yet? I'd be interested to hear what you think. I've had my Golf R hatchback for a week now.

Dan,

Mine was delivered on Friday. I'll put a review up when I've put a few more miles on it but I'm guessing you've got the same silly grin as me

Regards,

Ryan