Be Excellent To Each Other

Why doesn't everyone who wants a new car just lease them? It seems more cost effective on the face of it?

Mine is leased but it's also provided by the company so I've never really given it much thought. I don't know what's included in the deal as I'd never be paying for the tax, servicing or tyres etc. I think they provide/replace everything as long as it's reasonable. Like, not multiple sets of brakes and tyres in a year. The only thing I keep in mind is that it gets replaced every 3 years so I'd hope to get something at least this good again.

Because it costs upwards of £200 a month and my car is already paid for.

My car cost £300.

Yes but if you change ever 12 months and do low mileage.

I can get a free car if I swap every year as long as I don't drive it much?

So many "2 bob millionaires" on the roads these days in swanky new motors that they'll never own.

I'd rather put my cash into my house and remote control planes. That's where the smart money is.

Bradford is awash with Audis, Mercs and the like. Was filling up a car the other day and saw a guy stick a tenner of diesel into a 67 plate Q7. At the end of the period though, the car value will he hugely deflated due to glut of similar cars.

Yup. I'm all for idiots who can't afford it getting new cars until the bubble bursts and the price of the used ones crashes.

Although I'm determined to squeeze 200k from my Leon so I can say in your face to Myps from an earlier post in this thread.

Isn't leasing just that thing where you have to give the car back at the end or pay them thousands of pounds (more) if you want to keep it? Or is that the PCP loan bubble affair that's supposed to be about to burst?

And it always seems to be boring cars anyway, I can't imagine anywhere leasing a Type-R, for example. I did see something in the local paper a few weeks ago and it was like fucking Nissan Qashqais and Vauxhall Corsas and bobbins like that.

The chap in the Honda garage did suggest I could 'afford' a brand new Type-R, but it would have required using the S4 as the big upfront payment, then there was a big interest bearing loan, and then at the end of four years or something I'd still have to have given them a big pile more cash just to keep the fucking thing.

Or take the S4, I would imagine the cost of leasing a new one would be extremely high, whereas I got to own and drive one for a reasonable price, albeit one that was seven years old.

My system seems to work fairly well, because I tend not to keep cars for very long, they don't lose much value, or something.

Leasing and PCP are broadly similar. The main difference is that with a lease you have no choice but to give the car back at the end of the term. With PCP you can choose to pay the "optional final payment" and then take ownership of the car.

If you can get a stonking deal on a lease/PCP then they can be very cost effective. A few years back VW were doing mental deals on Golf R models that basically meant you weren't even covering the depreciation, so when you handed it back at the end (and you'd be a fool not to) you'd be up on the deal. Same happened with my LEAF - the optional final payment was £14K but it was only worth £9K by the time the 2 years was over so they'd grossly underestimated the value drop (or just wanted to get them out of the factory to improve EV uptake, who knows)

BMW were doing deals on the M135i when that first came out that meant you could have one for £270 a month, which is a fantastic price for a brand new car with that level of performance.

I guess it's something to look into when the time comes to move on from the Type-R, I'm not opposed to a different model of car usage based on irrational dogma, because I never do that sort of thing. Lol.

I do quite like my car being my own though, although that's not based on anything more concrete than a feeling.

(Plus, I guess the deals where the car deprecates by more than the payments have been appropriately 'adjusted', anyway.)

Yep, both lease and pcp deals work brilliantly if you aren’t fussy about what you want and hunt out the cheap offers where manufacturers are subsidising things.

The thought of getting a brand new Audi, for example, for the same price per month as you'd be paying back on 5yr loan for a 2 year old focus is probably appealing to some, though. When you get rid of the focus after paying off the loan you'll likely need another loan to buy a replacement.

There's also a level of comfort in the car still being within its warranty period or, hopefully, new enough that nothing goes wrong with it.

It's a whole set of decisions I'm glad I don't need to make. I'd hate to spend loads on a car but I also hate shit, old cars. So I'd either cry every time I got a bank statement or every time I drove it.

It's a choice of either paying £1000's a year for a new (or nearly new ) car that you might not own at the end of it or paying a couple of grand on the best second hand car you can find and pay for its maintenance/go faster stripes* as and when you need it. I've always gone down the later route myself because of money.

*can't tinker with a lease

Not a good match for me then, as has probably become quite apparent over the years, I'm very much a 'heart over head' person when it comes to cars....

Generally speaking I see something that gives me wood and I think 'I MUST HAVE IT' and then a week later I'm driving it, thousands of pounds poorer, and wondering what's just happened. Again.

The worst thing I think a car can possibly be is boring, and leasing/PCP sounds like it might end up in that sort of area.

https://www.leaseyournextcar.com/honda- ... -5dr-80930

£588.26pcm if you want a 3-year lease, all maintenance included and an initial payment of 3mo. But it's a brand new Type R so

That's exactly why I PCP'd the Leaf (and now the BMW) - to get me out of the habit of changing cars every 3 weeks.

I think you're all on PCP.

Well (a) That's really rather expensive (FAR more than I'd want to be paying per month, I could borrow megabucks from the bank for that sort of monthly payment if I really wanted to go down that route) (b) It's the non-GT version, which you don't want and (c) I would generally expect to get through 2-4 cars in that period of time and would imagine I'd find myself getting very cross being stuck with one for that long. And they want about £1700 upfront as well.

To get a GT over three years, for my mileage, comes to £622 (!) per month, with an upfront payment of £1865. Oh yes and a 'processing fee' of £250. (So comfortably over two grand upfront.)

OK I'm a model behind in mine, but it was £24K on the road. I own it, it's in Honda warranty for another 15 months (16 when I bought it) and has a Honda Care Plan on it with over three years to run (Not as good as 'Maintained' in the leasing parlance, i.e. it doesn't cover wear and tear, but even so.)

So yes I'll give you it's a brand new Type-R on the road on a lease, but I'm not seeing the appeal at all on those numbers. I could have just traded in the S4, borrowed £21K from the bank for less than £500 per month, and bought myself a brand new Type-R GT that was actually mine.

It'd be very interesting to see how the numbers stack up on buying versus leasing in the above two scenarios, in terms of total cost of ownership over the three years, given that in the latter scenario one does actually own a Type-R GT at the end of it, whereas in the other, you have to give it back.

Yeah I don't think it makes even a lick of sense unless you really need a brand new car for some reason.

Now seems to be a good time to ask this given the current topic, as I have two car finance related questions.

Firstly, my current car is on a hire purchase agreement, I'm nearly 3 years into it (out of 5), and I reckon my settlement figure is probably a bit more than what the car is worth (although I can get some actual numbers if that makes a difference).
Am I better off paying off the agreement and walking into the dealer with my old car as a deposit, or just turning up, seeing if they'll just make the finance go away (and as I'm over half way through I can just hand it back, right?), and then put down a cash deposit? I'm assuming the latter puts me in a better position, but wondered if I was missing something?

Second question (and the more relevant one), I'll be looking to pay monthly again, and presumably want to replace it in another 3 years time (I think barring financial/car-related disasters, I tend to keep a car for three years), should I go down the PCP/lease route? Bearing in mind my estimated annual mileage is something like 20,000.

I'm already looking forward to the unrelated suggestions.

Be careful with this. Voluntary termination only applies if you've paid back more than half of the amount financed - NOT that you're more than halfway through the term.

To use my LEAF as an example:

Sale price was £18K. I put in £1K up front, so £17K was financed.

Therefore, I'd have had to have paid £8.5K before I could voluntarily terminate. Even at the end of the 2 year term I'd only paid £5.7K, so VT was never an option for me.


You'll likely get reamed on monthly fees with a PCP/lease with mileage like that, but if you get the right car it can still work out more cost effective. What sort of car are you looking for?

Ah, I'll double check that, I think I read it somewhere, then saw it on the agreement and thought it said through the term, rather than after paying back half.

Yeah, the mileage is a bit of an issue, I'm probably looking at another Fiesta, or maybe a Focus. Nothing very exciting, and something cheap-ish to run. My current car is a diesel, and I'm looking at diesels. Am I an idiot for wanting another diesel given that everyone seems to hate them now?

I reckon an economical petrol engine might hold its value better.

The ecoboost Fiesta is out though, because if my maths is correct, I'd have to fill it back up every 3 days of commuting.

A Focus would be better, although if I've got my maths rights, I'd still get fewer miles out of a tank than I get out my current Fiesta, and it would take about 40% more fuel to fill up. Would that offset the depreciation of the actual car? And If I'm just going to drive it around for a few days and then get rid, would I care that much about the value of the car (as opposed to what I've spent keeping it running)?

Jerry cans, in the boot!

Recently, I learnt they are called that as the german army used them and they were better than the 50 gallon drums the british forces used (also noted in that binkers game Kern posted). 'Jerry cans' as they were known were highly prized. It isn't clear, if we are allowed to say that.

Just ordered an activated carbon cabin filter.

You don't get that sort of thrill from a lease car.

I chipped my leased Mondeo.

Bit of T-Cut will sort that.

I'm telling!

Stop playing golf in the car park.

I forgot to to disable it at a service and they found out.

I'm sure I posted about it.

My oldest chum is over from the UK for his annual visit (we've known each other since we were three, and played out in the backings in Radcliffe before we even went to infant school together).

One of the annual rituals is him clamping eyes on whatever car I have, which is generally different from one year to the next, and I don't tell him what it is in advance, so he tries to identify it as we walk back to the short stay parking at the airport.

His only clue this year had been words to the effect of 'don't expect to be ferried around in comfort', as we got closer to the Type-R he said, 'It's not that is it?', 'Yes, it is', 'Fucking hell'.

As we drove off down the road he was like, 'I'm not sure I really want to be seen in this'.

500 miles for a tank-ful in an eco fiesta. 35L tank, I think - small tank, big mileage. Though I don't drive at over 60, I still think you'd get around 500 miles to a tank (I get more, usually, but then I don't do small distances, only longer ones at the weekend).

Leasing sounds fine, once you're once of 'ooh, a new car would be nice, spending money every month to service debt is normal, shopping around is interesting' fits. Otherwise, for many it's a way of making people spend money.

I've no idea whether the idea behind this maths would remotely translate to real life, but taking the official mpg figure of my current fiesta, the size of the tank, and the number of miles I typically get out of that tank (and I reckon if I didn't go over 60, it would be a lot higher), and translating that to a 1.0 ecoboost, I've got a figure of about 380 miles out of tank, and with a 70-80 mile round trip on a daily basis (although I'm trying to milk the work from home angle as much as possible), that could get annoying pretty quick.

Small turbo petrols are turning out to be heavy drinkers, and our 2l ecoboost focus st was stupidly thirsty, so I doubt it'd be a straight conversion.

I had a Skoda Rapid 1.2TSI as a courtesy car yesterday, and averaged over 50mpg on a round trip from Worcester to Walsall. That was a mixture of traffic jams and free flowing motorway so I was pleased with that.

My 2.0TDI Octavia would have got close to 60 or a bit over it and been quicker too, but that’s still not bad for petrol.

Help me guys! When you turn the headlights on on my new car, the lamp at the back on one side doesn’t turn on. I assume this is called the tail light as it’s not the indicator one or the reverse one. When I stick my reg number in the bulb finder tool in the Halfords website it tells me I need a 380 so that’s what I bought.

However, when I went to change it over just now the bulb already in the car was a completely different size and shape. Photo attached of what was in the car.

The numbers and letters on it say:
0512 Vn
E1 2 GL
W5W3K7

I’ve googled W5w and it brings back bulbs that say 501 instead of 512 and really this has just confused me a lot.

Can anyone provide a link to what bulb I should be buying or even explain why I or the tool has got it so wrong?

What you've got there is a 501.

Local independent garage if confusion persists, they know what they're talking about unlike anyone or anything remotely connect to halfords.
Rant over, was intended to be helpful advice but I got carried away.

Thank you for this, so is this link on Amazon ok?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B002SW ... JMGS&psc=1

Should do, no more than 20mm long is it?

Looking back at the photo I don’t think so. Have took a punt anyway, will report back in a few days!

I have my first driving lesson tomorrow, so you should all take care to be safely in a building with well built walls between 7:30-8:30 tomorrow night.

Ach I'm pretty sure it'll be right enough, there's one that looks the same but it's way bigger, comes in some Japanese cars.

Good luck! Speed is your friend!

I’ll make sure she takes some before the lesson starts.