Be Excellent To Each Other

Weight reduction.

(+3bhp)

Looks good Zar, big googly eyes emoji about the bolt though! They probably forgot to torque it after screwing it in tbh.
I had a transit where someone had tried to undo the equivalent to that bolt and sheared the head off it. It held the wishbone to the subframe and the subframe to the body so they welded everything together and tacked the bolt head back on so it looked like it was still there. Only found out when I went to change the clutch.

Yeah, so lucky I've not been screwing it since the remap...

How nice of them!

Fuck me.

Can heartily recommend these chaps, and not just because I'm responsible for their in-house management software

I say I say boy that doggone mount always be causing me problems gee willickers!

Today: this.

I dare you to add high lift suspension so it stays looking like that.

Just a simple three piece jigsaw now!

That's a bit more that "high lift suspension".

Thats a fucking scissor lift

The one in the background looks more finished, the red one needs a bit of a work, and some bigger wheels.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that when I was a kid my dad had a Citroen XM, which had computer controlled hydraulic suspension. At one point it decided to set itself to 'garage maintenance height' and lock there - with a good foot of clearance between top of the wheel and the arch.

Look I'm not a details person, I tell you what to do, you can work out how to do it.

You are Professor Pat Pending from the Wacky Races AICMFP

gaywood is more Mutley to cras's Dick

I legit have a Mutley laugh sometimes, you can hear it on the Yo Cras, Little Help? video. It only happens when I'm trying to simultaneously laugh and listen to whatever someone is saying.

It’s ok, I heard it from 200 miles away

No it's going full 70s touring car, road-scraping air dam and all.

@cras I once got an xm in for some repair or other and thought I'd put the suspension up to get it over the ramps. It went up and wouldn't come down for half an hour until there was a loud bang and it landed on its bump stops. I've never touched adjustable suspension since then unless it's what I'm fixing.
The xm is a pretty cool car though, total luxury.

Just ordered a service kit for the smallest Gas Guzzler in the Zardoz fleet.

Already modified it to sit nice and low, still handles pretty well for it's age but bodywork needs some attention.

What does the service kit consist of?

Spark plug, air filter and oil.

£10!

Just ordered some Type-R stickers for after I've replayed it too.

That reminds me. I need a new pull cord for mine.

You know how you've all been saying for ages that leasing a car would make far more sense for me? Well in the last few months a proper leasing business has set up shop here (previously it wasn't really a 'thing' over here which would have made it very awkward going through a UK leasing firm).

Anyway, long story short I'm getting a brand new Hyundai i30-N Performance Pack, hopefully this side of TT.

We're still working out the exact numbers but they'll buy the ST off me for at least £10K which will go towards the lease as a cash payment, I'll put around an extra £5K cash in as well, which will get the lease payments right down to under £200 per month. (Without the extra £5K it was going to be £237 per month, I've asked for the numbers again with me putting that £5K in on top of the ST sale money.)

I have to keep the car for four years which is clearly a lifetime for me, but if it's the rules of the lease I'll have no choice so that's fine.

The i30-N is supposed to be a really good car, especially in Performance Pack form, I can't find a negative review anywhere, and a lot of them say that if you can get past the badge, it's a far better actual CAR than the competition.

Also, the Performance Pack version literally gets everything, there are no options at all.

It's possible that the ST will just about make it to one year of ownership, depending on how quickly the leasing guy can get the i30-N here.

If I’m reading that correctly you are chucking in a huge initial payment on a lease which sounds very odd, as does a 48 month term.
With a £15k deposit you’d be better buying it outright.

Normally it’s 3+23 or maybe 3+35 on a lease.

Fifteen grand plus £200 a month for four years? £24,600 total?

Is that not good then? I know nothing about leases.

They are £30K to buy new.

EDIT - I haven't signed anything yet, we're supposed to be getting the paperwork sorted early next week.

Just Google it and get some other quotes. But surely you could nearly buy one for that.

Yeah you’d be paying £25k over 4 years and still not own it at the end or have a balloon payment to settle if you (lol) wanted to keep it. Shop around mate. Nice car though!

Well there is basically only one leasing company over here. I have done a like-for-like as best I can, left hand side is UK, right hand side is IOM, so it's £1872 more over four years, and a slightly higher initial rental payment.

This is for the i30-N Performance Pack.

It's not a terrible deal if you really want to lease, but you are going against what they are designed for, so it will never be great. Leasing is really for people with low deposits.
What's the balloon payment at the end and guaranteed future value?

I suspect you will be better off putting the £15k down as deposit and doing a straight finance on the rest. You'll have to pay an extra £150 a month that way, but at the end of the 4 years you will own it outright.

If you like it and want it, go for it!

I must admit, I don't understand leasing but that's a hell of a lot of money for a car you won't ever own.

With a balloon payment at the end that sounds more like PCP than leasing. Normally you pay 3mo leasing cost up front, not half the cost of the car. Very odd.

It depends how much the extra £5K reduces the payments by I guess, this is what he originally came up with when it was just the ST going in as upfront money.

This comes out to £21K over four years, assuming that the ST covers the initial rental payment.

Isn't the idea with leasing that it works out about the same or better than buying, once depreciation is factored in?

So it'd cost me £30K to buy the car outright, and after four years I've got a car that's worth, I dunno, £10K or something, so I've lost £20K,

If I lease it costs me £21K to lease over four years, so it's about the same as buying, although has cost me an extra £1000 overall.

But then if I buy I still have the car at the end of it. How confusing!

Yeah leasing should be much cheaper than that. It’s a way of getting you to have a car you couldn’t afford to buy, basically.

The monthly cost should be lower which is offset by the fact they get the car back at the end and can sell it off to recoup some of the costs. This way you are getting the worst of both worlds.

But it's not much cheapear on the deal from the UK lease place, it still comes out to £20K over four years on the deal above, so it's not like the IOM figures are way out of whack.

The UK one has it at:

364 x 48 = £17,472 plus £2184 initial rental and £199 processing fee, so we're at £20K there as well.

OK so here are the BUY and LEASE options he sent me, ignore the bit about finance as I don't need any.

So in simple terms.

To buy costs £28K and at the end of four years I have a car that's worth, let's say £10K.

To lease costs £21K and at the end of it I have no car.

Am I not £3K worse off by leasing?

In that case, if you can afford to buy it then you should buy it rather than locking in for four years for the same cost and not having the option of keeping it at the end.

The monthly cost is only about £30 less with leasing, which I don’t see the point of.

This sounds like a good option... Especially considering how often you like to change your car.

Why would you sign up for 4 years. You don’t keep a car for 12 months.

Why not stop with the ST as you own it.

I would lease an EV currently because technology is changing with those all the time, and they’re hellishly expensive to buy and you end up after three years with something somewhat obsolete.

Wait, it's actually a proper lease, not a pcp?
That's not right for you at all! A proper lease is for people who see a car as a white good and don't have any cash in the bank, or people who get their car from their work.

But everyone was saying I was daft buying new cars all the time and that I should lease!

Depends how much money you’re throwing away every year changing them all the time, tbh.

Rates on leasing tend to work out more favourably on a 2 year term rather than 3 or 4.
The lease rates are hugely driven by the price they can source the vehicle and the residual value at the end.

There's often manufacturer subsidies that the leasing company use to offset a chunk of the depreciation which brings the monthly cost down a lot. It's also easier for them to offload a 2 year old relatively low mileage car that's just had a service and is still under warranty than one twice the age, and some vehicles have great residuals so it can be cheaper to lease a premium model rather than something ordinary.

An example of that would be the cheap Golf R leases that were around a few years back where you could have one for two years for £6600 with a reasonable mileage allowance. https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/volksw ... ns-2427041
At the time you'd have paid more for a TDI SE and that's half what you'll be paying for a Hyundai.

That brings me on to my next point. Leasing can be a cheap way of getting a new car every couple of years but you need to be flexible in what you drive. If you set your sights on a particular car, you pay the going rate at the time. What you have to do instead is follow the leasing threads on Pistonheads, look on Hot UK Deals, or follow a couple of the leasing websites and go with whatever the bargains are at the time you need to change.

Thanks Dr Z that's very illuminating. So in my situation where (a) I'm totally set on the exact car I want and (b) I have a chunk of cash plus a decent part-ex - the correct thing to do is just buy the car?

I think folks are probably right and that buying is a better option, but if that deal includes insurance and maintenance it may change the maths a little.

It does not.

Ouch, fuck that then.