Best lease car deals available?

[wemorgan]

I found http://www.easternwesternfleetservices.co.uk/ to be very professional. They're also a real new car dealer, that have showrooms etc, so when they say they have a car in stock, they do as it's their car.

[covmutley]

Jonnas said:

Is it just me or do lease companies just make it up as they go along?

I've decided for the first time that I'm going to lease a car and I've been trawling Contract Hire and Leasing to get a feel for the market. Today I called a few of them up to get a quote on a lease deal advertised on their websites only to find out that the one I'm after has gone but they can offer me a metalic one for better money or that the 'Stock' car they advertise is actually 3 months delivery?

I've not found one yet that can offer the deal that they are advertising. Not one.

They also manage to 'do a better deal' on higher specced models than advertised but thats not what I want.

I'm sure I'll get there in the end but it's bl00dy annoying. It seems that the cheap deals are only there to hook you in and then their strategy is to upsell to you.

Do they all do business this way?

It's a bit like this yes. I used mad sheep who were great, but things move quicker than their website. Same for others I was getting quotes from. I found it a strange but fascinating industry with prices all over the place depending on manufacturer subsidy, who built too many cars, dealers with surplus stock etc. to get the best deals, it helps to not be picky on spec or colours and avoid extras.

[Jonnas]

covmutley said:

It's a bit like this yes. I used mad sheep who were great, but things move quicker than their website. Same for others I was getting quotes from. I found it a strange but fascinating industry with prices all over the place depending on manufacturer subsidy, who built too many cars, dealers with surplus stock etc. to get the best deals, it helps to not be picky on spec or colours and avoid extras.

Ah, OK. I'm glad its just not me than! I'm not fussy at all. I just want a bog standard spec, from stock. Not bothered about the colour. Might give Mad Sheep a call and see whether they can beat the deal I have.

What is most annoying is if they would just give me the deal that they have advertised on their website, I'd sign up today!

[forzaminardi]

I'm new to the whole leasing thing, having only ever bought used cars in the past.

But I've been sniffing around C Class coupes of late, I'm not fussed about leasing per se, I'm fussed about finding a good deal. Because it's being run out ahead of the new model arriving late this year (I understand it will be unveiled at the Frankfurt show) they are being very strongly pushed by MB centrally through the dealers - £8k deposit contribution, 4.4% APR finance and so on. One salesman told me he could get me a brand new one for less than the price of an equivalent used one I was looking at (which made me wonder what sort of discount they'd do on the used one, but anyway...).

Meanwhile, I've been looking around on line at lease deals and found some that look pretty good - in the region of 9x23@£250-60. I told the MB salesmen as much and enquired as to how close they could get to that sort of monthly outlay. Unanimously they've done a lot of sucking of teeth, muttered and said things like "well you need to be careful with these lease companies" and gone on to talk about scare stories:
- lease companies who take your money and disappear.
- lease companies who agree a deal but then can't find a car and may or may not give a deposit back after 4 months.
- lease companies who agree a deal then come back to say "I've got the car but it's going to cost 20% more".
- etc.etc.etc.

Now obviously I'd not expect a salesman to say "sure, buy/hire the same car as I'm selling off someone else" but it makes me wonder:
- how can these online brokers get better deals than the biggest dealer networks in the country can?
- as someone noted above, how much can you trust what is advertised on the brokers' websites?
- obviously there's good and bad in every enterprise, but how often do those leasing scare stories happen?

Thanks for any info.

[CYMR0]

forzaminardi said:

scare stories:
- lease companies who take your money and disappear.
- lease companies who agree a deal but then can't find a car and may or may not give a deposit back after 4 months.
- lease companies who agree a deal then come back to say "I've got the car but it's going to cost 20% more".
- etc.etc.etc.

It could happen. But that's what credit card deposits are for; on both of my leases, anything more than a few hundred quid plus the admin fee went direct to the lease company after I already had the car. The actual lease company is, as often as not, the manufacturer's finance arm (certainly on my old MB and my new VW) - the same people who'd be funding your PCP.

As for the "20% more" thing - I've only heard of it once, when VWFS messed some people around on Golf R deals. If that happened, you'd go out and get a stock car from someone else. The dealer is basically asking you to jump straight to the worst case scenario now.

forzaminardi said:

- how can these online brokers get better deals than the biggest dealer networks in the country can?
- as someone noted above, how much can you trust what is advertised on the brokers' websites?
- obviously there's good and bad in every enterprise, but how often do those leasing scare stories happen?

They're going through the dealers' and manufacturers' fleet teams. If the dealer can do a new C-Class coupe for less than a used one, and it made you wonder what they'd do on the used one... imagine what that would do to used values if the effective transaction prices of these cheap lease cars were sticker prices.

I've only ever dealt with one broker - not deliberately, per se - on two leases, and in both cases, I had documentation confirmed within a couple of days at the advertised price.

I do think it's fair to say that people are chasing figures and therefore websites lag the actual stock availability, but bait and switch is too much effort for these guys - they work on taking a few hundred (often just the 'admin fee' - which is why these have been going up) from many, many deals. It simply isn't worth much effort to get you through the door if they don't have exactly what you're looking for, so while you might get a fairly bare bones service (and not always what is advertised) it does tend to be an honest business.

[silverous]

Is my maths messed up or is this deal *almost* a return to the best M5 lease deals of old?

https://www.contracthireandleasing.com/car-leasing...

Tempted!

[CYMR0]

silverous said:

Is my maths messed up or is this deal *almost* a return to the best M5 lease deals of old?

https://www.contracthireandleasing.com/car-leasing...

Tempted!

If you can afford that, just go buy one (ish!)

£26k all in.

£56k will get you a six-month old with a couple of thousand miles, before haggling.

Given the likely excess mileage charges, I'd want the flexibility of ownership given that the used car is likely to be £30k in three years anyway, so there's no real saving to be had by leasing (apart from possibly the interest).

Of course if you want a car for exactly 3 years and 24k, the lease is a decent deal.

[gareth3685]

THD said:

Calculator/Gareth - would be interested to hear any further detail on your issue(s) with them? Also, were there any penalties for cancelling the lease??

I had a situation where the excess mileage charge was misquoted, not by much but still it made a significant enough difference where I wasn't happy to accept. We then looked at changing the term mileage and agreed on a new price based on a higher mileage. That figure was apparently misquoted by Audi at which point I'd had enough and pulled the plug.

I'd only paid the document fee which almost a month on I'm still chasing the return of.

Not a great experience but I'm sure there are many people here who have had fine service from them.

[silverous]

CYMR0 said:

If you can afford that, just go buy one (ish!)

£26k all in.

£56k will get you a six-month old with a couple of thousand miles, before haggling.

Given the likely excess mileage charges, I'd want the flexibility of ownership given that the used car is likely to be £30k in three years anyway, so there's no real saving to be had by leasing (apart from possibly the interest).

Of course if you want a car for exactly 3 years and 24k, the lease is a decent deal.

That doesn't sound right to me - the fact I might be able to afford 26k over 3 years doesn't mean I can afford 56k up front. The former gets me a new car, the latter not.
Also, I think you are accepting that after 3 years my 56k will have dropped in value to 30k anyway (I suspect more like 28k or less, subject to haggling), so why sink an additional 30k to get a used one?

[CYMR0]

silverous said:

That doesn't sound right to me - the fact I might be able to afford 26k over 3 years doesn't mean I can afford 56k up front. The former gets me a new car, the latter not.
Also, I think you are accepting that after 3 years my 56k will have dropped in value to 30k anyway (I suspect more like 28k or less, subject to haggling), so why sink an additional 30k to get a used one?

£26k over three years is still >50% depreciation on a £56k car... I suppose you could be capital heavy but illiquid, but I'd have thought that most who could afford this on a lease could come up with enough deposit to fund the balance on a five-year loan.

As for why you'd tie up an additional £30k... many of the usual arguments against leasing, really.

1. Excess mileage charges - if you own the car, you only pay the actual excess depreciation and wear caused by the miles you do, rather than the lease company's figure (which will probably err on the side of caution for the leaseco);
2. More flexibility - you can sell a car, even a financed one, at any time as long as someone will clear the finance. With a lease, you're stuck paying virtually the whole amount even if you want out at day 1. Remaining lease payments are likely to be larger than negative equity. Similarly, you can't extend a lease.

Looking at it, I think the fact that I found one six-month old, low mileage car (not quite new, but very nearly new) overlooked the fact that it's in a pretty naff colour combination and is much cheaper than the rest of the market. Plus, as long as your usage matches the lease profile closely enough, it is a good deal compared to buying new and if you factor in resale risk and interest charges, leasing may still work out cheaper - so I think I was a bit harsh on the deal.

I still don't think it's a no-brainer to lease it, and for something like this - a luxury item rather than an appliance - I think I would prefer to own it (rather than pay a fee for trudging up and down the motorway, then start again in two or three years like I currently do): but I can certainly see the logic as to why this would be good for someone who only wants the car for a specified time and mileage.

[darren f]

We could really do with separate threads for 'Lease Pros and Cons' and 'Best Lease Deals' (... mods?). There is loads of good advice in here on the +/- of leasing, likewise the best deals are readily flagged up. It is however a bit of a 'trawl' if you are looking for either and have to plough through 300+ pages though!

[Mollyuk123]

darren f said:

We could really do with separate threads for 'Lease Pros and Cons' and 'Best Lease Deals' (... mods?). There is loads of good advice in here on the +/- of leasing, likewise the best deals are readily flagged up. It is however a bit of a 'trawl' if you are looking for either and have to plough through 300+ pages though!

What will also be useful, for a newish member would be a spread sheet to compare the benefits of leasing vs. company car BIK purchases.

Outlining all the likely running costs over a 2/3 year period.

Cheers

[AB]

The OH has a 62 plate VW Golf 1.6 diesel Match which is coming to the end of a 3 year deal in September...

I didn't realise she'd put £4k down and paid £260 a month for it over the 3 years at 10k pa.

It's on 32k already, we will have paid £14k over the term on a car with a list price of £20k.

The value on it today is £10k.

I guess 3 years ago this sort of deal wasn't all that common.

I was under the impression she put £1k down!

We've certainly been rinsed.

Can't wait to get her on the BMW family lease deal for a new MINI Cooper S at circa £200 pcm with no deposit.

Ouch.

[CYMR0]

If it's any consolation, my sister just paid £12,600 for a 12-plate Golf Match petrol.

How much will you owe on this one at the end? Having paid £14k I would hope that it's only about £8k remaining at most... still a £12k/3 year deal of course so hardly a bargain but less painful than £14k.

[AB]

I'd have to check what the GFV is but I suspect something around that.

I'm about to put it on AT with a view to getting shot for the £10k it's worth now, which IMO is a very good price for the car.

It's been a good car; reliable and fine for what she's needed it for and well specced with services included but still seems like a huge cost when at this point she could have been in a GTD or something much better for the same.

[bennybroadbean]

Had an e-mail from OSV this morning with regards to a Golf GTD:

VW Golf GTD 3 and 5 Door (5,000 Miles pa £129.99+vat) £2000+vat + 23 further payments £129.99 + VAT/Mnth

VW Golf GTD 3 and 5 Door (10,000 Miles pa £159.99+vat) £2000+vat + 23 further payments £159.99 + VAT/Mnth

[va1o]

bennybroadbean said:

Had an e-mail from OSV this morning with regards to a Golf GTD:

VW Golf GTD 3 and 5 Door (5,000 Miles pa £129.99+vat) £2000+vat + 23 further payments £129.99 + VAT/Mnth

VW Golf GTD 3 and 5 Door (10,000 Miles pa £159.99+vat) £2000+vat + 23 further payments £159.99 + VAT/Mnth

That's another example of where its cheaper to pay the excess mileage charge at end rather than opting for more up front. Assuming the standard VWFS 6ppm fee, if you take your first option and do an extra 10,000 miles it will cost £5589.77+VAT total over the term, whereas the second option would cost £5679.77. Maybe only £90 but illustrates the point!

[Emeye]

va1o said:

That's another example of where its cheaper to pay the excess mileage charge at end rather than opting for more up front. Assuming the standard VWFS 6ppm fee, if you take your first option and do an extra 10,000 miles it will cost £5589.77+VAT total over the term, whereas the second option would cost £5679.77. Maybe only £90 but illustrates the point!

Definately a no-brainer to go for the 5k a year option, as it will work out even cheaper if you do less than 20k miles over the term.

[A - W]

AB said:

Can't wait to get her on the BMW family lease deal for a new MINI Cooper S at circa £200 pcm with no deposit.

Anyone fancy adopting me?

[MattHall91]

forzaminardi said:

I'm new to the whole leasing thing, having only ever bought used cars in the past.

But I've been sniffing around C Class coupes of late, I'm not fussed about leasing per se, I'm fussed about finding a good deal. Because it's being run out ahead of the new model arriving late this year (I understand it will be unveiled at the Frankfurt show) they are being very strongly pushed by MB centrally through the dealers - £8k deposit contribution, 4.4% APR finance and so on. One salesman told me he could get me a brand new one for less than the price of an equivalent used one I was looking at (which made me wonder what sort of discount they'd do on the used one, but anyway...).

Meanwhile, I've been looking around on line at lease deals and found some that look pretty good - in the region of 9x23@£250-60. I told the MB salesmen as much and enquired as to how close they could get to that sort of monthly outlay. Unanimously they've done a lot of sucking of teeth, muttered and said things like "well you need to be careful with these lease companies" and gone on to talk about scare stories:
- lease companies who take your money and disappear.
- lease companies who agree a deal but then can't find a car and may or may not give a deposit back after 4 months.
- lease companies who agree a deal then come back to say "I've got the car but it's going to cost 20% more".
- etc.etc.etc.

Now obviously I'd not expect a salesman to say "sure, buy/hire the same car as I'm selling off someone else" but it makes me wonder:
- how can these online brokers get better deals than the biggest dealer networks in the country can?
- as someone noted above, how much can you trust what is advertised on the brokers' websites?
- obviously there's good and bad in every enterprise, but how often do those leasing scare stories happen?

Thanks for any info.

Not bad
https://www.firstvehicleleasing.co.uk/enquiry/merc...