Excess Mileage VWFS - Lease car

[Relaxitscool]

Good afternoon all, if this has been covered before, please forgive me. I recently returned a Audi A4 which I had taken as a three year lease, 30k pa mileage. The vehicle was returned three months early and inspected to find no faults, so no charge. The mileage was just over 29k, so below the three year agreement. However, I've recently received a bill for £190 after VWFS calculated the pro rata mileage as in excess of the allowance.

Are they allowed to charge like this? Whilst I agree the mileage would have ended up going over, I certainly would have managed it so it wasn't to that effect (I tend to cycle to work in the summer months so my vehicle use fluctuates wildly during the year.)

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Regards

Rob

[silentbrown]

Did you pay the monthly payments for the full term of three years? If so, I can't see how they can pro-rata the mileage.

If not, what do you expect? You could have paid the next three months to have the car mostly sat on your drive "managing the miles", which would have cost you a lot more then £190.

[Helicopter123]

Relaxitscool said:

Good afternoon all, if this has been covered before, please forgive me. I recently returned a Audi A4 which I had taken as a three year lease, 30k pa mileage. The vehicle was returned three months early and inspected to find no faults, so no charge. The mileage was just over 29k, so below the three year agreement. However, I've recently received a bill for £190 after VWFS calculated the pro rata mileage as in excess of the allowance.

Are they allowed to charge like this? Whilst I agree the mileage would have ended up going over, I certainly would have managed it so it wasn't to that effect (I tend to cycle to work in the summer months so my vehicle use fluctuates wildly during the year.)

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Regards

Rob

Yes, that is how it's handled, pro-rate over the term of the lease. Standard on all VWFS contracts.

[Mo28]

For early returns VWFS tend to work out what the monthly mileage would be, so in your case it's 10,000/12 which gives you 833.33 miles per month. 833.33 x 9 gives you 7,500 which means you're 1500 miles over

[Relaxitscool]

silentbrown said:

Did you pay the monthly payments for the full term of three years? If so, I can't see how they can pro-rata the mileage.

If not, what do you expect? You could have paid the next three months to have the car mostly sat on your drive "managing the miles", which would have cost you a lot more then £190.

No, it was 50% for the final three months. I just wouldn't expect to pay for miles I haven't done, and can't prove I was going to do, when the vehicle was returned below the agreed allowance. Just seems a bizarre being asked to pay for something I haven't done.

Regards

Rob

[Relaxitscool]

Mo28 said:

For early returns VWFS tend to work out what the monthly mileage would be, so in your case it's 10,000/12 which gives you 833.33 miles per month. 833.33 x 9 gives you 7,500 which means you're 1500 miles over

So I should be paying for what I have exceed every month, rather than what they think I may have totalled..

Cheers

Rob

[poo at Paul's]

Relaxitscool said:

silentbrown said:

Did you pay the monthly payments for the full term of three years? If so, I can't see how they can pro-rata the mileage.

If not, what do you expect? You could have paid the next three months to have the car mostly sat on your drive "managing the miles", which would have cost you a lot more then £190.

No, it was 50% for the final three months. I just wouldn't expect to pay for miles I haven't done, and can't prove I was going to do, when the vehicle was returned below the agreed allowance. Just seems a bizarre being asked to pay for something I haven't done.

Regards

Rob

No, it sounds entirely reasonable. They've discounted the rental as you've returned it, but were obligated to take it, but have pro rata's the mileage as it's come back early, and now available for onwards sale, but is at a higher mileage than they'd expect at that age. To avaoid the mileage excess, you'd have had to keep it on the drive for about another 6 weeks or so, and pay maybe two more full payments.

[silentbrown]

Relaxitscool said:

No, it was 50% for the final three months. I just wouldn't expect to pay for miles I haven't done, and can't prove I was going to do, when the vehicle was returned below the agreed allowance. Just seems a bizarre being asked to pay for something I haven't done.

I think you may be misunderstanding the pro-rata. You contracted to lease the car for 3 years, 10,000 miles per year. You requested to terminate the contract early after 2.75 years. (the 50% payments for the last 3 months is effectively a penalty fee for terminating the contract early)

So your 2.75 year contract allows a pro-rata 27.5K miles, but you'd done 29K. Hence the 1500 mile charge. You're being charged for miles you've already done, not ones you might have done in the future.

[Relaxitscool]

No I'm being charged for 2700 miles, not 1500.

Rob

[Relaxitscool]

Having reviewed the paperwork I'm now under the impression that there may be a clerical error that needs amending, hence why it seemed I was being asked to pay for mileage I wasn't responsible for.
Cheers for the replies all.

Rob

[silentbrown]

Relaxitscool said:

No I'm being charged for 2700 miles, not 1500.

I'd ask them to show their workings, then. Assuming your 3 months and 29K figures are right, it should be about 1500. If it's actually four months and 29,999 miles, things will be rather different!

[jonwm]

I returned my Cupra early, I was 57 miles over the allowance on collection, not heard anything since not even a final settlement letter, took the car and ran....

I waited 2 weeks before booking collection to string out as much mileage as I could without hitting the next payment if you know what I mean.

[timmymagic73]

Not exactly the same situation but mileage related - we returned our VWFS lease almost 1000 miles over with no additional charge....

Contracted for 16k over 2 years, but the odometer still started with a "16" so no-one seemed to care.

[anonymous-user]

jonwm said:

I returned my Cupra early, I was 57 miles over the allowance on collection, not heard anything since not even a final settlement letter, took the car and ran....

I waited 2 weeks before booking collection to string out as much mileage as I could without hitting the next payment if you know what I mean.

How long's it been? VWFS took bloody ages to get everything settled when my Leon went back - around 9 weeks I think?

[AbzGuyGTI]

Spumfry said:

jonwm said:

I returned my Cupra early, I was 57 miles over the allowance on collection, not heard anything since not even a final settlement letter, took the car and ran....

I waited 2 weeks before booking collection to string out as much mileage as I could without hitting the next payment if you know what I mean.

How long's it been? VWFS took bloody ages to get everything settled when my Leon went back - around 9 weeks I think?

Same, I put mine back end of March and heard nothing so thought 'oh i may not need to pay any excess mileage here....' then last week, 10 weeks later i got a letter through saying we'll be taking payment by direct debit for the excess mileage charge!

[JNW1]

jonwm said:

I returned my Cupra early, I was 57 miles over the allowance on collection, not heard anything since not even a final settlement letter, took the car and ran....

I waited 2 weeks before booking collection to string out as much mileage as I could without hitting the next payment if you know what I mean.

Presumably lease and finance companies have a minimum amount an excess mileage charge needs to be before they bother chasing it though? The excess mileage charge on 57 additional miles would be less than £10 and it would almost certainly cost more than that in administration to raise the invoice; therefore, pretty pointless for the lease company to chase in that scenario!

Even assuming an excess mileage rate of 15p/mile I'd have thought you'd need to be several hundred miles over before it becomes worthwhile for the lease company to chase an excess mileage charge?