640D depreciation

[daemon]

IATM said:

This is getting fking tiresome now.
EVERY
SINGLE
BLOODY
THREAD
ON
PISTONHEADS

Always ends up this huge battle of outright purchase vs finance purchase. Answer always fking ends at it's what suits that persons situation at that time.

Exactly!

Cant understand the "well it doesnt work for my circumstances, therefore everyone who takes out a PCP deal is wrong" mentality though.

[daemon]

converted lurker said:

I do 20,000 miles a year. I have indeed in the past bought 4yr old large engined bmw e39/e60's and taken them round to around 180,000 miles and now it's time for the f10 chapter of that. However, having now repaid my mortgage early I am in the position to change strategy and consider anything up to and including a broker sourced new 535d. Or maybe stick with a leggy f10 for £14k and add a used boxster to the garage and go down the two car route. Problem with that is the first 981 's are still in the mid 30's which feels like too much for a toy still and everything that isn't a 981 doesn't really float my boat sports car wise.

Personally - unless you really want to take a massive depreciation hit OR plan on keeping the car for a very long time, i'd go for an early F10. If you give £15K for it, you could pile the miles on for quite a few years and it still be worth £5K. Do that in a new car and you could take a £30K bath over the same period.

TBH you're never going to make a PCP / lease deal stack up against a cash purchase. The miles are too high and realistically BMW dont want a 60 or 70K high miler coming back at the end of a PCP deal that few dealers will retail.

However, that DOESNT MAKE IT WRONG FOR OTHER PEOPLE.

converted lurker said:

I need the oil price to drop sending the value of airline shares soaring. I'm fairly sure I haven't got any tins of custard in the house else I could take you a picture of one on the dashboard at 38,000ft later today - will a packet of prawn cocktail crisps do?

Just for reference, some of the traits of a Powerfully Built Company Director are "i'm considerably richer than you so i must be right", dropping in how much cash they have, how many great investments they've made, dropping in how high powered their job is, dropping in comments about their physique.

I'll leave you to ponder that. How did you describe yourself on another thread "Legs built like Will Carlings"?

converted lurker said:

You seem to think that the finance profits are subsidising the car sale profits. I can't understand this. The car cost the same to produce, the finance is and extra cost for BMW to supply - surely the two are added together and passed to you.

You still havent read what i said. If BMW make £10K on a cash deal, then maybe they're happy to make £8K on a car through a financed deal? ie, they'll absorb some / most of the costs themselves to get volume of sales. Thats bourne out by the "manufacturer contributions" you see put into these deals that a cash customer cant otherwise get.

converted lurker said:

The only way I can believe the finance route works is if the credit cost APR is lower than the cost of your mortgage or other debt costs which you would otherwise have to service with the cash that you do have for the term of the lease/hire purchase. Or if it's very close there may be some value in shifting some depreciation free fall risk onto the manufacturer which would have been useful during the period say 2007-2010.

Then i have some bad news for you - try buying and running say a M135i for three years for less than the PCP deal that was available, or a 640d on some of the deals that was available there too.

Its about the manufacturer subsidising the car - its not about "normal" finance. They OWN the finance company. They can do what they like - their finance divisions merely have to be a vehicle (no pun intended) to allow more customers to buy their cars.

converted lurker said:

So far I've openly negotiated the best price on a car as a straight purchase and then had my Dad get a quite for the same car on credit and each time there always seems a chunky charge for the credit option. There HAS to be a good reason why all the big shiny dealerships push the credit route so hard...

Then you're not looking at the right deals at the right time on the right cars for the right personal circumstances. Your big miles is whats killing the deals for you.

As i have said just because it doesnt work for YOUR circumstances doesnt mean its WRONG for other peoples.

Edited by daemon on Friday 2nd May 13:10

[daemon]

JNW1 said:

converted lurker said:

So far I've openly negotiated the best price on a car as a straight purchase and then had my Dad get a quote for the same car on credit and each time there always seems a chunky charge for the credit option. There HAS to be a good reason why all the big shiny dealerships push the credit route so hard...

I don't doubt what you're saying but for the vast majority of people the outright purchase of relatively expensive cars isn't an option because they simply don't have the capital to do it; the choice is between finance and not having the car (or a cheaper car) rather than between finance and outright purchase! Even for those that do have the capital available they may choose to put their money into an investment that appreciates rather than a car that depreciates; as others have said, it's all down to what suits individual circumstances.

I've never done a personal lease myself but if you land on a special offer for something you want they can appear quite attractive; if you can lease for two or three years and the repayments are similar (or less) to what the car would lose in depreciation over the same period I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to tie-up your capital and buy the car? Again, though, that may not fit for someone like yourself who chooses to buy a car, keep it for a while and put a lot of miles on it; however, it's more horses for courses rather than right or wrong IMHO!

+1

Totally bang on. Exactly it.

[daemon]

Jon1967x said:

I and others struggle with the notion that some here believe that finance means you can have your cake and eat it, and the cost of owning a car on say a pcp is massively cheaper than buying outright.

Totally agree with the rest of your post, however wanted to comment on this - I personally dont believe that finance means you can have your cake and eat it and PCP is massively cheaper.

Moreoften its not. Sometimes it is. Sometimes its about the same. Sometimes it doesnt really matter as it puts you into a car that wouldnt otherwise be on your financial radar (this is PH after all)

Its just about being open minded about options - or at very least being open minded to other peoples options and what works for them may not work for you.

[JNW1]

Jon1967x said:

In broad terms I agree although we just need to be careful of semantics. "Put their money into an investment that appreciates rather than a car that depreciates" could just as easily be written as "put their money into a car avoiding interest payments rather than an investment that may not appreciate if the stock market falls or gives bugger all interest in a cash account'

And nobody knows what the actual depreciation on a car will be until you come to sell it. Taking a deal with a GFV can move that risk to someone else but you pay for that.

I'd not a financial advisor but having some savings you can draw on if needed is sage advice learnt at the university of life so I'd never advocate pouring your last penny into buying a car but then I'd not advise anyone to stretch themselves on credit either. If your only sensible choice is finance then that's what you need to do if you're determined to own that car. I and others struggle with the notion that some here believe that finance means you can have your cake and eat it, and the cost of owning a car on say a pcp is massively cheaper than buying outright.

Point taken to some extent on the investments but I'd suggest anyone with surplus funds amounting to tens of thousands of pounds is likely to be able to find a better way of making that money work for them than putting it in a car!

In terms of depreciation, with very few exceptions cars lose money and you can have a pretty good stab at how much that's likely to be by looking at what used examples are fetching; not an exact science I accept but there's enough information available to form a reasonable view.

However (my turn for semantics now!) I'd actually dispute whether a lot of people actually want to own their car. Yes a lot of people want to drive a nice car but quite a lot of those people get bored and fancy a change after two or three years; therefore, if they've got the income to cover the repayments on a personal lease or PCP agreement, they're happy to (in effect) rent the car and keep repeating the process. Of course that's more expensive than buying outright and keeping a car for a lot of years but is it more expensive than buying new and trading-in every two or three years? I suggest not necessarily if you get the right lease deal and, as per my previous post, comparatively few have the cash to go the outright purchase route anyway!

[5to1]

JNW1 said:

Point taken to some extent on the investments but I'd suggest anyone with surplus funds amounting to tens of thousands of pounds is likely to be able to find a better way of making that money work for them than putting it in a car!

Not always

When I purchased my GC (shortly after release) I crunched the numbers and assuming 50% depreciation/3 yrs off the price I paid (I got a third of list) it worked out cheaper for me to just buy it. I already had money working for me in other areas/being risked in other areas, given I had excess funds and their were no exceptional finance deals/investments to offset cost of finance I chose to use my own cash for the car.

If i'd been buying 14/15 months later there were decent finance deals available (although the options I wanted closed the gap somewhat, as they would have been a straight write off over the term of finance) and I'd have kept my cash and taken finance instead.

I could have waited hoping a decent finance deal would pop up. I could have picked a different car, on which deals were available. I could have widened my choice by dropping options/colour choices/etc. But my rational was any car in this category would be extremely costly (financed or through depreciation) and so a financially irrational purchase. Therefore it was somewhat pointless to then try to save 10-15% by compromising and picking my second or third choice car, waiting for a deal that may never arrive, dropping options I wanted, etc.

If I'm going to drop IRO £8k/year on a car, I choose the car (cars) first, it really has to grab me and make we want it. Then I weigh up how to buy it, the options I want, etc and if I still want it enough to justify the cost. Whereas I have friends who IMO try to rationalise an irrational purchase. They want car X, but a deal is available on car Y so they buy that instead. They're still spending 90% of what car X would have cost, but they somehow feel they've got a deal by paying through the nose for something they didn't want as much (or skipping on all the options they did want).

[JNW1]

5to1 said:

Not always

When I purchased my GC (shortly after release) I crunched the numbers and assuming 50% depreciation/3 yrs off the price I paid (I got a third of list) it worked out cheaper for me to just buy it. I already had money working for me in other areas/being risked in other areas, given I had excess funds and their were no exceptional finance deals/investments to offset cost of finance I chose to use my own cash for the car.

If i'd been buying 14/15 months later there were decent finance deals available (although the options I wanted closed the gap somewhat, as they would have been a straight write off over the term of finance) and I'd have kept my cash and taken finance instead.

I could have waited hoping a decent finance deal would pop up. I could have picked a different car, on which deals were available. I could have widened my choice by dropping options/colour choices/etc. But my rational was any car in this category would be extremely costly (financed or through depreciation) and so a financially irrational purchase. Therefore it was somewhat pointless to then try to save 10-15% by compromising and picking my second or third choice car, waiting for a deal that may never arrive, dropping options I wanted, etc.

If I'm going to drop IRO £8k/year on a car, I choose the car (cars) first, it really has to grab me and make we want it. Then I weigh up how to buy it, the options I want, etc and if I still want it enough to justify the cost. Whereas I have friends who IMO try to rationalise an irrational purchase. They want car X, but a deal is available on car Y so they buy that instead. They're still spending 90% of what car X would have cost, but they somehow feel they've got a deal by paying through the nose for something they didn't want as much (or skipping on all the options they did want).

First and foremost I completely get your point about buying what you want; if you end-up with something you don't really want it's not a good deal in my book even if you did get it relatively cheap!

However, in terms of buying outright as opposed to using finance, given where interest rates are I'd have thought that you could make a relatively large amount (say £30k) work effectively enough to more than offset the interest costs on a loan for the same amount. Over 3 years a loan of £30k from my bank would cost me just over £3k in interest and I reckon I'd be better to use that credit facility to buy a car rather than use my £30k to purchase it outright. Why? Well, without taking silly risks I reckon I could invest the £30k to make at least as much as the £1.1k in interest the loan would cost me (and if I can then in my eyes I'm better investing my £30k cash and borrowing to buy the car rather than buying the car outright). In isolation the car obviously costs more but when you look at the wider picture it makes sense; even if you already have other investments working for you you'd surely want to make the best use of your capital and sinking it into a car isn't necessarily going to do that IMO!

[silverous]

So unless I'm misreading something, you are going to make roughly 10% net over 3 years on your 30k ? Or roughly 3.3% a year? So you are probably going to be bunging the 30k into some kind of equities I'd imagine to make that as I don't know of too many banks paying 3.3% after tax?

The 30k car I assume we are talking about it going to lose 15k over 3 years at least whichever way it gets bought, but if you buy it outright you are subject to getting the best deal with a dealer at the end whereas if you lease it you can just walk away.

Edited by silverous on Friday 2nd May 13:47

Edited by silverous on Friday 2nd May 13:47

[5to1]

JNW1 said:

First and foremost I completely get your point about buying what you want; if you end-up with something you don't really want it's not a good deal in my book even if you did get it relatively cheap!

However, in terms of buying outright as opposed to using finance, given where interest rates are I'd have thought that you could make a relatively large amount (say £30k) work effectively enough to more than offset the interest costs on a loan for the same amount. Over 3 years a loan of £30k from my bank would cost me just over £3k in interest and I reckon I'd be better to use that credit facility to buy a car rather than use my £30k to purchase it outright. Why? Well, without taking silly risks I reckon I could invest the £30k to make at least as much as the £1.1k in interest the loan would cost me (and if I can then in my eyes I'm better investing my £30k cash and borrowing to buy the car rather than buying the car outright). In isolation the car obviously costs more but when you look at the wider picture it makes sense; even if you already have other investments working for you you'd surely want to make the best use of your capital and sinking it into a car isn't necessarily going to do that IMO!

While I got a big discount it was still way more then £30k unfortunately

At the time I purchased it, I'd already maxed out my ISA allowances, had the level of exposure in property (both here and abroad) and currency (I earn in USD mainly) that I was comfortable with. I'd made some money on the fluctuations in the stock market (especially banks) and felt it was sensible to sit it out for a bit until I once again had a level head (IMO abnormal gains can affect your objectivity as an investor). And therefore had excess money which wasn't earning me much (and still did after buying the car). There were no finance offers available on that particular car (it was a very new model at the time and not many about) and unsecured finance was going to cost me more then I was earning on my own money.

I'm pretty careful with my money (I didn't grow up with money and I didn't make it overnight either, I spent my 20's working around the world while my friends were pissing it up after doing their 37.5hrs/week) other then blowing it on cars So obviously if the numbers were right I'd have no qualms in going lease/PCP. In this instance for this car, they weren't. And I was going to throw a massive wad on another car, simply because the finance numbers looked better. IMO too many people get caught up with the notional saving against the RRP, a price which no one ever really pays. I just care about what the car will cost me over ownership and if its worth it. Not that I'm driving a car with RRP of £80k because I could get it for £x/month or 30% off list, as I instead assume the true value of that car was never £80k to begin with.

If I'd bought it a few months ago, I'd have gone the finance route as their were some stonking deals around. But by that time I'd been driving it for over a year, hadn't seen any others on the road and it was still putting a big smile on my face every time I stepped out of the front door. Familiarity starts to breed apathy when it comes to cars for me, I have to assume I'll see more GC's over the next year or two and at that stage perhaps something else thats fresh and new will entice me to squander my money Hopefully this time it will coincide with good finance deals on that car, but since this is my one true financial vice, I'm not adverse to taking the hit on my own money if there aren't.

[JNW1]

silverous said:

So unless I'm misreading something, you are going to make roughly 10% net over 3 years on your 30k ? Or roughly 3.3% a year? So you are probably going to be bunging the 30k into some kind of equities I'd imagine to make that as I don't know of too many banks paying 3.3% after tax?

The 30k car I assume we are talking about it going to lose 15k over 3 years at least whichever way it gets bought, but if you buy it outright you are subject to getting the best deal with a dealer at the end whereas if you lease it you can just walk away.

Edited by silverous on Friday 2nd May 13:47

Edited by silverous on Friday 2nd May 13:47

I didn't say risk-free I said without taking silly risks but yes, given £30k I reckon I could make just over £1k/annum after tax!

[converted lurker]

daemon said:

"Just for reference, some of the traits of a Powerfully Built Company Director are "i'm considerably richer than you so i must be right", dropping in how much cash they have, how many great investments they've made, dropping in how high powered their job is, dropping in comments about their physique.

I'll leave you to ponder that. How did you describe yourself on another thread "Legs built like Will Carlings"? wink"

---

In context it was a posting about how I have - and don't wish to have - BMW sports seats in my next 5 series. A perfectly reasonable point made in a perfectly reasonable manner. I agree that it is distasteful to boast online in anonymity. However, it was you that questioned the veracity of my assertion that I would be better off just using £30 odd grands worth of cash to buy my next vehicle rather than credit. If you insinuated I was some sort of dreamer don't cry foul when this notion is rebuffed with the truth. I provide the following tin of custard (iPad improvisation) photographic evidence.





I can't accept your contention that BMW GB Ltd is happy to take a margin cut to finance customers 'to chase volume sales' that isn't available to non-finance customers. A sale is a sale and a margin is a margin. By using their credit which cost them close to 3% to buy for you on the bond market you are imposing a cost on the sale to the vendor. I cannot believe that it isn't in reality loaded back to the buyer somewhere.

Also, 20,000 miles a year is only marginally above average mileage for this sort of large executive car. Its not a shopping trolley and there are plenty of three year old cars with around 60,000 miles on them for sale and nearly all of them are trade sellers and many are BMW franchises. They offer PCP and all the other credit options on cars with 20,000 annual mile usage and more.

I understand some people will think that they can make more money off investing the £30k over three years than the interest to BMW would be on the same amount of finance. However, any profit on the investments would exceed my already used tax allowances so there would be 38% tax on the dividends and 28% tax on any capital gain. So in reality the typical 4% BMW interest charge needs a better than 5% gross annual return from the invested money to match. You might get that some years, I saw triple that last year, but -triple that in 2009. I would rather just have the car without the debt interest and forgoe the investment opportunity of the cash.

As was my original point, you only need to start saving up once to have the cash to never need finance again. 45 years of 12 nice cars every 3rd year on credit is going to be a lot more expensive than 45 years of one crap care and 11 nice cars every 3rd year paid for in cash.

I do happily concede that there are from time to time exceptional deals for unaccountable reasons on certain cars. I ended up getting quoted by Blue Chilli for one of the Golf R's they were peddling back in February time (mid life crisis tremors are getting stronger!) and it was surprising how the prices were cheaper than the Golf GTD at the time (sensible hat came back on) available.

I think its fairly niche, but quite Pistonheads, to be the sort of person who can react to such deals and go for them on a whim - fun though that I'm sure it is.

Shall we have a group hug now?


Converted

[HoHoHo]

converted lurker said:

Fair play to the man and a first with hand drawn custard albeit he doesn't drive a proper airplane, looks like an Airbus so not much better than a simulator

[converted lurker]

" Yes Mr Security Officer - I need to take this tin of yellow powdered substance with me through the security search onto the aircraft because some people on the internet I've never met want me to do it and take a photograph of it in flight. "


I didn't fancy that.

And I didn't have any custard in the cupboards.


You're right an Airbus isn't a real aeroplane and I will always prefer my days on the Boeings but it is a much more civilised office in which to spend a long day browsing Pistonheads (offline - but airborne wifi coming soon!)


Converted.

Edited by converted lurker on Friday 2nd May 16:38

[HoHoHo]

converted lurker said:

" Yes Mr Security Officer - I need to take this tin of yellow powdered substance with me through the security search onto the aircraft because some people on the internet I've never met want me to do it and take a photograph of it in flight. "


I didn't fancy that.

And I didn't have any custard in the cupboards.


You're right an Airbus isn't a real aeroplane and I will always prefer my days on the Boeings but it is a much more civilised office in which to spend a long day browsing Pistonheads (offline - but airborne wifi coming soon!)


Converted.

Edited by converted lurker on Friday 2nd May 16:38

I'm only joking, I'm not having a go!








Oh, aside from the Airbus comment




You should fly the A380, great wifi on those

[JNW1]

converted lurker said:

---

As was my original point, you only need to start saving up once to have the cash to never need finance again. 45 years of 12 nice cars every 3rd year on credit is going to be a lot more expensive than 45 years of one crap care and 11 nice cars every 3rd year paid for in cash.


Converted

I get a lot of what you're saying but it's been a long week and I have to confess I'm not quite following your point above! Are you saying that you save to buy a car outright once and, rather than paying out on a finance deal each month, you continue to save so that when you come to change in (say) 3 years your savings will cover the depreciation and hence you then have the cash to buy another new car? I can see how that avoids interest charges - in fact you'll no doubt accrue some interest on your savings - but I still don't see why finance repayments that equate to less than the depreciation don't make just as much sense (if not more)?

To use some numbers, if you buy a car for £40k cash and after 3 years it's worth £20k that's cost you £555/month in depreciation; therefore, assuming you want another £40k car after 3 years you'd have to save £555/month just to stand still. However, if you can do a personal lease for £555/month or less on the same car - and release your £40k capital for something else - isn't that a more attractive option financially? Picking-up on the title of this thread, I think going back a couple of years BMW were actually offering some very good finance deals on 640d's and from memory over a 2-year term the repayments would have almost certainly equated to less than the depreciation if you'd bought the vehicle outright (even if you'd bought with a sizeable discount). In those situations I don't see the logic of buying outright if I'm honest.....

[converted lurker]

The A380 I think of as the 535GT of the range, very large, well equipped, powerful, well made and very, tragically, ugly. I wouldn't fly one.

I also couldn't think of anything less pleasant than modern long haul flying. 13hr stints from one radar vectored ILS onto a long runway to another with the automatics in until the last 500ft and no visual flying at all. At least with short haul you get to pole it about a bit into the likes of Funchal, Innsbruck, Salzburg and all the other airports that feature on the 'worlds most dangerous airports' lists. I'm a BMW driver - it's all about the twisties for me.

Anybody truly interested in the depreciation curve of the 640d is going to be quite disappointed with this thread!

[Jon1967x]

JNW1 said:

Picking-up on the title of this thread, I think going back a couple of years BMW were actually offering some very good finance deals on 640d's and from memory over a 2-year term the repayments would have almost certainly equated to less than the depreciation if you'd bought the vehicle outright (even if you'd bought with a sizeable discount). In those situations I don't see the logic of buying outright if I'm honest.....

They probably took a punt that the residuals would be higher, and they're probably not. That said, 20 month old 6GC cars, 20k miles, are on forecourts for about 42k, take off a 4k difference between buy and sell so 38k, new ones with discount at broadspeed are 51k for an msport and that's a 13k hit - £650 a month.

[-Z-]

laingy said:

BMW push finance because they make money out of it. They loan you the money and it is secured on an asset (their assets), and generally on a 10& apr (in the small print). Easy money

Wrong, there is no interest rate. Not in the small print or anywhere else.

The price is £15k for 2 years. In this case (M5) this is less than depreciation. Hence cheaper than cash, you can't dispute that, it is what it is.

[Fox-]

converted lurker said:

I do 20,000 miles a year. I have indeed in the past bought 4yr old large engined bmw e39/e60's and taken them round to around 180,000 miles and now it's time for the f10 chapter of that. However, having now repaid my mortgage early I am in the position to change strategy and consider anything up to and including a broker sourced new 535d. Or maybe stick with a leggy f10 for £14k and add a used boxster to the garage and go down the two car route.

Forgive me for talking cars in this thread but I'm not sure £15k gets a decent F10 unless you want a pretty big miles 520d or similar which I'm guessing you don't. If you can bump up another £5k or so it gets you into the realm of decent 6 cylinder ones with sufficiently low mileage for BMW's warranty to not be quite as eyewatering as it would be on the higher milers.

Sorry, cash finance rabble finance cash

[daemon]

converted lurker said:

If you insinuated I was some sort of dreamer don't cry foul when this notion is rebuffed with the truth. I provide the following tin of custard (iPad improvisation) photographic evidence.

No. Again missing the point - there is a certain type of individual who cant help themselves but unnecessarily drop in about how much money they have, etc, etc to make themselves appear more important.

Sad really.

converted lurker said:

I can't accept your contention that BMW GB Ltd is happy to take a margin cut to finance customers 'to chase volume sales' that isn't available to non-finance customers. A sale is a sale and a margin is a margin. By using their credit which cost them close to 3% to buy for you on the bond market you are imposing a cost on the sale to the vendor. I cannot believe that it isn't in reality loaded back to the buyer somewhere.

So BMW dont sell more 3 series than Ford do Mondeos? Would that not be an indication that they are chasing volume sales?

I dont think they always pass on the full cost of finance and they most certainly push "manufacturer contributions" into finance deals - thats pretty much a given with their deals. They were also offering 0% there for a while, and as that was manufacturer backed it didnt impact the discount you could otherwise get. So where did your 3% cost go there??

converted lurker said:

Also, 20,000 miles a year is only marginally above average mileage for this sort of large executive car. Its not a shopping trolley and there are plenty of three year old cars with around 60,000 miles on them for sale and nearly all of them are trade sellers and many are BMW franchises. They offer PCP and all the other credit options on cars with 20,000 annual mile usage and more.

They do, but the real deals are when you take their headline offers - add in an extra 30,000 miles over a normal 10,000 mile pa deal and its going to hit the viability - as clearly you've found.

converted lurker said:

I understand some people will think that they can make more money off investing the £30k over three years than the interest to BMW would be on the same amount of finance. However, any profit on the investments would exceed my already used tax allowances so there would be 38% tax on the dividends and 28% tax on any capital gain. So in reality the typical 4% BMW interest charge needs a better than 5% gross annual return from the invested money to match. You might get that some years, I saw triple that last year, but -triple that in 2009. I would rather just have the car without the debt interest and forgoe the investment opportunity of the cash.

SIGH - again - "i'm considerably richer than yew..."

As i've said, clearly a PCP / Lease deal is unlikely to work for you because of the miles you do. It may well be the case that "it doesnt stack up". However, we are here talking objectively about PCP / Lease deals relative to depreciation costs, as opposed to subjectively looking at one particular scenario where it doesnt work and extrapolating that out across ALL peoples circumstances.

converted lurker said:

As was my original point, you only need to start saving up once to have the cash to never need finance again. 45 years of 12 nice cars every 3rd year on credit is going to be a lot more expensive than 45 years of one crap care and 11 nice cars every 3rd year paid for in cash.

And to do that you'd need to save for 7 years to get £35,000 gathered up (assuming £500 a month saving), then you'd watch that evaporate to half its value in three years.

Cant see the appeal personally.

converted lurker said:

I do happily concede that there are from time to time exceptional deals for unaccountable reasons on certain cars. I ended up getting quoted by Blue Chilli for one of the Golf R's they were peddling back in February time (mid life crisis tremors are getting stronger!) and it was surprising how the prices were cheaper than the Golf GTD at the time (sensible hat came back on) available.

Yup. There you go. Those "exceptional" deals I am sure dont confirm to your understanding of how finance works normally, so can you not also accept that its fairly clear manufacturers are subsidising the finance deals - or do you think its "magic"?

converted lurker said:

I think its fairly niche, but quite Pistonheads, to be the sort of person who can react to such deals and go for them on a whim - fun though that I'm sure it is.

I dont think its particularly niche. Granted the exceptional deals on 640ds and 135is come up once in a blue moon, but there are offers listed all over BMW, Audi and Mercedes websites showing £3K ish down and £300 a month for some relatively heavy duty metal.

And lets be honest, any subsidy they may put in to make a headline deal appealing is easily recouped from the profit on the extras that most people bung on.

Win / win really. They sell more cars, customer gets a great deal.

Edited by daemon on Friday 2nd May 19:13

Edited by daemon on Friday 2nd May 19:18

Edited by daemon on Friday 2nd May 19:46