PH Service History: To lease or not to lease?
'For that price, you could get a...' is one of the most bandied-around phrases on PH. So, let's see how true it is.
If one totals the cost of a full lease term, it's a remarkable amount of money - effectively, as we know, you're paying for the depreciation on the car while you use it without ever owning it. The positive is that this puts a choice of tempting new machinery within the reach of those who wouldn't otherwise stand a chance of affording it.
Let's start with the Volkswagen Golf R, shall we? Seemingly loved and loathed in equal measure by PHers, the hot Golf has become hugely popular thanks to some extremely tempting lease deals. This one, over on our sister site What Car?, will sit you behind the wheel of a Golf R for an initial rental just shy of two grand and monthlies of £326.80. That works out at a total cost of £13,398.
Fancy something a little more potent? Course you do. How about a BMW M4? Another easy leaser, the M4 can currently be head with a down payment of £3277.38 over on What Car?, with monthlies of £546.23. Which is lovely, but for the £22,000 or so that three-year lease will cost you, you could get into a very tidy, low-mileage example of an E90 M3. And let's face it: that's just better, isn't it?
But perhaps sir or madam fancies something a little more family-oriented? Don't think for a moment that means going without a few toys, though, because a large part of the reason you see so many Range Rover Sports flying around the place these days is their leasability. (Is that even a real world? Probably not. I'm using it anyway.)
I was all set to throw you a common-or-garden diesel SUV here; something like an older Range Rover or a nice BMW X5. But then I spied this Audi Q7 V12 diesel for sale, and as this is PistonHeads, I simply had to give it a mention. These come up vanishingly infrequently, so even though it'll cost you the earth to fuel, and it's older and leggier than most of the other Q7s going for around its price, it's still a deeply appealing thing.
Before you're shot of me, here's just one more example. I've gone a little bit silly for this one, so you'll have to forgive me, but the fact is you can of course rent a bona fide supercar these days - and where would we be without the Audi R8 and its utterly delicious V10 engine? One of these will set you back £12,088.38 - that's just the down payment - with your monthlies over three years coming out at £2014.73.
How about an actual investigation into the costs? The average running costs of the used option, the cost of the loan to buy it in the first place (I'm sure few considering a lease have £22k sat around to drop on a used car).
How about explaining the positives and negatives of each option, mileage limits, modability etc?
The only good thing to come out of this article is presumably an internal tick box to say you've pointed a bunch of hits towards deals that benefit the company in a small way.
People tend to ask the same questions all the time and there's plenty of useful knowledge, calculations, etc.
If I am not mistaken, PH runs long term tests of older vehicles - why not see what those second hand vehicles cost to run over a 2 or 3 year period and then flip it around and see what that same money would buy you in a lease car.
Does that make sense?! (It's late and I've had a few drinks!!)
Yes folk go on about 2nd hand cars are less reliable but its not the 70s anymore most modern ish stuff if maintained accordingly can prove very reliable.It really is horses for courses but for me it has always been a case of if I cant afford it I don't have it but I can see the appeal for some who are desperate to get into a dream car on a lease
The example of the R8 in the article is stupid - no one is going to pay over £80k to lease one.
PCP in a nutshell and 99% of pistonheaders.
They however will fight to the grave justifying how they can afford it despite living in crap houses with crap furniture and decor.
If I am not mistaken, PH runs long term tests of older vehicles - why not see what those second hand vehicles cost to run over a 2 or 3 year period and then flip it around and see what that same money would buy you in a lease car.
Does that make sense?! (It's late and I've had a few drinks!!)
Also, the article itself wasn’t great and basically boiled down to “new cars are more expensive than used cars, especially if you tuck yourself up into a crap lease deal”.
Talk about a blinding flash of the obvious.
Certain cars you don't lease, such as an R8 as the desls never stack up. Yet the article never mentioned the £200 a month Golf R's that were around, or the £125 a month A4 deal, or the peanuts C4 Cactus deal. With the reight deals you pay less than you would in depreciation if you'd bought the car new.
And yes, used is less than new.
Most of the time.
Unless you get stuck with a big bill outside of the warranty period.
Yes folk go on about 2nd hand cars are less reliable but its not the 70s anymore most modern ish stuff if maintained accordingly can prove very reliable.It really is horses for courses but for me it has always been a case of if I cant afford it I don't have it but I can see the appeal for some who are desperate to get into a dream car on a lease
My preference is a 3 year old car as it's done a lot of depreciating by that point and the mileage is still fairly low.
What bothers me about buying a 3 year old car now however is that its difficult to find them privately. Most have come off 3 year PCPs and are sat in dealers so I can't assess the previous owner, and the car will be selling at dealer rates rather than private.
In addition, I see many so many drivers nowadays booting their car down the road on a cold engine because they simply don't care about looking after their car - they'll hand it back at the end of term and it's under warranty in the meantime.
In my (possibly old fashioned) outlook, despite improvements in reliability, PCP owners driving behaviour coupled with extended oil change intervals doesn't bode well for a happy second hand experience.
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