Lease vs Depreciation of a Nearly New Clio

[PiztonHeadz]

Further to my first ever post, I was looking for a 2nd car primarily used by my pregnant wife though I'd be using it occasionally for work (so must be smart for superficial corporate reasons).

Criteria included 5 doors,sat nav, cheap insurance, for light city driving

The resulting contenders were the Clio, Leon, C3, Polo, Mazda 2. There's cash in the bank, so how do I work out which is the better deal - lease or buy? My dilemma is how do I calculate the DEPRECIATION vs LEASE formula?

I'm still undecided on which car, but let's look at the Clio (5k miles p.a.)

Renault Clio 1.2 16V Dynamique Nav 5dr
IF I LEASE - £4850 over 2 years
IF I BUY - http://bit.ly/autotraderClio £10,000. 66-reg but with only 10 miles on the clock.

So if I buy, and then decide to sell in 2 years, will this car depreciate by half in 2 years?? Is there a depreciation calculator somewhere or something? (I'm new to this)

[ANJ91]

This is a bad comparison because the lease deal is crap.

For that amount for 2 years you can lease a car worth £20k.

[PiztonHeadz]

Care to share an example of this awesome £20k car I can get for £5k over 2 years?

[wemorgan]

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[PiztonHeadz]

Thanks wemorgan, but I'd already been on that and I don't see any £20k for £5 over 2 years as the original replier suggested.

Rather than help me with my question, he just went off-topic, and not accurately either!

[PiztonHeadz]

I'm going to take back what I said. wemorgan I just noticed that deal on the Leon that you posted.

So using this as an example:

1.4 EcoTSI 150 FR
LEASE - £5k over 2 years
BUY - http://bit.ly/autotraderLeon . £20k. How do I know if I can sell this car in 2 years for at least £15k or not?

[wemorgan]

Use the CH&L website and search for Civic, Yeti, Leon. I don't know their rrp though.

[ANJ91]

Getting a car with £20k rrp for £5k over 2 years isn't that difficult.

Personally my 2 year lease comes in at £3600 for Vauxhall Astra Elite Nav £20k rrp. Of course there are discounts so new car can be purchased for less than 20k but after 2 years it won't be even worth £10k so it's a no brainer.

[Truckosaurus]

For the depreciation on the Clio just look on the Autotrader site for the price of 2yr old Clios, there will be hundreds of them so working out the average depreciation should be easy.

(My own personal view, without crunching any numbers, is that if you are looking to only own the car for 2yrs then leasing is going to be better 'value' than buying a brand new car. (but maybe not better than buying a 1 or 2yr old car)).

[ZX10R NIN]

Hi it looks like the Clio will lose between 2-3k if you put 20k on it over the next two years.

http://eu.hlserve.com/Delivery/Delivery.aspx?hm_CI...

[Jonno02]

ZX10R NIN said:

Hi it looks like the Clio will lose between 2-3k if you put 20k on it over the next two years.

Plus the £3,000 the dealer will knock off trade in value due to needing to make a profit.

[ZX10R NIN]

Who let's a dealer take 3k off of the trade in value & even if the dealer did this you'd just sell it privately.

[anonymous-user]

PiztonHeadz said:

I'm going to take back what I said. wemorgan I just noticed that deal on the Leon that you posted.

So using this as an example:

1.4 EcoTSI 150 FR
LEASE - £5k over 2 years
BUY - http://bit.ly/autotraderLeon . £20k. How do I know if I can sell this car in 2 years for at least £15k or not?

It's unlikely the FR would be worth £15K at one year old, let alone two. Going through Carwow I was offered a brand new FR for £18K from a main dealer. And renewing the insurance on my one year old diesel FR through the comparison sites, the 'suggested value' given was £13K.
I'm paying £5.5K to lease my car for two years, I'm certain that's less than it would cost me in depreciation

[Sheepshanks]

PiztonHeadz said:

Renault Clio 1.2 16V Dynamique Nav 5dr
IF I LEASE - £4850 over 2 years
IF I BUY - http://bit.ly/autotraderClio £10,000. 66-reg but with only 10 miles on the clock.

So if I buy, and then decide to sell in 2 years, will this car depreciate by half in 2 years?? Is there a depreciation calculator somewhere or something? (I'm new to this)

I know it's all about what you have to pay in pound notes but the comparison doesn't really work as you're comparing a new leased car against a used one.

Depreciation is calculated against new list and that car, I think, lists at about £14,500. So there's every chance it could depreciate by half in two years. However you're skipping a big chunk of that by buying used.

Of all the cars we've had in the family, a Clio was one of the worst for losing value. Paid £12K for a new 1.6RXE in 1998. We really struggled to sell if 5 yrs later and eventually got £4K for it. Issue was that you could buy a new base model Clio then for £5,500. Ours was (for its day) a very high spec but people don't care - the price just looked too high compared to new.

[PiztonHeadz]

That's much appreciated feedback all, thank you!

Based on this thread and other research, I'm veering off the Clio and toward the Leon.