Finance repo's

[barefoot]

I can't add much to this thread since I have only bought three cars, a Chevette and two Cavalier 2's using loans.

They were all newish and all lost so much money when I sold them that I swore I would never do it again. So in 94 I bought a seven year old 944 and in 96 I bought a seventeen year old T2 and I still have them. I have subsequently bought and sold a Trabant and bought a Scirocco.

[cort16]

This thread started at 64.4% APR but is now at 0% interest.

[Justin Case]

There is nothing wrong with finance as such, I've had cars with HP, bank loans, and in one case an overdraft, although most have been bought outright. What I can't get round is the idea of buying a new car (or getting one on PCP) every three years. I've only had four cars in the last 23 years, the present one for five and I plan to keep until either it or I die (hopefully the former )

A friend is on his fourth lease (PCP?) car in the ten years since he changed jobs and lost his company car At say £250 a month he must have shelled out over £30k and still has nothing to show for it. I have shelled out approx £16k net over 12 years and had a newish Alfa Romeo and a newish Mazda 6 which is still worth about £3k.

 

Two cars over 12 years is probably not the Autoshite way but it means I can have a decent car without needing finance

 

Disclaimer:  like every one else here I believe that my way is the only one that makes any sense at all.

[Mr Lobster]

I've no problem with new cars or with finance if the circumstances are right. That said all our cars were bought with cash money rather than finance. Against that I'm half thinking that we might end up with something new(ish) next year and the thought of something small on a £100 / month PCP does have some appeal and given it could be run through the business does make moderate financial sense.. Beyond that though and it doesn't make any sense.

 

If people want to finance their car and and can afford it then thats their business. A friend has a leased Merc at £350 or so a month which he will hand back after three years. Personally that seems like a massive waste of money but he can afford it and is happy with it so all is good.

 

It does puzzle me to see all the ads for new stuff at that sort of money though and I do wonder who looks at a car with a couple of grand deposit, payments of £3-400 per month then a few grand baloon at the end and thinks that its a good idea though. 

[brickwall]

As I drive around, I have for years asked myself the same question, that is, How many of these 'nice' new cars, esp the bigger fancy-nancy ones like SUV/4x4's are actually OWNED by their 'owners'? By owned I mean they don't have any sort of finance outstanding. IMO, I'd bet a weeks money it's not a big percentage.

 

Hearing that cash sales are rare or even pretty non-existant is not a great surprise. I'd heard it's long been the case that dealers only want to flog stuff on finance as the profit margin is way better than a cash sale, the kickbacks from the finance companies are that good.

 

 

Company cars make up a great portion of new car sales in the UK. I think the others see people driving these things and feel they have to have the same, but pay through the nose.

[Taff]

As I drive around, I have for years asked myself the same question, that is, How many of these 'nice' new cars, esp the bigger fancy-nancy ones like SUV/4x4's are actually OWNED by their 'owners'? By owned I mean they don't have any sort of finance outstanding. IMO, I'd bet a weeks money it's not a big percentage.

 

Hearing that cash sales are rare or even pretty non-existant is not a great surprise. I'd heard it's long been the case that dealers only want to flog stuff on finance as the profit margin is way better than a cash sale, the kickbacks from the finance companies are that good.

 

I explained this to my son, who had asked why everyonr else had a new car and I didn't. It took a while for it to sink in that probably very few of his friends' parents actually owned the cars they drove

[Bear]

One final thing:

 

Last brand-new car I had was the C3 Airdream+ which was a result of getting so pissed off with the C6 that I went back to the dealer with it and said "take it back, wrap up the negative equity in the cheapest thing you've got and never let me see it again". I even left the C6 cherished plate on it - it's still got it apparently.

 

The one good experience I've ever had in a Citroën dealer was the result. They got a stock order C3 that had a list price of £15,510, discounted it massively, gave a fair price on the C6 that wiped out the outstanding balance, stuck the usual "mats, flaps, fuel" deal together with servicing, and got it all done very rapidly. Only downside was that I couldn't choose the colour, so it was another sodding grey car.

 

Zero research beyond driving one on a test drive, so when it arrived there was a lot of surprise & delight. First, it wasn't anything like as badly put together as the mid-2000s C3/Pluriel etc. and the driving position was spot on - car bloat has advantages for footwells. Second, the big windscreen was awesome.

 

Then I discovered it had zero-rated VED. But that also delivered something else.

 

Company car drivers would find BIK much better on a car with 99g/km emissions back then. Even more interesting was that the cost of the car was 100% allowable on Annual Investment Allowance. The whole car cost could be written off. Massive, massive bonus, particularly when self employed.

 

And it was utterly painless to own. Unlike the C6, it never broke down, it was amazingly economical and impressively quick, geared for relaxing motorway driving too, had plenty of space (boot was a bit small) and stayed looking good for the 3 years. When time came for the PCP ending (and finally escaping the clutches of PSA), I sold it for £1200 more than the settlement and paid the settlement.

[chaseracer]

...the sheer volume of good shite going one way was staggering, lots of prime chod went to Africa, and then there's the east europeans taking good prime stuff home with them...

 

What sort of chod?  Japanese/Korean?  at Merc>  German...? 

[rovamota]

I suppose some of us forget that we have a garage full of tools and a few years of mechanical knowledge either inherited from our parents or picked up through hardship, so we just get on and fix any issues as needs must. But for the most modern car buyers, a 7 year warranty on a new Kia, with a few percent finance is all they need .

 

Having said that, the clutch went on my MG ZT last November so I spent £500 getting it fixed by a garage. It's a shit job and I couldn't be arsed.

[Coprolalia]

 

Shall we all migrate back to rovamota's excellent wedge post?

 

 

 

 

 

[gordonbennet]

What sort of chod?  Japanese/Korean?  </looks at Merc>  German...? 

 

Landcruiser Colorados, square Volvo 850/V70 saloons and estates, Toyota Camrys stuff like that and oddly enough Pug 406's but really any decent tough used motor was fair game, German cars didn't feature particularly highly nor did Solihulls finest , course these would have been 5/10 years old i suppose at the time, good proper motors that might not be the best on fuel but were known for being durable and strong.

 

There was always a market for square Mercs, years before when they were still current i regularly used to collect E and S class 124/126's from various dealers all round that there Lundun and drop 'em off at a container handling site in Barking where they were, well, containered and shipped out.

[garbaldy]

Landcruiser Colorados.

None of the traders I have delt with want my colly they snapped my hand of with the land cruiser 80 though.

[gordonbennet]

None of the traders I have delt with want my colly they snapped my hand of with the land cruiser 80 though.

Remember i'm talking about 7/10 years ago when the Collies would have been about 5/8 years old, start of the recession when cars were being bloody given away, i bet the African lads couldn't believe their luck picking up good L/C's for peanuts.

 

Collie isn't everyone's cup of tea, but i like mine a lot, it's a good fairly simple replacement (with a couple of known and easily remedied weaknesses) for the 70 series i had, i'd like a 100 but TBH they're a bit too bloody complicated what with the air suspender and brake issues but Christ don't they still fetch some money,  105 (80's true replacement) as rare as hens teeth over here.

[Felly Magic]

I'm seeing and hearing about a shitload of these PCP deals having tiny miles limits per year, some as low as 6k, and you go over this, you are stung royally per mile, and I don't think many of the idiots who sign on the dotted line for their Pauxhall Fridge Freezer realise this

[DodgyBastard]

Who are all of you people???? All new cars are shit. Am I a member of some kind of beige pistonheads???????????

[Bear]

I'm seeing and hearing about a shitload of these PCP deals having tiny miles limits per year, some as low as 6k, and you go over this, you are stung royally per mile, and I don't think many of the idiots who sign on the dotted line for their Pauxhall Fridge Freezer realise this

 

Consumer ones, definitely - used to be 10K was the norm, now 6K, and massive up front.

 

I used to get 20K allowances on contract hire, but because I'm addicted to having all manner of cars, didn't use it. With the RX8 I considered the extra cost to have 20Kpa, vs. the 4ppm charge over (+VAT) and it wasn't really worth it.

 

Like everything - be savvy, shop around, and you'll be fine. When they advertise a new Freelander for only £299/month (then in fast-smallprint style explain the deposit is £6495, mileage is 6K, balloon is something insane) then yes, I really think people are crazy to do it. When you're looking at, say, a Peugeot 208 at £129/month, £129 down, with servicing, insurance and so on - or better yet, there's a good dealer contribution so the more desirable car ends up with your old worthless heap as full deposit (usually £4-5K on £15K cars when they do these) - figure it out. It's not necessarily a bad deal.

 

Car finance gets less sensible the higher up the food chain you go. £99/month for 7 years for a Kia with a 7 year warranty and you own it outright at the end, so mileage and so forth isn't an issue, that's under £1200 per year - which I'm sure many of us have managed to (enjoy) throwing away at a series of bangers with the occasional good luck and the occasional "oh FFS" for the mental space. Opposing that, when I wanted a new Chrysler Voyager so went to get figures, the £659/month for a £28,000 list car (either dealer or contract hire) was hilariously awful value. You could get an Aston Martin for the same contract hire deal.

 

It's much easier to be smug about a beautiful £2,500 sporty car giving 3 years of reliable, pleasant service when you know in-depth what the alternatives are - and better yet when it's a thing like a £500 Xantia doing the same period.

[Partridge]

I can never understand this. Getting yourself in the shit for a couple of months because you bought a stupid old broken car is one thing, but for 5 years? Not only that but with old shite, if you really screw up you can flog it/bridge it and get back what you paid or some of it. I much prefer having assests that I own and can liquidate if I need to.

 

Finance sends shivers down my spine...

[Bear]

It's not just money, it's time. A lot of people end up with jobs that mean getting up at 6am, commuting to a station around 6:30 like every other bugger where they live so it's a 10 mile, 40 minute drive, then a train to work, then a longish working day that is mentally exhausting, then same thing in reverse to get home around 7-8pm, then you gotta eat.

 

Add to that the variables of "kids" and "not being a car person", and a broken car becomes a source of significant stress and expense. Let's say the car does something entirely reasonable and needs a clutch at 120,000 miles. You've got to get it to the garage, you've got to find £400-500 to pay for the work, chances are something else like a subframe bolt or gearbox linkage or similar will need doing*, taking a taxi to the station costs £20 each way. That one repair which has added nothing to the value of your car has just cost six months of a cheap PCP/finance car.

 

Car enthusiasts don't necessarily see the sense in finance deals because we a: like cars and like tinkering, and know how to buy them without getting too much unexpected shit, and probably quite enjoy the excuse to find something different when they do grenade, and b: don't want to be tied in to the sort of dull tedium you get for sensible "car as appliance" money. If you could get a new Mustang 5.0 Convertible for £99/month I suspect we'd all be queued up outside the Ford dealer, driving licence and two utility bills in hand - conversely, if someone came bouncing up and said "Hi, here's a brand new Citroën C1/Aygo/108 - FREE! All you have to do is drive it and not your other cars" we'd tell them to piss off.

 

ETA: What I don't understand is why people in those positions go and buy something like an Evoke/Juke/A3 for enough money to buy a banger a month, only to spend one and a half hours in crawling miserable traffic then dump in a car park to stress about it getting dented.

[rovamota]

Mind you, there are quite a few people who spend a lot of time listening to the schmooze being spewed out by the salesman, then they take a test drive, agree a p/ex value... and then get turned down for finance. All dealers are offering great finance deals on their cars but you have to meet 100% of the criteria to get that £199 a month deal offered by the manufacturers finance. Otherwise the dealer will try and dump you with a finance broker that will do it, but nowhere near at the cheap rate advertised and in your desperation to have that shiny new car, you'll sign. 

 

As I said before, nothing wrong with finance as long as you really can afford it not just now but for the next 5 years when your overtime has been cut, the mortgage interest rate has gone up and your wife's having an affair and wants a divorce.

[Bear]

The biggest killer for anyone running an old car and not being able to DIY catastrophes is that mentality that "it's only £200 car, awesome" without paying attention to everything else.

 

For example, when I get the Honda, I could then go get new brake discs & pads & battery sorted. £200. Then the exhaust, that's going to be £400 at least. If I cared about how it looked, wheel refurb, £100. Then add some labour and a service - oh, yeah, the ABS sensor, that'll be a few quid. And probably £30 on soap, leather cleaning, etc. - Oh, yeah, timing belt/water pump/tensioner kit too... Another £100 or so no doubt.

 

I could do all that, shoving it on the credit card, particularly if I weren't car savvy and paying someone to do the work, that's going to be four hours or so on all of the jobs, and we're staring down a £1K bill.

 

But my brain is still saying "Cor, your £200 car is doing awesome service", meanwhile there's £1K on a credit card costing £60/month on a 19.5% APR minimum payment that just hangs around until I can afford to wipe a chunk off, at which point there's no money for the next failure on a 130,000 mile 16 year old car - radiator? Heater matrix? Suspension bushes? Something electrical? Could be anything.

 

But it's okay, because the car isn't on finance and only cost a couple of hundred quid...

[sierraman]

That's a bit of a negative outlook. You are working on the worst assumption with the banger and the best scenario with the new one. Don't forget with the new one you are inevitably having to fork out for £2-300 services annually.

[Bear]

I'm working on 23 years and over 150 cars experience, not assumption, and it's not best case scenario so much as "If you need the reliability of a new car because you're clueless and on a constrained budget, get the cheapest deal you can with the best warranty/servicing packages and don't even think what the actual car is". If you want a brand new Audi A4 and you have to fire yourself into shitloads of debt, you're crazy, but if there's a fantastic deal on pre-reg SEAT Exeos and you can get one dirt cheap on low APR, grab it, sure.

Most cars have two-year intervals now, and if you can't haggle free servicing for the duration you're not trying very hard. Cheapest car I had to maintain was the RX8, which cost £85 for the first (12,500, IIRC) mile service and I saw them do it - not only did it get the oil, filters etc., they really did go around lubricating the hinges & locks, checking the bushes & tyres and so forth.

 

Besides, if I didn't DIY, any car will need £200-300 services annually. Brake fluid every two years and oil & filter change every year - most places charge £50-75, sometimes more, for a brake fluid change and they're not going to accept liability when a 15 year old never-molested-for-10-years bleed nipple shears off, so either they'll bodge it and the job won't be done right, or you're in for a couple of hours labour stripping the caliper, drilling out, cleaning threads and so forth.

 

I'm not working on the worst assumptions at all there - that list of things covers what we know the Accord needs - discs (pads are a given if you're doing that), ABS something, a timing belt (75-105,000 miles depending on which forum you trust, and it has a balancer belt too), exhaust with mystery Lambda wiring and wheels that look like 16 year old alloys. And it's entirely reasonable to expect a 16 year old car in the UK to have sufficiently corroded radiator that it would need replacing at some time in the next 20,000 miles, and thermostat, and pipes might have aged (still remember the day the top hose let go on my Legacy 4Cam Turbo as a police car was going the other way - engulfed us both in a cloud of steam).

 

Yes, you can get a cheap car and it'll last ages, and for us, we're used to listening out for things, feeling things, we know what the car is up to and how critical/dangerous a failure is - we known scratchy brakes are probably just really neglected pads, or a stone or just rust from lack of use. Take that knowledge away, "car's making a funny noise when it brakes" - take car to Kwik Fit or somewhere - bill for £600 "They were all shagged".

[tooSavvy]

Like everything - be savvy

Ahem! no way.....

 

 

TS

[sierraman]

Find me a brand new Accord at £200 a month. I don't know of any one who, without fail gets £200 worth a month of grief in the pocket.

 

In any case these cheap deals won't last much longer when interest rates rise. That £99 will be more like £150.

[Bear]

Bank of England today suggested interest rates will have to fall slightly.

 

And no, you don't get a new Accord for £200/month, but you're slightly missing the point there. The people that go for cheap finance deals and aren't car-savvy enough to run a banger without it biting them don't want "A Honda Accord" or whatever, they want reliable transport at the lowest cost. If they weren't pandering to that market do you think the old C1/107 would ever have sold in the numbers they did?

 

And no, it might not be £200/grief a month, but it might be £1000 when MOT time comes. Or £250 recovery fee when it shits itself in the middle of a contraflow, then £130/day "storage charge" by the helpful place they towed it to, or "Yeah mate, I'll sort it, £500" because the AA cover takes you to the nearest garage and of course, it's either a main dealer or an indy who specialises in making a lot of cash off overheated/blown transmission/whatever captive market cars dropped there by recovery drivers.

 

My sister is of the "why do you spend so much on your car" mindset, when another £130 box of parts for my SLK is ordered, or I discuss all the work I put into the black Sera when I got it from them (over £1200 on refurbishing the doors and rebuilding the SLSS system with upgrades), whereas I don't understand her "Use it until something breaks but why does it cost £800 at the MOT, fucking old cars" mindset.

 

Right now I can find Fiat 500 1.2, Ford Fiesta 1.5 DCi, Smart ForFour, actually, loads of options, Seat Ibiza - on personal contract hire. The standout deal is, once again, the Citroën C1 on 3+35 10Kpa - £330 or so down, £110.pennies per month, including VAT. You want a really surprising one - if you've got a grand to chuck at a potential minefield banger (like, say, my E-class which cost £900 and whilst I now know it's just needing a filter, managed to do every impression of a blown, £2K+ to fix, autobox after just 2,000 miles of use) then that same grand gets the deposit out of the way on a brand new Citroën C4 Cactus 1.6HDi - economical, warranted, low road tax, etc. - for £78/month inc. VAT for a year. Then you hand it back and get another new car, or whatever, having had a calm year of no unexpected nasties.

 

Want something bigger? Okay, it's no Honda Accord, but you can get a Skoda Superb Estate 2.0 diesel SE Business for £160 inc VAT, 9+23 two year deal (8Kpa, though) - an A3 Diesel Sportback is £200 on the nose on 3+47 10Kpa. Four years of reliable, warranted, status-acceptable, dull as fucking dishwater car for £2,400 per year, then you just hand the bugger back.

I am sure plenty of people can go "Fucking hell, £2400 per year" - I know I did when I started working these things out logically - but all the reasons above on the example of the Honda, or the state of my E320, or the loss of £7K-£1500 in 18 months by trying to buy a 'used' car that 'saves money' and the £1500 it was worth had been spent fixing the bastard thing... every trip to the other end of the country for a banger is £100+ on train and fuel and snacks. Every afternoon hanging about to get worn tyres sorted, or fix brakes. Every £howevermuch you spend per month on AA cover rather than the car having manufacturer provided backup. All adds up.

I'm not arguing that everyone should do this. I don't want to do it, I'd rather blow £3K a year on buying, fetching, fixing, losing money, enjoying bangers than have a sodding Audi A3 diesel because it's only a little bit more than a base-spec C1 - but I absolutely see the sense and rationale behind it and understand why people do it without being stupid, or feckless, or not clever with money. There are good and bad deals with everything and dismissing treating a car as a monthly expense without scrutinising the figures thoroughly is silly. I've got examples of cars that cost me very little and did sterling service for a long time, but they are vastly outnumbered by the rusted to fuck, by the blown gearbox, by the every consumable item failing at once, by the "Oh fuck, why is that needle there"s.

 

Even I'm getting bored of this now

[Lacquer Peel]

 

Not all of us spend rakes of money making our crap old cars perfect, I'm just happy if it's nice to drive and of an MoT test standard. I've owned my crap old Volvo since the start of the year and have barely spent £150 on parts.

[sierraman]

Why don't you get one then?

 

I say all this but I've the mind set I'm arguing against when it comes to houses. All these folks that go 'it's £50 cheaper a month than when I was renting'... But what about when the boiler packs in?

[scaryoldcortina]

.. you use the £50pm you've been saving up to fix the boiler with?

[pshome]

worst AS thread ever.....

[Bear]

.. you use the £50pm you've been saving up to fix the boiler with?

 

Ah, misread there.

 

TBF I was a "MUST OWN HOUSE" thing until the boom & crash. And when the boiler packs in in houses I've rented, I've fixed it myself unless it's been on the gas side. Always the bloody PCBs/ignitors and fans.

 

Outside of London/city centres, I reckon the rents houses get are a lot closer to what they're really worth. In Tamworth a 4 bed detached on an estate with a shared drive (you can guess how appealing that was, neighbour rows guaranteed) was £1200/month - but the asking prices of the houses were £500,000+, which I think put the mortgage over £2K/month if you could even get it at all and had 20% deposit. Madness.

 

But the other comments, "Why don't I just get one" - I've BTDT. I don't have kids or a job to commute do, it's easier for me to do bangers than people who do have those things.

 

And yes. I've had the cars that cost pennies for most of a year - but they don't always do that. The SLK gets proactive maintenance because I'm OCD about it - but the Accord will also get stuff done in advance because the role assigned is "failsafe winter car". The MGF, I did what I had to to make it run, and got most of the year out of it but without welding and stuff, it will fail the MOT.