There’s no car faster than a hired car!!
Many many years ago, [a time before computerised tachometers, insurance gap risk and GPS] hiring a car was something like turning eighteen again. The world was your oyster and you wanted to hit the road and party like it’s 1999 [well, I think it actually was 1999 in my case]
My first hired car set the tone. We were travelling to a soul weekender so I hired a Ford Escort XR3i. For those too young to remember, the ‘i’ stood for injection. Which meant fast!
I remember picking up my mother from work and taking her back home before we set off on the trek up to Southport. After two or so minutes hugging the seatbelt like a comforter, she shouted....
‘Yo tun Stirling Moss’ where you aa-go so fast!
Alright, mum, sorry, I’m just not used to driving a car this fast as my 1.1 engine Fiesta requires me to put my foot down to get anywhere….
‘Me a beg you, no bodder with the heavy foot when I’m in the car’
That made me think, there’s no car faster than a hired car. But this isn’t the case with a leased car. In fact, it’s the opposite, you better protect that baby with your life.
Driving Miss Daisy
My mum [coincidentally also called Daisy] would have loved me driving her serenely in my current leased car. The Morgan freeman film from the 80’s is the best example of how the leased car driver is different from the hired car driver. In a leased car, you drive like a chauffer, in a hired car it’s more like a chauvinist!
You won’t see a hired car driver giving way in a tight spot. They’ll breeze past a bus like it’s a bike.
Goodfellas
A leased car is like a mafioso you owe money to. It invariably goes bad! Speak to the leased company and you’ll get something like this…
Had a problem with your job…'“ahh, sorry to hear that, I don’t care, pay me”
Got a scratch from little Jonny down the way - ahh, how is little Jonny? - I don’t care, pay me”
Covid - “ahh yeah, I heard about that, I don’t care, pay me”
Options, gimme options!
There are so many ways to get a car nowadays I can barely keep up but let's start with why I wanted a car in the first place.
Why? Well this one for me is easy. I wanted to drive a nicer car than I could afford to buy in cash outright. Simples. I wish!
Let’s break down the main options for getting me my ride…
1.Outright
2.Hire Purchase
3.Lease
4.Rent
5.Subscription
Outright is simple - you pay cash and be on your way with a car that’s just dropped 25% the minute you take it off the forecourt. But you own it for life. It’s all yours, so definitely the best option if affordable.
This can be done in outright cash terms or via a personal loan which is no directly tied to the car
Hire Purchase signifies the fact that you’re hiring the car until the end when you own it outright. Very similar to a mortgage in that if you don’t pay the bank/financing co. back they will eventually try to take your house. Same as with a car.
This model is well known from way back in the day and is still quite popular.
Car Leases became popular a decade or so ago as a new go-to-market method for many large car companies. With hire purchase, the car became yours after all payments are made, so the HP agreement was really just a loan financing deal.
The big difference here is that you are offered a myriad of options at the end of the lease
give the car back
buy the car at the resale value [as per market for that age, make, car]
use the value of the car to buy another car
Swap it out for another lease
This is by no means easy to assess. Unless you’re a car dealer you won’t have a great handle on what the car’s worth plus you’re likely to get done over in terms of repairs etc.
Here are the steps to getting a lease:
Need to pass a creditworthiness assessment as with HP
Before you sign up for a PCP deal, be sure you can afford to meet all payments over the whole term of the contract, which could last up to four years.
Need to pay a deposit, usually 10% of the value of the vehicle.
Rentals now come in two forms; super short rentals like ZipCar for a few hours or as little as 30 mins. And longer-term hire that we know and love through companies like Avis, Hertz etc.
Zipcar has less friction and is more automated but can get expensive if you need it all day…so works well for 3 hours given that there’ll be normally parked near your house.
Subscription is where you pay a set amount per month but are able to swap cars on a regular basis. It’s like you’re paying for A car, not Your car. Given that most cars of a type are pretty much of a muchness this works well for many who just need wheels.
Pretty much in all cases, mileage, damage and other sundries are taken into account at the point of signature.
In the rental model, there is less chance of haggling over the trivial scratch than there is with a car showroom that has limited space and salesman [or saleswoman, can’t be biased here] are looking to keep a sale and not have the car come right back to them.
OK, so where do I fit into this picture!
I always thought of myself as a sensible young [i’m no spring chicken, but I’m not old!] woman but guess what happened to me.
I will enlighten you with my story, so you think twice before you sign. When I turned 50 I decided to ramp up the excitement in my life beginning and make more changes to be happy.
I shopped around and chose to treat myself to an Audi Q3. It was expensive to buy so I thought I will lease it for a few years.
The deal felt so good at the beginning but when Covid started I wanted to end the leasing agreement and give the back the car and pay any penalties. To my dismay, this was not possible as they offered me a horrid deal.
Buy it outright from then now for £16k and then sell it privately.
Give them back the car plus £8K which obviously crazy.
I suffered it out and chose to keep the car. They deferred my payments for 6 months and then were extremely forceful for the payments to restart.
That’s not all, I recently serviced my car bearing in mind it’s only 6 years old. They informed me that the cambelt and NSF shock absorber needs replacing which will cost £1,500 to repair.
I’m so angry that a new car that only has 33,000 miles on the clock would need a cambelt replacing already! They are ripping me off I have decided to complain and take the matter further.
And I’m not alone…check out these similar complaints
…Cam Belt failure from Tootie
Hi, Wonder if anyone can give me some advice or know of any similar issues. My Audi Q3 2.o TDI 40.000miles, on a 14 plate recently had a cambelt failure. The car was 3years and 2 months old so just out of warranty.
And the moral of the story…
As with the financial crisis a few years back, finance makes estate agents look like mother teresa!
From the complicated legal docs to the shoddy customer service, leasing a car is like marrying a car dealer with a with an insurance salesman.
With this combination, somewhere in the very near future someone is getting roasted, and if it isn't them on the bbq, most likely its gonnna be you!
Take care for now Miss P