Does anyone here 'own' their car by leasing it? If so, why did you go that route and what do you consider the advantages/disadvantages to be? Is it much more expensive than buying?

If I was to sell my Elise and move to an S2K, do you think I should:

a) lease a brand new car for 12-18 months and pay

 

How about option c) if you are able to realise 13k on the Elise
c) PX Elise against MY02/MY03 - pay balance on credit card. Shuffle credit card debt for 18months between 0% introductory offers.

 

but

 

If you are self employed , speak with your accountant before doing anything , leasing can sometimes be more cost efficient with regards to the IR

 

Depends how long you are going to keep it and how many miles. At least if you buy you have the asset value behind you (albeit a depreciating asset). At

 

Busamav - I'm not self employed but that was a good point.

It's the depreciation thing that gets me. It seems a shame to lock that much money in a depreciating asset, but dws2000's points are all valid. Some careful maths needed I think.

Keep the thoughts coming!

 

If you lease, what do you have to pay for in ongoing maintenance? everything?

 

If you borrow money in any form, lease, loan, PCP, you're paying interest. So not being a PFA, but just plain common sense dictates that you want to borrow as little as possible, over as shorter period, at the lowest rate you can find. Of course there is a trade between all three to get a payment which suits the budget and covers the desired purchase.

Personal loans at the moment are the cheapest money you can find, Northern Rock are 5.6%, Sainsburys, Tesco +6% etc. Check them out. Never borrow money for a car over more than 5 years as a general rule. You may find borrowing more gets you a better rate. i.e

 

leasing is in general going to be more expensive because there is the finance cost and management overhead...however there are some cases it can work better than buying with cash, if for example the manufacturer is putting a decent subsidy into the deal via their house finance/lease company...i.e. hiding a retail discount within the lease, this protects the perceived street value of the car - mercedes have done this in the past when they need to shift some metal.