However, Rene, you have made me think about it in a different way. Although we may not be offered a ‘cheap’ price for the vehicle at the end of the lease, it should be no more than ‘fair market value’ which, if you take the amount paid out by us over the 3 years plus the final lump sum, should not come to more than the original purchase price. So effectively, it’s like buying the car on 0% finance over 3 years. Would you say that’s a fair assessment?
I genuinely can’t answer that. I potentially could call our dealership on monday, and inquire with Ian (fabulous guy) about options for purchasing our current car (lease running out in march, and it’s our first mota-car). It all comes down to the price you’ll be offered at the end, if you get offered a price at all.
This would require you to trust that everything stays as is, that the dealership honours the agreement etc, though. To me, trusting anyone who makes money off of me is, well, it needs to be earned, lets put it that way. Now. If i’d do some (basic, and potentially misleading – this isn’t financial advice) math looking at the current situation..
There’s no “latest model” 3008 used around that are 3 years old, since the model itself only got released either this year or very end of last year. It fetches around £35.000 to £39.000 (ish), with the higher ones being basically new (less than 3000 miles, MY21 etc). Assuming we’re talking the GT300, not the GT225 (there’s no 3008 for £2750 AP, so i assumed GT300 plus dealership cashback). My best guess would be that the car will be around £28.000-£32.000 after three years (it’s hard for me to tell, since PHEVs lose value slower than normal ICE cars). If you get offered fair market value, i.e. around £30.000 for purchase, then effectively yes, it’s a bit like 0% finance for the first three years, if you then buy it. Keeping in mind that the “final lump sum” basically would just be the market value as a used car. Which would take the GT300 to, depending, to 13000 + 28000-32000. Which would be cheaper than flat out buying it, or leasing it privately.
The catch of course is that you’d need to gamble on the “fair market value”. If the used market in three years looks like it currently does, as in, a fiery mess with prices soaring, then it might be close/financially unwise.
It’s the gamble part that would discourage me personally.
Another option entirely would be to run your current car for the next three years and “pocket” the mobility portion of PIP. You’ll be saving up £13000 over the next three years. Put another 7k towards it via loan, and there’s a good range of very decent, used cars available for purchase.
Just as a thought. I am in a different situation than you, i can only speak for myself – for us it wouldn’t make sense to buy a car right now, and in fairness, we wouldn’t want to buy our current car either (few issues here and there).
One other thing: make sure you actually could purchase the car after an early termination in the first place, i’m not 100% certain that this would be the case. I know you get your money back pro rata (both AP and good condition bonus). The webpage says this:
in case of an unsuccessful reassessment, but i can’t comment on how accurate this information is (despite being from their webpage directly).
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.