@Glos Guy did your 5 series come with insurance? I suspect that’s a large factor for those of us that live in cities. My Cayenne cost almost £200/month in insurance. The maths DO generally make sense for us on motability, but that’s due to the VAT free nature, not MO or their buying power.
Hi Capuchin. Insurance wasn’t included, but Fully Comprehensive insurance with protected No Claims Discount cost me less than £300 a year (I don’t live in a city, thankfully). As a combination of dealer, manufacturer and BMW Finance Discounts for the PCP and discount on options I got a total of £10k in discounts (25%). I negotiated a servicing plan into the deal, so had no running costs other than fuel and two tyres (£300). The car was obviously covered under warranty for three years. Road tax was the grand total of £30 a year. Obviously it would be more now, but those entitled to a Motability car can get free road tax on a private car anyway (we used to before we joined Motability).
When we retired my wife could no longer drive so two cars were pointless. I would have loved to hand back the Motability car and keep the 5 Series (Motability agreed that we could) but the 5 Series was a bit too low for my wife and it was a saloon, so getting the wheelchair in and out wasn’t as easy as an SUV. I paid off the PCP and sold the car privately, so had no issues regarding mileage or condition (tbh the car was immaculate, so it wouldn’t have been an issue anyway) but I appreciate that this wouldn’t be an option for many people.
To be clear, I completely understand that for the majority of Motability customers the scheme still offers an affordable and worry free way of driving a new car every three years (even though many now seem to end up with their cars much longer than that, which erodes the scheme ‘value’). I further understand that many Motability customers would not be able to go private even if they wanted to and even some that could have a fear or incorrect perception of other options. However, even if I was in one of those categories I could not turn a blind eye to the wanton way that Motability Operations lavish the sacrificed benefits of disabled people on all their staff whilst increasing AP’s and charging for essential adaptations. I am glad that I am not the only person who is able to join the dots and see that these two issues are directly related!