I think it all depends on what car you’re planning on getting off the scheme. There might not be much difference between buying a new small car compared to leasing it from Motability.
We’re looking to replace our X1 with another SUV, so it will be a £30-£35k car new. One car we’re looking at is £35k and has an AP of £4k. After 3 years it depreciates by half, then another £4-£6k after that when it gets to 5 years old. So in 3 years the car would depricate by more than what it would cost to lease it and that includes all servicing, insurance, tyres and breakdown.
Yes you have to find the money for the AP but the convenience of everything being included, not having to take out a loan or being credit checked and having 20k miles a year definitely makes the scheme still worthwhile for us. Plus you don’t have the hassle of trying to sell a car afterwards or getting shafted with the trade in value on a new car.
The only way we’d possibly save money is to buy something that’s under £5k but you would be looking at a 10 year+ car for that. There’s nothing wrong with older cars, I run a 19 and 23 year old car but do very little mileage in them so maintenance is low. If I did the 10k miles+ that the X1 does they would need more money spent on them, which could result in an unexpected large bill if something major needed doing.