If a MB customer is looking for a small car to get from A to B, it makes you wonder if the represents good value anymore, especially with some good deals to be had off scheme if the have have a decent credit rating.
Personally, I don’t think that the scheme has ever offered good value (financially) for small cars. Even with no AP, it’s still almost £10k cost over 3 years or over £16k for 5 years (which many are now extending to).
My daughter has been running a private Hyundai i20 Premium which I bought new and we’ve just chopped it in for a new Hyundai i20 Ultimate. Total cost for the whole life of the car including depreciation, insurance, servicing inc breakdown cover, maintenance, tyres and road tax has worked out at one third of the cost of running the same car through Motability over the same period – and that’s before you take into account the 10.1% increase in sacrificed benefits.
With Motability, as you sacrifice the same benefits for a £20k car as you do a £40k car, even with the sky high AP’s at present the percentage of the vehicles retail price that you pay to lease a runabout is significantly higher than if you lease a car at the top end of the scheme. We’ve only stayed in the scheme because our last few cars have been over £40k and it’s worked out cheaper over 3 years to run them through the scheme than privately. Had we been looking at £20k cars, we could have undoubtedly run them much cheaper privately
As most people don’t want high end cars, it is no surprise to me that two-thirds of those eligible to join Motability don’t, and source their cars (new or second hand) privately, or get around by other (cheaper) means. I fully appreciate that many Motability customers who insist on a brand new car every 3 years (and can afford to do that – given that the vast majority of the population can’t) may have no other route to achieving this than Motability, but for those who have options it most definitely is not the ‘no brainer’ that many would have you believe.