I agree with Chrisk – if you’re the one using your Motab vehicle then you would know how you treated the car. In my case, I would buy back my Motab vehicle as I know how I’ve treated it and the fact that it’s been serviced every year. The faq link given by above poster has been there for some time and I’m assuming you can’t but it back after the lease period is complete as I contacted my dealer a few days ago and he told me that the best way is two weeks before exchanging for new one or returning existing vehicle, just ring Motab operations and ask for a purchase price and it would be less than the dealership price.
A few misunderstandings in this post. Firstly, you will struggle to find a car for sale at a main franchised dealer that hasn’t been regularly serviced, so that’s nothing unique. They only sell the best condition examples. Secondly, Motability will only pay for the minimum servicing requirements. To take Volkswagen as an example, during the pre delivery inspection the cars are set up for one of two servicing frequencies. Motability opt for the longer intervals between services. Other cars may have been serviced more frequently.
Next, just because you haven’t had any problems with your car is absolutely no guarantee that by buying it you will continue to be as lucky. When you buy a car from Motability you have no warranty whatsoever, which is a big risk. You only have to look at reliability surveys to see that certain cars are prone to known issues. In some respects, you might be better off buying a car that’s already had that issue and it’s been rectified than continuing to run your Motability car privately keeping your fingers crossed that it never happens to yours.
Your dealer isn’t really giving you the full picture. Firstly, many of us have asked Motability for a purchase price, only to find our cars for sale at dealers a few months later at a lower price. Secondly, even if the car was for sale at the same price (or more), you must keep in mind that you can negotiate with a dealer over the price, which you can’t with Motability. Also, the car will come with a warranty, which purchases direct from Motability don’t. It sounds to me as though the dealer has incorrectly assumed that you will be offered the car at the same price as they will. That’s not the case. The dealer is able to buy the car at trade price, allowing for the fact that they will have to prepare it for sale, offer a warranty and still make a profit afterwards. Motability customers are never offered their car at trade price. They ask retail. The difference is usually thousands of pounds more than the dealer would pay. As several of us have said, Motability ask us very high prices as a way of deterring us from leaving the scheme.
