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Hi guys, I’m currently driving the 21 seat ibiza fr. My sons motability needs have changed to the point where he wears bulky leg splits to keep his balance. I’m in a situation where there’s not enough leg room in the vehicle as its only a compact car. So he struggles to get out and I’m desperately in need of getting a slightly bigger car. From what I’ve seen, the seat leon is the best alternative for me, as the vehicle is from the same brand and offers amazing tech and practicality. I’ve just had a look at the Q1 price list and it’s absolutely astonishing. The leon (which once was £800) is now just under £4,000! Like what am I suppose to do now?!
I know the global chip shortage has had a big impact on the market, but surely motability can find a way to reduce the APs. Like seriously the prices for SEAT are higher than something like a BMW.
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I paid £150 for my FR Sport 150bhp this time last year. I actually cannot believe the price its at right now.
Are Seat just trying to put people off buying it due to them suffering hugely with chip shortages?
Whatever the reason prices are madness.
HI Ali. You are spot on. We ordered a top spec BMW X1 through the scheme just last year. It has a powerful 2.0 litre engine, four wheel drive, auto, full leather etc and retails at nearly £40k. The AP was £2,749 although we negotiated a big discount off that with the dealer. In much less than a year, most of the best cars on the scheme have disappeared and the AP’s of those that remain have just got silly.
I don’t feel that the high AP’s can be attributed solely to the chip shortage. This tends to affect lead times and whether or not the car is on the scheme, rather than the AP. Vehicle prices have increased, but probably by around 5%, so an increase in AP’s of around 5% would be understandable, but many AP’s have sky rocketed, even for very modest cars.
I can’t help but feel that there’s some profiteering going on at Motability Operations. They are currently benefiting from resale values of returned cars being anything up to 30% more than they had anticipated when setting the AP’s. I’d hazard a guess that the average resale price of a returned Motability car is around £15k, so they will be benefitting to the tune of up to £3k per car at present. Why can’t this windfall be used to lessen the current AP’s? All we get is a £60 insurance rebate, which is welcome but only reflects around 2% of what they are saving!
The added win for Motability Operations is that the unaffordable AP’s are forcing many customers to extend leases to 5 years, which is highly profitable for them. No capital outlay to buy a new car and less depreciation in the 4th and 5th year. Yes there will be servicing & MOT costs plus tyres etc, but this will cost them well under £1k, yet Motability customers will be handing them another £6k in sacrificed benefits.
All of this adds up to a torrid time for Motability customers at present whilst Motability Operations staff will already be looking forward to what will most likely be record bonuses this year!
Hi guys, I’m currently driving the 21 seat ibiza fr. My sons motability needs have changed to the point where he wears bulky leg splits to keep his balance. I’m in a situation where there’s not enough leg room in the vehicle as its only a compact car. So he struggles to get out and I’m desperately in need of getting a slightly bigger car. From what I’ve seen, the seat leon is the best alternative for me, as the vehicle is from the same brand and offers amazing tech and practicality. I’ve just had a look at the Q1 price list and it’s absolutely astonishing. The leon (which once was £800) is now just under £4,000! Like what am I suppose to do now?! I know the global chip shortage has had a big impact on the market, but surely motability can find a way to reduce the APs. Like seriously the prices for SEAT are higher than something like a BMW.
Ali – I don’t know if it’s big enough, but the new Ford Focus has just come onto the scheme today and AP’s are very reasonable for once. I’m a great fan of the Focus. They have always been superb cars to drive and you can get a top spec Vignale version, even with the sporty ST-Line trim, for just over £1k. If we were in the market for a mid sized hatchback on Motability then this would be what I would go for in a heartbeat.
The profiteering can only be down to decisions by the recently appointed CEO who is probably rubbing his hands with glee at the thought of his next bonus payment and pension top up.
The way in which the scheme is being run these days is bordering on criminality seeing as they are only in business on the basis of providing help to the disabled motorist.
It will be interesting to see if anything comes from the investigation going on in Scotland.
We paid £950 advanced payment in March last year, today the AP is £2500.
We paid £950 advanced payment in March last year, today the AP is £2500.
That’s a 263% increase. You can be sure that the retail price of the car hasn’t gone up 263%.
I think what has happened is Motability have begged the manufactures to put cars back on the scheme with its cupboard being almost bare because manufactures have removed them because they can’t make them so the manufactures have said well OK we will put some back but where hiking the AP’s to deter us from ordering the cars.
The trouble is were the ones being taken for a ride, as its been said, retail prices are not going up as fast as the AP’s.
Motability answer is to just shrug it off saying its OK folks because we will extend your lease and that’s all very well if your car is still suitable and besides that, we pay a premium for having cars for 4 or 5 years.
Taking an example of how were being taken for that ride and although this example is not on Motability at the moment it is in the VW Motability price list and that example is the VW Tiguan R-Line Plug in Hybrid version as matched against the bog standard non Hybrid R-Line. The retail difference in price between these two power trains is about £4,500 and the difference between the AP is £4,000 there about.
So going on those numbers we as Motability customers are paying the full premium of this car and yet its Motability who will profit, and yes there will one hell of a profit when the car is sold on in 3 years time.
I don’t know about rebates for insurance but I think some consideration should be taken on board for rebates on AP’s should those prices be found to be artificial inflated.
The trouble is were the ones being taken for a ride, as its been said, retail prices are not going up as fast as the AP’s. Motability answer is to just shrug it off saying its OK folks because we will extend your lease and that’s all very well if your car is still suitable and besides that, we pay a premium for having cars for 4 or 5 years.
I agree Chris, are we being pushed into extended lease by stealth ?
Unfortunately I have suffered a brain injury and occasionally I get confused and often say the wrong thing.
As was pointed out, by far your best choice would be the new Focus. Reasonable APs for the moment, but you might wanna not dither for too long, the prices might not stay like that forever.
Not sure how long your current lease still goes, but if you call Motability, they usually accommodate changes in circumstances very well. Could call them on Monday, and order a new Focus on Tuesday already (as happened to us).
I’ve seen this type of pricing many times through the years. Usually referred to as “supply and demand” . There are very little of “x” available; rather than take “x” off the market and therefore out of the shop window you increase the price to an extent that no-one would buy it due to the inflated price.
AP’s are extremely high just now and I’m genuinely concerned that we have to deal with this on top of our daily living travails but it will pass. If not Motability will lose customers.
its a seller’s market so they can charge what they want, and will. motability will go along with it just to add a few more cars. not just ap’s tho as wait times are over a year for most in reality. again motabilty are happy to keep it like this, and dont increase the time you can order in to compensate. as said by G Guy they make currently loads selling a 3 yr car but coin it it if you end up with a 5 yr lease, as its pretty much pure profit.
i do hope the scottish system will break this monopoly, and i also hope the customers remember the car companies and dealers who treated the disabled badly when times become better, and not just go back to merc/bmw etc because they are nice marques and good cars. if they do then they will deserve all that they get in future.
vote with feet folks.
Current Car: Hyundai Kona Premium EV...2 way 40kg hoist
Last Car: Toyota C-HR Excel Hybrid...4 way 80kg hoisti also hope the customers remember the car companies and dealers who treated the disabled badly when times become better, and not just go back to merc/bmw etc because they are nice marques and good cars. if they do then they will deserve all that they get in future. vote with feet folks.
There are good and bad dealers with all manufacturers. We can’t fault how our BMW dealership treated us last year. We got nearly £1k discount off the AP and options, they nabbed a cancelled order from a private customer (from another dealership that wasn’t even in their group), updated us every few weeks on how the order was progressing and we got the car (factory order) in less than 4 months, quicker than many private customers. This followed a succession of three very poor Volkswagen dealerships during our years of Tiguan ownership.
I’m sure that there are poor BMW dealerships out there and some excellent VW ones, my point being that it’s not brand specific. On balance though, I’d rather have a great car from a poor dealer than a mediocre car from an excellent dealer. We use the car daily and only use the dealer for the order and an annual (max) service. With the poor VW dealers we used to get them to pick the car up and return it for each service so that, other than making the service booking, we didn’t have to deal with them ?
wasnt picking on any brand per say, but those are 2 of the fanciest. i’d rather have a good dealer who goes above and beyond tbh… but im not a fancy car head as a rule so a toyota like my last one was pretty fancy to me lol. but ive been to really poor dealers, and some really good ones too. no there is no brand guarentee but of worst were a nissan one; in fact 2, but that was many years ago and i hate to say it but several vw dealers who were crap to downright cheeky. and a bmw one in edinburgh who were really the pits. even my sis in law who drives beemers said they are a disgrace and goes to perth to get hers
Current Car: Hyundai Kona Premium EV...2 way 40kg hoist
Last Car: Toyota C-HR Excel Hybrid...4 way 80kg hoist
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