Forum Replies Created
- Replies
Think I will be trying to speak to the dealer on Monday, ordered my car 6 weeks ago and the AP has gone down £300.
I know it’s not a massive amount of money but it was a push for me to do the £749, so £449 is much more affordable.
Yes the APs are so expensive now Sue, I’ll be checking a little later on in the year before making a choice, or maybe just extend.. Extension takes lots of pressure away as this is my 1st time around, and didn’t have transport while waiting for delivery last time.. A friend of mines got the Vauxhall he loves it, says great on fuel too
I’d extended the maximum I could and the wait and see thing hasn’t worked out for me at all, either vehicles removed from scheme or gone up beyond my price range, it was all getting very frustrating.
I understand where the grants team was coming from with the grant but it all seemed a bit OTT, a bit hammer to crack a nut sort of thing. Solutions were out there with cars, large ones granted but there were still options that would have worked with the minimum of adaptations but they got hung up on complete independence when that is not my life anyway, especially when things were based on me having a power chair and I can’t afford one (wheelchair services are a no go, my needs fit but my house doesn’t and that is a basic criteria).
The good thing about the car I’ve ordered is that the boot can be enlarged to almost what my current car has, so it might not be as much of a compromise as I think. The current car fits my chair and mum’s scooter in easily and I must admit, it had a lot of go in it on the test drive yesterday. It’s going to be an adjustment going back to a petrol car, I’ve been driving diesels for over 20 years but maybe it is for the best now that my ability to drive the long distances has gone by the wayside.
As a further note, the Motability specialist at the dealership was brilliant, best experience yet. It helped that he too had a disability and so could understand some of the challenges and made adjustments for them without us having to ask but he also didn’t do the hard sell…he makes a mean cup of tea too which is always a good thing in my book and even better, I got two cups of it and some home made chocolate!
Nice one Sue. Red cars are the fastest.
Hehe, think my days of being fastest are well and truly over. I do more granny style driving now although I do have my moments….
I quite like the grand land too, could be my next if I don’t extend..Couldn’t quite stretch to the Grandland unfortunately, that would have been pretty much perfect in terms of space.
Lots of charging points Sue, interestingly my nearest fuel station to me is 20min drive. Ev chargers 5 mins (+2 at my house). I do agree home charging is not available to all. https://www.vehicle-partners.co.uk/news/there-are-now-more-charging-locations-than-petrol-stations#:~:text=That%20means%20that%20there%20are,there%20are%20traditional%20fuel%20stations.
Maybe in your area but not in mine, nearest charge point is a 10 minute drive, nearest pump is a similar distance but we have so many more pumps than points.
We have two public charge points for 3ok people, far more in the summer. The ability to home charge is an essential here at present to own an EV.
I would love to have an EV, however it would take a substantial outlay (having a driveway put in) to even think of getting one as I don’t have the access nor the time to use a public one. It also worries me when we go away, the static caravan site we go to doesn’t have any chargers and a similar number of public chargers as us in the next nearest town.
EV’s are great if you can home charge, if you can’t, they are just a pipe dream or very inconvenient.
Absolutely disagree that EVs are for the future not now…………. Many thousands of people happy today driving EVs saving money, saving the environment and driving modern machines rather than a 100 yr old design that hasn’t changed significantly in 40 years. More charging spots than petrol stations in the UK. Prove with data that Evs have a higher carbon footprint than Ice vehicles please? Hybrids are the worst of EVs and ice cars. Small motor, small engine and double the complexity of either. I presume you haven’t had much experience of EVs from your negative views?
More charging spots than petrol stations? I’d love to know where, we currently have two charging ports but have in excess of 30 fuel pumps.
Owning an EV is just not feasible for a lot of people, there is a lack of infrastructure for those unable to charge at home…and a lot of people who are unable to charge at home.
So many experts and so many people racing to the bottom! You will have no choice but to be electric soon, get used to the idea folks and think about how you will charge your car without a drive. Like it or not, that is the way it will be. How To Charge
Hopefully by then you will be able to pop into a garage and recharge in a few minutes or in the case of this town, actually have more than two chargers for the entire town!
We don’t have the infrastructure here (as in my deepest darkest corner of the county) to support everyone having an EV and it would take a massive amount of time, effort and money to change that, something I don’t see happening in the next 10 years by which time I may have given up driving anyway or be living somewhere that has a driveway and I can charge at home, or be rich enough to put one in here.
My issue is not one of space, I live in a house with a good frontage and with lapsed permission to have a driveway put in, it is one of finances.
I rang up the grants team last Thursday and have been referred over to the complex driving solutions team. After a bit of missing each other, we finally made contact today and it’s gone from an elevating swivel out of car seat option to a possible/probable WAV/TIV/DFW as the best way forward.
How long it takes from here is anyone’s guess, I’ve never got this far before!
To be honest, I feel a little daunted, I thought the swivel seat option was the better and most cost-effective option, but they are concerned it still doesn’t give me the independence required. I like big cars but a WAV is another planet completely…I suppose I’m doing my normal and trying to deny reality but it’s a blooming scary realisation that things have deteriorated this much.
For context, I am in the second year of an extension on my current vehicle and really struggling with it now and can no longer go out in it independently.
I’ve got a step further than last time I attempted it; it wasn’t a flat no from the initial phone call! Last time I tried, they insisted I extend the lease and apply at the end of the two-year extension, I’ve had my current car just over the 4 year mark now.
Someone from their complex solutions is apparently calling me tomorrow to go through things as I need something to help me get in and out as well as help with the advance payment.
I’d stopped trying when my award was nearing the point of being reviewed but in the post today, I received the review decision, an ongoing award with no contact before 2032.
It’s heading towards being a scheme for the rich only.
For me, it has already reached that point unless you are a lone person with no requirements for a higher set vehicle and enough boot space to carry mobility aids.
I’ve been priced out and at the end of this (extended) lease, will probably be leaving the scheme as there is nothing suitable for less than 2k advance payment available. My current car had an advance payment of £645, for the same car now it is over 2.5k.
Any car I get privately will have to be less than 1k, I just don’t have the funds.
Absolutely nothing available that is affordable for me, cars that are ok but not completely suitable start at just shy of 2k, ones that are more suitable for my needs are now in excess of 2.5k, ones that are completely suitable are in excess of 3k.
None of the above are affordable.
Also, not everyone needs a new car, plenty of people are happy with nearly new or 1 to 3 year old. Some people are happy to spend £1000 on a car. I once spent £2500 on a car and drove it for 7 years. Only ever did brakes, oil change, tyres and 1 catalytic converter. If you’re doing less than 4000 miles a year I don’t think Motability makes sense, particularly at the moment with high AP’s.
I would be expecting a 2.5k car to last 7 years, my £461 Ebay purchase car certainly did and it needed less than that doing to it. My last car before moving to Motability was £750, it sailed through the MOT each time in the two years I had it and it did the same when I sold it onto my brother….until his neighbour sent it to car heaven through inattention. Must admit I was sad to see it go as it had every conceivable extra and so comfortable but it had become impossible for me to drive it and get out of it.
yes but thats the rub Glos guy, many cant afford the deposits required or have the money to pay cash even if they can get a deposit together they wouldnt pass a credit check for finance be it hp or a lease. they are reliant on the scheme and probabley more and more the grants available as the ap’s are becoming unaffordable. a bigger concern at the moment i think is the lack of larger vehicles needed by those needing to carry equipment, scooters etc and families. it is becoming hobsons choice for many and the ap’s for those vehicles are high. i know i complain about the lack of suitable choice for me personally but i am more fortunate than most in that i am on wpms so the ap is a little less and my issues mean a smaller suv type will suffice as all i need is an auto that i can get in and out of comfortably and i dont have to consider rugrats a partner or pets not nec in that order for many. whilst it wouldnt be my choice the arona is still available for zero ap on wpms. so i will still be mobile although not necessarily happy with that option. i think mota need to up their game with the grants and support they give those fiscally challenged the rest of us i am afraid to an extent have to suck it up. such is life.
For me, it would be easier finding the cash for a cheap secondhand car, than it would be for an advance payment as the secondhand car would be cheaper. I don’t do finance for cars, wouldn’t pass affordability checks as I don’t earn very much as I can only work very part time hours and don’t claim an income top up due to being paid weekly and my hours being variable.
I did try to go the grant route when my lease had reached the three years but it was a no go as the car was sort of suitable (as in, we had found ways around the issues by having someone with me at all times to get me in and out or I just avoided doing things all together). I was told I had to extend for two years and then see if they can help me at the end of that.
I know I could challenge them on that now (I did try a couple of times at the time) but right now, it is review time and you never know how that is going to go.
Going by the latest figures, I will be one of those forced to leave as the advance payments are more than I would be paying for a car outright and completely unaffordable, I quite literally haven’t got the money to do it.
Intentions
Price of car – As cheap as I can, sub 1k.
Type of car – As close to suitable as possible.
Adaptations – The minimum I can get away from, Ebay/Amazon could possibly help here, probably around £20
Insurance – Around £400 a year
Breakdown – Included in Insurance
Servicing – parts as and when needed and done by a friend of youngest’s
The rest will be cross fingers and hope, just as it used to be but I am left with no choice as there are no cars that are even partly suitable with an affordable advance payment, let alone completely suitable and one that meets my needs.
I’m no stranger to cheap cars and bar one, all were reliable and didn’t cost me a fortune to keep going. The good thing now is that cars that were more suitable but were still expensive second hand when I first went on the scheme, are now coming into the area of where I can afford them.
I have a job, albeit very part time and requiring a team of three carers to enable me to do it. My car (Motability or otherwise), is essential to get me there.
As it stands, there are still cars for me on the scheme, my only issue is that I would need a lottery win to be able to afford one as the cheapest one that is suitable and drivable for me is in excess of 2k now.
I’ve no idea what I will do when my extended lease runs out, if Advance payments are still so high and a grant is not forthcoming, I will have no choice but to leave the scheme, however, going back to what I can get on the second hand market for my budget would mean that I wouldn’t be able to drive and thus, wouldn’t be able to continue working or indeed, leave the house and go anywhere.
That was just over a year ago and now the PIP renewal forms have just plopped through my door. If successful, I will be challenging it again.
They offered me £999 grant begining of the year. The car I wanted and had actually put an order in for was £2100 AP. Even with the 50% rule that you can add ontop of the grant yoursel still wouldn’t have got the car I wanted. Every car they offered I test drove and told them its not suitable. In the end they would not up my grant but allowed me to add the remaining amount myself. I know of others that were awarded far more from the off, so swings and roundabouts depending how you fill out the form and what case manager you get. Personelly I wouldn’t bother asking for one again and would rather leave the scheme than be looked down upon by some jumped up person in a suit. Make sure you go over and above your needs filling out the form.
I didn’t even get that far, because I said we had found ways to live with the car, they just told me to extend for two years and then they may look at it again.
Doesn’t matter that I can no longer get out of the car independently and have to have someone with me, because I said we found workarounds (as in, always having someone with me to get me in and out), everything was perfectly fine.
I now wish I had just said it wasn’t suitable as I couldn’t get in and out easily and left it at that but I had open my big mouth and try to be nice/reasonable!
Replying to Sue and Phaedra, many councils allow a charging cable to be run over a pavement as long as a high visibility cable protector is used – check with your Country Council. Motability will actually pay for the cable protector (they offered to pay for ours), but you need to ask them to use an installer who would be happy to install a charger that isn’t off-road: we found that Ohme would be happy to do this (Motability use a number of partners for installation, and only Ohme were willing to take this on, though they will probably want to do an assessment of where you would have the charger installed). Ensure you have written permission from your County Council before approaching Motability and their installers, but it can be a route to greener and much cheaper motoring!
Which would rely on being able to park outside the house, something that is not guaranteed. Not sure they would be quite so willing to have a cable running across the pavement, over the road and down to the green where my car tends to end up 3 or 4 nights a week.
I’ll probably keep getting ICE cars until I can no longer drive, even if I have to go via the second hand market, the rate I’m going, it will be a race to see which happens first – the deadline coming in for selling only EV cars or me having to give up driving!
Either that or I win the lottery and move somewhere with a driveway….
I quite like the idea of an EV, no gears to worry about etc and (at the moment), cheaper running costs. My issue comes with all the other problems of owning one, namely charging.
I don’t have off road parking, I have space for it but it would require a very large outlay to do it (we have to stick to certain rules here on who we can use, materials, look of it etc). Without off road parking, we just don’t have the infrastructure locally, I shop online for groceries but even if I didn’t, only one of the supermarkets has charging points….2 of them to be precise and they are either always in use or not working.
To charge a vehicle would mean a special trip to the next nearest town over 10 miles away, something I have neither the time nor the health/energy to do even once a week as it would need a stop of a good couple of hours to get enough charge for a week (if that was even possible), just sat in a bay waiting for the car to charge…or I would have to pay for someone to do it for me which would pretty much negate any savings made over ICE running costs.
What is needed to allow everyone to be able to drive in future, is fast charging, as in really fast charging, as in the time it would normally take to put fuel in a car and with the same capacity as fuel stations now. Too many people are unable to charge at home or at work for it to be viable for the masses and I can’t see that really changing massively in the next 8 years.
I always love the suggestions of just getting a grant to help with the AP’s, it’s easier said than done! I qualify on my income but when I tried to apply, it didn’t go any further than the initial phone call as my current car, although not perfect, was ok (in their view) with workarounds (someone helping me in and out of the car etc) and thus, my only option was to extend the lease and then they would look at it again at the end of the extra 2 years.
At the time, cars were arriving quicker than now, not lightning fast but certainly better than it is currently, advance payments were cheaper than now.
I had a look earlier on, there are now zero cars that are suitable and at an advance payment at even double the amount I could do even with help from family, they all seem to start at around the 3k area, are plug in varieties (which would require an investment of circa £5k on top of an AP to be viable) or just not available anymore.
The advance payments being asked now is out of kilter, it’s more than I would pay (and have paid) for a second hand car, so I think my plan now is to watch the market and when one comes up that is near me and hits the checklist, I will be handing back my car and leaving the scheme…it just makes more financial sense.
Started off on a moped and then went for a bike, rode it for 3 ish years until passing my car test (I have a full motorbike licence).
Nice one Sue, Can you remember what bike you had? I started young on a bike, got my first motor cross at 8 and joined a professional club. Carried on untill my early 30’s gained quite a few trophies along the way. First road bike was a Yamaha fizzy (FS1E) at 16 passed my test then got a Kawasaki KH250 lime green. Had a few bikes alongside cars after I passed my test. Last road bike I had was a R1. Had some quick cars and will get round to listing them at some point.
Ah it was only a small one, a Yamaha YB100. I think someone forgot to put the restrictor on it though as it sounded like a bigger bike and went similar speeds too.
I used to go out on bike runs with the local MCC, my bike would pee all over the other bikes for reliability and speed…but then they were riding old British classics.
The plan had been to upgrade to a bigger engine after I passed my bike test but alas I fell down the stairs one night after someone spiked the (supposedly non alcoholic) punch at a BBQ with copious amounts of Vodka (me and Vodka are not bosom buddies) and landed on my neck. I struggled on for as long as I could but it just became impossible to continue riding in the end, so I booked up lessons and did my car test.
Started off on a moped and then went for a bike, rode it for 3 ish years until passing my car test (I have a full motorbike licence).
Cars
Renault 14 £150 – Took us all over the country, never let us down and we made the wrong decision when it failed an MOT to scrap it.
Lada Riva £100 and a complete waste of money (did 10 miles in the blooming thing)
Vauxhall Astra estate £275 -Leaky boot but otherwise did us fine.
Vauxhall Cavalier saloon £325 – Sold it to my neighbour who then sold it on to my brother about a year or so later.
Ford Sierra Estate £475 – Another one sold to my neighbour. I’d always wanted one but hated it the moment I bought it. I put up with it until we were given an offer we couldn’t refuse for the Passat.
VW Passat diesel Estate £2400 – Amazing car, had been my favourite until I got the 406. Had to spend very little on it and sailed through the MOT every single year. It was built like a tank and when a lorry decided it wanted my lane on the M25, protected like a tank too.
Audi A4 diesel Estate £3600 – complete white elephant, waste of money and cambelt went on it.
Vauxhall Astra diesel Estate £461 Ebay purchase – Saw me through 6 years surprisingly
Peugeot 406 Diesel Estate £750 – Felt like a queen driving it, had every single option possible and it sailed through the MOT every year with nothing needed. Unfortunately, it became clear that I was struggling with a manual car at this point and couldn’t put the handbrake on, so joined the scheme as nothing was available on the second hand market at a reasonable price.
Peugeot 5008 Allure Diesel Automatic Advance payment of £1200 – I could get in it, out of it but couldn’t open and close the boot as it was so tall and my shoulders don’t raise very much, so any shopping etc, had to go in the back seats. Lovely and spacious and could fit everything we needed in it. Did go psycho a couple of times when it would surge but I would have it back in a heart beat for the flexibility and the ease of being able to get in and out independently.
Skoda Karoq Diesel Automatic Advance payment of £695 – It was a compromise car as I couldn’t afford the advance payment on one that was perfect. It started off I needed assistance on the odd occasion to get out, now it is more often than not and I need more and more assistance to get in now too. The boot is not a bad size and can fit a fair amount in but it is not as flexible as the 5008 was. Lovely car to drive though, very comfortable and a good bit of go in it.
