Hello all......

After chatting to the mrs and test driving a Vrs Estate recently she's now agreed that this is the car for us next, which I'm happy about as we only have one car between us I didn't think I'd get her to sign off on a Vrs!

Anyway before we get it we need to sell her old car........she's got an 08 Mini Cooper Convertible awesome condition but apparently only worth £6600, the finance on this is currently more than this and we've been told about 'Voluntary Termination' which seems like a good way to hand the car back.

The mrs is worried about this affecting her credit rating......... Just wondered if anyone else has done it and had any good or bad issues with doing a VT??

Cheers

Si

I used the VT clause on my previous Volvo as it was a money pit. Although it shouldn't affect your credit rating the finance companies can see the termination and may use it against you. Certainly when I went for credit on another car VW Finance asked about it and why I did it.

Cheers for the reply, so apart from asking about it there were no other dramas?!?

Not that I know of. I was in a worse position though as I had had 3 credit agreements in 4-5 years. The first 2 I had settled early and then the Volvo I handed back.

There is only one other thing to bare in mind that i have just remembered. Check your small print. If you VT there is likely to be a mileage clause. Mine was 10k a year. Anything over and they charge you, just like PCP. They also charge you for scratches, dents, wheel curbing. When the Volvo went back the finance company sent Manheim to my house. They were here about an hour and literally checked every part of the car. They tried to charge me £100 for not having a full history until I told them it never had a history to begin with. It was a nightmare.

I was hacked off as I was never told about the early termination mileage clauses...but they are there in the small print, and I didn't read them.

Cheers for the heads up, I'm aware of the mileage clause and even though her 08 plate mini has only now done 27k (brought it with 9k) on it and we've had it almost 3 yrs they reckon we are 100 miles over the allowance already which seems harsh but guess if your giving the car back with half the finance on they'll try to sting you for anything!!

I'm not too worried about the check over as apart from one scratch the cars mint!!

Cheers

That's not too bad then. Beware though as they will look for any reason to mark it down. Also regarding the mileage they may think your over as the supplying garage may have fiddled the numbers for the agreement. I remember that the big issue I had was that the garage had told the finance co my Volvo only had 65k on it whereas infact it had 85k on. This was because they fiddled the numbers as I was getting out of a previous car. It was worth less than the finance but what they did was part ex it and the difference between the part ex price and the settlement figure was added to my Volvo. To do this they had to inflate the value of the cr, so obviously told the finance co it had a lot less miles. When it came to VT ing, the finance co were adamant that there mileage was correct, until I pulled out the sales invoice together with the MOT certificate from the supplying garage, as you can imagine I nearly fell over when they tried to charge me an extra 20ks worth of mileage!!!

It won't affect you as such, they will just put a marker on you saying that you used the get out clause. Almost that you were wise enough to take use the get out.

@ Cee'd owner.....

No wonder you were shocked by that think I'd of gone crazy!! Cheers for the heads up on what to expect though look forward to that meeting!! We've got the car up privately at the moment so hopefully we'll get a buyer that wy to make things alo easier but see what happens!!

@ MattyD

Yeah that's what I though, more of a marker to warn other companies that we got out without paying them a **** load of money in interest they'd of raked in for the full term, and used a contract to our advantage instead of theirs!!

Cheers people!!

Be careful, my mate used this and the car goes to auction. He got less than what he thought he would get and had to pay money back still!