Of course its each persons money, and their choice how to spend it, but depreciation shouldn't be a surprise it's the only certainty.

This isnt really true....what is true is that buying cars, particularly new ones is a bit of a mugs game and we all know it....but when you are a bit of a petrolhead...like cars alot and tire of them quite often then there is a tendancy not to do what is rational rather what makes you feel good.....buying a new car is one thing I tend to get quite a bit of satisfaction from so I tend to look into it good sense or not.

PCP's arent necessarily a bad way to finance a car but it is rather luck how well you do from vehicle to vehicle. My Fabia vRS estate....sold after 18 months with a modest return of equity.....Ocravia vRS estate (MK2)....only paid 20k for it and after a years motoring still got over 16k for it trade and got more back in equity than I paid in for deposit.....MK3 2.0 Elegance estate paid 23k.....just over 1 year its worth a best of £13.5k and I'm up to my nuts to the tune of about 5k. Is proving the polar opposite of the previous two but thats life....just glad I didnt pay cash for it frankly.

 

PCP's arent a bad way to finance cars at all but they may not be the best way to finance a car if you want to change every 12-18 mths, leasing and paying the "potential" excess mileage charge may well work out cheaper, it does for many people and often puts them in a better car. That way GFV and depreciation is no longer your problem

 

I'm confident that if I was spending 9-10k like you to cover 22,0000 miles i could do it in a much nicer car than a Skoda and probably have a holiday on the difference

I'm quite comfortable on this one, I needed a car, I'd just blown my second turbo on the old Mk2 2.0 TDI and was stuck in my wife's next Hyundia I10, the O3 offered the best deal at that time, the payments were and still are affordable, if its worth more than the GFV at the end then I'll buy it and sell it purely for the money.  At that point I'll buy the best deal available for my needs hopefully, PCH's will be offering good prices on petrol autos by then as I don't do the mileage.

 

I can't see any point in grumbling with hindsight

PCP's arent a bad way to finance cars at all but they may not be the best way to finance a car if you want to change every 12-18 mths, leasing and paying the "potential" excess mileage charge may well work out cheaper, it does for many people and often puts them in a better car. That way GFV and depreciation is no longer your problem

I'm confident that if I was spending 9-10k like you to cover 22,0000 miles i could do it in a much nicer car than a Skoda and probably have a holiday on the difference

I get how PCH can be very affordable RichF and appreciate your point but it does also somewhat boil down to personal circumstances and how the car is to be used.

I am not a massive brand loyalist (though I do tend to favour german/german by relation metal over most and have never been a big fan of Fords or anything Japanese)......I'm in reality not even that mad on Skodas but with my head on (and not letting my heart lead) purely on price and finance package the Octavia whilst proving to be a depreciation disaster in terms of retained value in terms of monthly costs is quite a steal. Funding 23k of car over 42 months, hardly any deposit and no interest making payments sub £300/month in my mind is pretty cheap motoring. There are other cars Id much rather be driving but it represents a tidy, cheap daily hack to which I have little or no emotional attachment (given tbe use and mileage it is undertaking at present just as well) and I think it was one of the better deals available to me at the time.

I acknowledge there are good PCH deals from time to time on cars like the M135i and Golf R but they are few and far between nowadays.....but besides neither of those emit 120g/km CO2 or less....also if I took one on the mileage I am now doing (circa 25-30k miles) then it really wouldnt work out cheap. PCH deals are good to get into a really nice car for a couple of years and providing you stick to the mileage allowances (within reason) and keep it well looked after its all good...with my current circumstances I couldnt make one work well for me thats for sure.

Edited 26 April, 201511 yr by pipsyp

. Funding 23k of car over 42 months, hardly any deposit and no interest making payments sub £300/month in my mind is pretty cheap motoring. There are other cars Id much rather be driving but it represents a tidy, cheap daily hack to which I have little or no emotional attachment (given tbe use and mileage it is undertaking at present just as well) and I think it was one of the better deals available to me at the time.

 

Yep at 42 months pcp makes sense for most people , changing more frequently is where it falls down

 

Mind you if you have done 22,000 miles in just 1 year wont you fall foul of the mileage restrictions?

Like you say, diesel is too ingrained in the world around us to be wiped out by regulation, and I suspect the tech to make inroads on particulate emissions has been around a while. But the political noise around particulates has been getting louder and louder and I suspect politicians are going to conclude pretty quickly that CO2 alone is no longer an adequate basis for car tax.

I also think policymakers generally believe we should view motoring as more of a luxury than a necessity as roads become more crowded around cities in particular and the pressure to keep reducing the environmental impact increases. So once the fuss about cost of living does down expect motoring to get more expensive again.

And if car companies do introduce cleaner diesel tech you know who'll pay for it!

In the meantime, I'm making the most of my petrol power...

Correct, the next money making scheme taxation will be NOx emissions

Boris is having gates put up to the city to ward off the UNCLEAN

Yep at 42 months pcp makes sense for most people , changing more frequently is where it falls down

Mind you if you have done 22,000 miles in just 1 year wont you fall foul of the mileage restrictions?

I will indeed as when I bought the car I wasnt doing much more than 10k/year, but due to change in circumstances am now doing somewhere between 20 and 25k. One saving grace with the PCP is that I dont have to hand it back at the end of the term, it affords me a few options....all the same I am piling a bit of money away each month "just in case"....still the moneys better off in my account than theirs I suppose.

There is always that niggling internal dialogue "I should have kept the company car" but whats done is done :-)

My car is on 42 month PCP, my plan at the moment is to pay off the "balloon" payment at or prior to the end of the term and run the car on. I do 20k miles a year, all commuting mainly on motorways, so although high mileage it isn't stop start motoring that would knacker the car earlier. I imagine 150k reliable miles would be no issue with a bit of luck judging by the mileage that taxis rack up!