Monthly Repayments...

[jpbp200]

Hi All

I am the proud owner of a w202 1988 c180 elegance which has been faultless. I want to upgrade to a newer version (rust is the only reason).... Does anyone know what the likely monthly repayments would be if I, for example, bought a £30,000 car using the baloon/renew scheme on a 3 year plan? Having owned my W202 for nearly a year I am happy to commit to being an MB owner for the forseeable future. My career is on the up so I feel that I would like to be driving a modern MB..... I recently visited my local MB dealer who were pretty vague as you would expect but in the current economic climate I think I should be in a good position. Suffice to say I am either MB or BMW (sorry!). Any thoughts anyone.... Hawk/Malcolm....?

 

[television]

This is not my line to answer other that I would wait now till the new year when prices have bottomed right out, staying with the C class would be sensible in this present climate.

See what others think

 

[jberks]

Too many variables to say really. Deposit, balloon, agreed apr etc so very hard to say. A 30k car in 3 yrs will be worth approx 12k so simple figures would be 18k capital plus interest over 3 yrs - I'd say IRO £500-£600pm at a guess. Obviously if you put a couple of k down, that figure drops considerably but do remember that 18k + interest is what you are really paying. I had this discussion when buying a Jeep. They magically quoted me great payments, but the balloon meant I had nothing left at the end and that included the near £6,000 value I had in the trade in, so small payments sound nice but do caculate what it's really costing.

 

[Dave's E55 AMG]

I was offered a SLK200 on a 3 year option 10K mileage for £260 PCM

 

[crammy69]

Not sure if you considered a lease car, but Im always tempted. "LingsCars" ( she is a bit mad chinese lady, but very competitive on her prices - very busy website!) shows a 2 year rent for a new Merc C class under £300 p.m

http://www.lingscars.com/car_detail.php?make_model=533&id=4793&status=1

 

[Alex M Grieve]

Hi All

I am the proud owner of a w202 1988 c180 elegance which has been faultless. I want to upgrade to a newer version (rust is the only reason).... Does anyone know what the likely monthly repayments would be if I, for example, bought a £30,000 car using the baloon/renew scheme on a 3 year plan? Having owned my W202 for nearly a year I am happy to commit to being an MB owner for the forseeable future. My career is on the up so I feel that I would like to be driving a modern MB..... I recently visited my local MB dealer who were pretty vague as you would expect but in the current economic climate I think I should be in a good position. Suffice to say I am either MB or BMW (sorry!). Any thoughts anyone.... Hawk/Malcolm....?

I would look for a 2 year old car with 20,000 miles or less from a franchised dealer. Still has a year's warranty and should look and perform like a new car. Should also be approaching half the new price.

Worth searching on this spec on both the MB UK website search engine and Autotrader. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

 

[crammy69]

Or even look at some of the recent car auction prices ( see link below with a few Mercs/Audis/BMW with pics and sale prices - a great read) before commiting to buying a new car.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=620009

 

[Dave's E55 AMG]

here's a good link for leasing etc..

http://www.contracthireandleasing.com/

 

[jberks]

to me, used is always a better bet than new, though often the best lease offers aren't available on used, but I still wouldn't buy new. I bought my car at a shade under 1 year old with 17k on the clock. 3 years on, she's on 61k and she's quieter, smoother and just as quick as she ever was. (Not just me that's noticed) I paid 27k for her at the time and now she's worth maybe 13k. If someone were to buy a car like mine for that money I'd say they're getting a serious bargain.

 

[television]

My car used and at 4years old had lost £60k from the new price, 2½ years down the line and a depressed market I am £13k down, I bought at 15k miles, so as above one hell of a saving through getting as near new as possible

 

[Alex M Grieve]

My car used and at 4years old had lost £60k from the new price, 2½ years down the line and a depressed market I am £13k down, I bought at 15k miles, so as above one hell of a saving through getting as near new as possible

A salutary tale Malcolm. By my arithmetic your car, which is now 6.5 years old, is worth £73,000 less than the sticker price. That is the bad news.

The incredibly good news is that, for the discerning and patient purchaser, such fantastic cars are available at prices which must now compete directly, or better than, today's brand new 2 litre "family saloons".

I for one think this is a great position for us to be in, but have some sympathy for the guys who bought these cars from new. Having met one or 2 of them in the showroom, and at promotional events, they are a different breed. Many seem to buy new cars because they can, and the horrifying cost is a sort of badge of rank for them. They also seem to trade cars far more often than you or I would - annually for example, for the same reason.

Happily, this means that there will never be a shortage of good, affordable "pre-used" cars for normal people like you and me.

And you have only "lost" money when you eventually sell it.

Why not look at it this way - when you buy a car, just write off the money. That way, anything it fetches when you eventually sell it will be a bonus - oh, and never look back!!

 

[gizze]

Some seriously good contract hire deals at the moment. Even if you bought a 3 year old car for cash you would loose more over the same period.

Friend has just got a C180k Sport Estate auto with leather for £235 a month, no deposit and that includes VAT!! Oh, and for 24 months so he can have a change in 2 years.

E220cdi SE estate for under £350 is one example he was offered.
E280cdi SE for £390.
I have not found anything quite that good yet.
I have been watching the contract hire sites over the last few days and the prices are dropping daily, and they will haggle too.

Mercedes have just over 8000 new cars in the UK at the moment that they are desperate to shift so some massive lease deals coming up over the next few weeks.
Was at a mates today and he works for Mercedes, he was told that at the moment they are £300 million upside down on the current Guaranteed Future Values out there and it is get worse by the day, so right now they just need money in the pot.

 

[jberks]

they are £300 million upside down on the current Guaranteed Future Values out there and it is get worse by the day, so right now they just need money in the pot.

Thats a really nice subsidy if you're buying at the moment. Almost tempting to chop in the 270! Then again, the nice side of buying outright is that in these dodgy economic times, I now have a 4 year old E270CDI AG with a few nice toys for £0.00 per month inc VAT ;-).

 

[hawk20]

First off, I would go to the MB website and look under ‘New Cars’ then ‘Offers’.

You can get a new C class on a personal contract plan starting from around £265 per month. The C 180 Kompressor Sport with metallic paint at around £26k is offered at only 6.9% APR with a discount (‘retailer’s contribution’) of £2,772.. The deposit is £3,672 and the payments are £265 per month. The optional purchase price at the end of the lease is £13,450. You can pay that and own the car outright, or give it back and walk away, or refinance to buy it over 2-3 more years.

Personally I would look at the incredible deal on the E class. Yes it will be changed to a new model in 2009 but it is now a most reliable and beautiful car to look at and to drive. I bought a nearly new one in September and aim to keep it some long while.

Here’s the deal. The E220cdi Avantgarde, metallic and with auto gearbox costs £32,915 BUT they give you a stunning discount (retailer’s contribution) of £7,229 so you pay only £25,686.

And they give a guaranteed future value of £16,750 (over 50% of list price but more importantly 65% of the price you pay!). Deposit is £4,947 and payments are a miserly £259 per month. APR only 6.8%. The recession is making for some great deals on new.

Trust me on this. The so called ‘retailer’s contribution’ does not come from the retailer but comes from Mercedes. So you can negotiate a further discount from your retailer to lower the price and the payments still further.

These deals may not be for you, if you prefer HP, but they are certainly worth considering. They are PCP deals. In this uncertain age some like the lower payments and the guaranteed future value. Some prefer HP.

If you prefer HP or maybe arranging your own finance from non-dealer sources then there are some excellent nearly new bargains around as well as new.

 

[gizze]

But if you look at the contract hire deals they are so much cheaper.

The deal you quote is costing you £13,000 over 36 months.

The contract hire deal on that same car is £597 deposit and 36 x £199 costing a total of £7750 over the same period.

I would do that and then offer to buy it off them for £13k at the end of the agreement.


Same with the E Class, there is no way on earth that you are going to want to buy an E220cdi for £17k in 3 years time, they will be under £12k by then.
So best to hire it, £14k to buy it with a GFV of £17k or rent it for £12k with no deposit.
In fact that price of £350 was for a no deposit 24 month agreement, over 36 months it will be around £320 a month, so only £11k.


There is no point buying with a GFV that high as you are only ever going to throw the keys back anyway. So if the rental is cheaper, rent.

 

[Rory]

But if you look at the contract hire deals they are so much cheaper.

The deal you quote is costing you £13,000 over 36 months.

The contract hire deal on that same car is £597 deposit and 36 x £199 costing a total of £7750 over the same period.

I'm keen to know where you're seeing the £199/mth deals, please?

(and the "C180k Sport Estate auto with leather for £235 a month, no deposit and that includes VAT" deal that you mentioned earlier - I've been keeping an eye on these deals and I've seen the basic manual / cloth models for that kind of price (plus VAT) but nothing as cheap as you indicated).

 

[hawk20]

But if you look at the contract hire deals they are so much cheaper.

The deal you quote is costing you £13,000 over 36 months.

The contract hire deal on that same car is £597 deposit and 36 x £199 costing a total of £7750 over the same period.

I would do that and then offer to buy it off them for £13k at the end of the agreement.


Same with the E Class, there is no way on earth that you are going to want to buy an E220cdi for £17k in 3 years time, they will be under £12k by then.
So best to hire it, £14k to buy it with a GFV of £17k or rent it for £12k with no deposit.
In fact that price of £350 was for a no deposit 24 month agreement, over 36 months it will be around £320 a month, so only £11k.


There is no point buying with a GFV that high as you are only ever going to throw the keys back anyway. So if the rental is cheaper, rent.

But these hire deals are not available to private buyers are they? And they are cheap to companies because they can claim the VAT back. Private buyers cannot.

BTW I cannot believe your figures add up. Why would anybody hire you a £25-30k car for around £2,500 per year? The depreciation is way more than that before you look at interest on capital and trying to make a profit.

 

[jberks]

BTW I cannot believe your figures add up. Why would anybody hire you a £25-30k car for around £2,500 per year? The depreciation is way more than that before you look at interest on capital and trying to make a profit.

This is my concern too. Sure they want to shift the metal but at those prices they lose money doing so. It would be cheaper to just sit on the cars.
I suspect the truth is in the small print. One of the reasons I run from these deals is the mileage limit. Most I have seen are 10k pa (some cheaper deales a lot less) with a big charge for anything over. The average mileage in the UK I believe is 12k pa now and that's assuming people have predictable lives, so we're over before we start - which is what they're counting on. When I bought this merc, my daily commute was 80 miles. 10 months later it dropped to 0 for 3 months and then went to 12 miles per day. That lasted 18 months after which I had 2 1/2 months at 0 and now I'm doing 100 miles per day. What will happen after January I have no idea. Hence, any limits would be impossible to keep to, as they would be for many merc owners.
By signing up, you're saying I can accurately predict my car usage for the next 2 years and in this climate it would be a very lucky or brave person that did this.

 

[Alex M Grieve]

Pay now or pay later?

I had access to the data from our company car scheme over a number of years.

To set the contract you can either specify a higher mileage (which you might not achieve and will be more expensive), or a lower mileage, accepting that there will be a charge for excess miles. (which the company would pay). [we used 10,000 miles as a base set as the choice of car in the scheme for the individual was governed by the 10,000 mile per year rental cost. That enabled a good choice of car and the company then assumed higher than contracted mileages were business related, and covered the bill].

In all the cases I examined, the global costs came out the same. That is to say, lower rental plus excess mileage charge amounted to the same figure as the rental alone would have cost if you had been able to predict accurately (and achieve) the exact mileage.

It is worth running the calculation on your own model. If my conclusions are true, by setting a lower agreed mileage (and rental charge) you could defer the costs if you do higher than agreed mileage, and avoid them if you find you have done fewer miles.

In this day and age, cash flow is king!

 

[Rory]

But these hire deals are not available to private buyers are they? And they are cheap to companies because they can claim the VAT back. Private buyers cannot.

Private buyers can generally get the same prices plus VAT for Personal Contract Hire. I think companies can only reclaim half the VAT anyway.

DSG Auto, for example, is often mentioned on HonestJohn and has recently had several features Merc features:
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/best_deals/item.htm?id=5518 C Class
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/best_deals/item.htm?id=5525 E Class
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/best_deals/item.htm?id=5539 CLK

LingCars http://www.lingscars.com (put welding goggles on before clicking if you've never visited the site before) is doing Personal Lease Mercedes C-Class Saloon
1.8 (153bhp) C180K SE Saloon 4dr 1796cc
3+23 = 2 yr rent
£264.49 per month inc VAT
...which is a £1 cheaper than DSG.

BTW I cannot believe your figures add up. Why would anybody hire you a £25-30k car for around £2,500 per year? The depreciation is way more than that before you look at interest on capital and trying to make a profit.

Helloooooo....is that a penny I hear dropping? It's because they're not really £25-£30K cars. They're £12-15K cars.