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I’m confused! I could understand the bailout of the banks, we can’t allow the banking system to collapse. And whilst the VAT cut was never going to have a significant effect on the economy in terms of kick starting expenditure it was a small step in the right direction but why are the Government listening to the car manufacturers? Of course it’s terrible when people lose their jobs and making loyal and good workers redundant is one of the hardest things Read more »

Let me give you a scenario. You buy a car for £10,000 which you finance over 3 years either by HP or a personal loan, either way you own the vehicle at the end of the 3 years after paying back the £10,000 along with the interest charges. You then sell the car for its market value. I, on the other hand, decide to buy exactly the same car for £10,000 but finance it using a Personal Contract Purchase (PCP). The man in the dealership has told me that there is a final figure allowed on the car of £4,000 which I can either pay to own it or Read more »

The Dutch government have taken the lead by guaranteeing a 1.5 billion Euro package for car leasing company Lease Plan. This is part of a 200 billion Euro rescue fund set up by the Dutch. Lease Plan is the first company to take advantage of the rescue fund which, according to Finance Director, David Stickland will provide additional funding for Lease Plan UK. Read more »

Used cars through auction in November saw a little upward glitch although the general trend, according to British Car Auctions, is a downward one with prices set to continue to struggle through 2009. Whilst the average price rose to £4,823 in November, the highest since July, the year on year value is down by £689. The interesting thing is that we all hear about the state of the used car market and we often hear of friends or friends of friends who manage to get a real bargain but where are these giveaways when we want one? Read more »

By way of an update and a warning I mentioned a few weeks ago about the likely increase in car finance fraud as the recession leads to desperation and potentially fraudulent actions by dealers and brokers simply to survive. I also mentioned the case of a lady who was hiding away an Audi in her garage, too frightened to drive it as bailiffs were trying to repossess it, following the collapse of Read more »

Unless you work in the finance industry you may not fully understand the term ‘credit crunch’. It is simply the running out of money to lend, hence the reason why the Government is having to step in to inject more money into the economy and provide money for the banks to lend – in theory. Of course all they are doing is using the money to bolster their balance sheet making the ‘cash in bank’ look a little healthier. The problem for you and me is the ability to borrow money, Read more »

There is growing evidence that SME’s and consumers are moving over to leasing as a way to fund their vehicles. The old reasons still exist, having a fixed, known monthly cost, no risk in uncertain resale values and benefitting from hidden substantial bonuses provided by manufacturers to leasing companies but SME’s and consumers  have identified a new benefit. Read more »

It has been reported this week that many people do not see the distinction between credit crunch and recession. For those that lived through the last recession, as I did, you will know how hard things got before we turned the corner and things started to dramatically improve. And this was all down to a recession, which was pretty much left to run its course by the Government. Whilst it seemed pretty harsh at the time it was a way of streamlining business in the UK and weeding out the good from the bad. Sadly, Read more »

One of the biggest problems with running a car either privately or through a business is being able to predict the true ‘whole life’ cost in order to select the most appropriate way to fund the car. Few of us actually enjoy playing with figures so we tend to concentrate on the car itself (much more exciting) and relying upon advice from friends rather than doing the calculations to work out the most Read more »

 Lease cars are better maintained than privately owned cars – fact! Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions carried out a check on privately owned cars to see how well maintained they were and shockingly found that 88% were in need of attention. Whilst Hitachi admitted that some faults were somewhat minor there were a significant number that were more serious such as Read more »