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Contract Hire or car leasing as some people call it can be very confusing because you can’t always apply what you may consider to be logic. Let’s take metallic paint for example. Some leasing companies will provide you with free metallic paint and given the fact that metallic for most cars costs north of five hundred quid you’d be silly not to take it. But are they actually being generous?

No they’re not because careful scrutiny of some quotes that I run shows that the addition of metallic paint, whilst increasing the cost of the car actually drops the monthly rate. A recent BMW quote dropped the rate by £6 + VAT per month when I added metallic paint.

This may sound daft but it’s all down to the resale value at the end of the agreement. A prestige car with metallic paint is much more desirable in the used market than a solid colour car and this is often reflected in the prices achieved through auction. So from the leasing company’s point of view, whilst they may have to pay an extra £400 for metallic after discount they could be £7-800 better off when they sell the car in 3 years time.

The same can apply to the spec. of the car. We have had a number of deals over the last few months where a better spec car can be leased for less than an entry level car. This can be partly because some extra discount has been given by the manufacturer but is often because of the desirability of the car through auction.

Some examples are the Jaguar XF where the R-Sport was less per month than the SE and the Jeep Renegade Sport was more expensive than the better spec. Longitude. So don’t dismiss the higher spec. because you think that the higher spec. car will cost a lot more per month because the list price of the car is much more.

The VW Touareg R-Line is £377.45 + VAT per month and the R-Line Plus is just £3 + VAT per month more at £380.54 + VAT and yet the spec. is much improved. Contract hire is a product that often defies logic – speak to me! By Graham Hill

What car do you think drivers voted their number one in this years Auto Express Driver Power survey? Wrong! It’s the Skoda Superb. The poll ranks the findings of 23,000 readers. It takes the top 100 models revealing what drivers love and hate about their cars and ranks them in order. For the third year running Skoda has topped the manufacturers list Read more »

The 2010 What Car and J D Power Ownership Satisfaction Survey is out now and available in the July issue of What Car. The survey arrives at its findings after analysing returns from 17,200 motorists travelling a total of 300 million miles in their cars. 104 models from 27 manufacturers have been rated with every aspect of owning scrutinised. The satisfaction percentage score is made up of four sections. Read more »

I revealed last week that the Hyundai i30 was voted the Auto Express Driver Power car of the year as voted by 23,000 drivers polled. This week I reveal the rest of the top 10. The cars were scored for 10 major features including reliability, build quality, running costs, performance, comfort, ride quality etc. The top ten were as follows: Read more »

Auto Express have named their Driver Power 2010 top 100 cars. More of this next week but I can report that the Jaguar XF has been knocked off the number one position and replaced by, wait for it, the Hyundai i30. The survey was polled amongst 23,00 drivers with cars being assessed on 10 factors including reliability, comfort, build quality and performance. More of this breaking story next week but this week we are offering the i30 on special terms as our deal of the week – I don’t just throw these things together you know! By Graham Hill