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Car Dealer, Eastern Avenue, Gants Hill (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When trying to make up your mind between taking a new car on a lease or a used car on standard HP/PCP it becomes quite a complex calculation because in many ways you are dealing with the unknown, certainly when taking a used car.Even on the most basic car if an engine management system fails you can be set back around £1,200, or if an ABS pump Read more »

Years ago stand up comedians like Bernard Manning could fill a complete stand up slot with jokes about Ladas and Skodas, you didn’t measure their speed in miles per hour but feet per week etc. Nissan was called Datsun and called cars after flowers and birds, like Primrose and Bluebird. In those days they simply didn’t get it in the same way as our Read more »

Insight Part 1: I’m often asked why there can be some incredible differences between the contract hire rental rates quoted by different companies advertising on the Internet. There is no simple answer to this question, in some respects it is not dissimilar to the answer that an insurance company would give as to why insurance premiums can be Read more »

If you are a regular reader of my postings you know that I rage on about simply taking the cheapest lease rate. In a recent article in Fleet News I found that I wasn’t the only one holding these views, most of the leasing companies do also. In fact it seems that the reason why many large lessors have pulled out of the broker market is that they don’t Read more »

There’s no such thing as a free lunch! What a load of bull, of course there is, I’ve had plenty over the years and I’ve not been expected offer my body up as a sacrifice or pledge in blood only to use the generous host’s product for ever more but more people are understanding the significance of the expression when applied to lease rates. Go with the cheapest Read more »

I have issued another general warning about the lack of money available to lend and the subsequent repercussions. I have had many people writing to me explaining that they had strong credit but have been declined for loans on several occasions and are now being told that they have dropped into the sub-prime category, which means they will pay high rates of interest if they are able to secure finance at all. The reason for this is the fact that whilst there are still lenders willing to offer low rates Read more »

It’s turned out to be a pretty busy week following the launch of my new book, Graham Hill’s Simple Guide To Car Finance which I hope will get everyone driving a great car. Preparing for finance is vitally important at the moment as there is little money about to lend. So that tempting low APR or monthly lease rate, that gets you sending off your finance application, may lead to a decline if you are not totally Read more »

Great news, Ford are dropping their prices! Hopefully this is just the start and we will see other manufacturers joining the party and we will start to see some lease rate drops! But hang on a minute, whilst they have dropped the price of some models by 10% – 12% isn’t this coinciding with the end of the scrappage scheme? I noticed a trend last year of manufacturers increasing their prices at a time of virtually Read more »

The importance of using a broker rather than a bucket shop for lease cars has been highlighted again this week following the consolidation of the leasing industry. Where your lease provider may have been merged or taken over by another provider you may find yourself subjected to end of lease charges that you may not have received by the original provider who may have been fairly relaxed about defleet recharges. Read more »