Finance deals - any good?

[Déesse trois]

Although I had originally envisaged buying my DS3 outright, I'm having second thoughts and wondered if it would be a good idea to go for the Citroen Elect 3 (or 4) deal? I quite like the idea of being able to change car after 3 years or so and not be too concerned about owning an aging and increasingly unreliable and corroded vehicle, as I have done with nearly all of my previous ones.

My problem is my high mileage, I reckon to do 20,000+ and I'm wondering what sort of penalties they slap on if you exceed the agreed mileage.

Has anyone done the comparisons of outright purchase versus various finance packages, or is there a website that shows this comparison.

DS3 owners (and renters) opinions would be welcomed.

[x6411]

The Citroen DS3 Configurator gives you a finance example, and you can set mileage, deposit, amount of months and it'll tell you the monthly price on Elect3.

But with some haggling you can get the monthly price a lot lower with your dealer

[Den]

Im not sure if the Citroen version of this is the same as BMW/Mini, but on theirs, unless you keep the car until the end and pay the optional final payment to buy it or hand it back, they dont check the mileage of the car compared to what you agreed to when you part ex it for another. They just base the part ex price on the age/condition/mileage as usual.

[x6411]

Im not sure if the citroen version of this is the same as bmw/mini, but on theirs, unless you keep the car until the end and pay the optional final payment to buy it or hand it back, they dont check the milage of the car when you part ex it for another.

Surely this is the other way around?

Surely they'd check it if you were handing it back or part exing it .. (e.g. you put 100'000 miles on in 3yrs, its gonna be worth jack to them as PX)..

If you were paying until the end and keeping it.. they wouldn't care because you're still paying the full price of the car, and if its got more miles on then its not their problem?

[Den]

well i just part ex'd my cooper at mini, they didnt check what mileage was on my contract and told me they dont do it unless you are handing it back or paying the final payment

[Den]

extract from the agreement
"Excess mileage charges are payable at the end of the agreement or if you return the vehicle"

[x6411]

extract from the agreement
"Excess mileage charges are payable at the end of the agreement or if you return the vehicle"

Wow weird! I always thaught it wouldn't matter if you were keeping the car, as at the end of the day you're paying the full amount for the car, and it'd be your car with your miles on.

I thought excess charges would only come into play if you're giving it back or PXing as the car would be worth less to them.

I opted for 10k p/year anyways so I should be ok with that regardless

[Den]

I was shocked when they told me, i suspect its a way of getting you to go back and part ex it

[Rickzayne]

I'm sure mine is 0.35p per mile.. Or something close


But then again I'm known for making up fake facts

[x6411]

I'm sure mine is 0.35p per mile.. Or something close


But then again I'm known for making up fake facts

Finance Example is saying 15p for every mile extra but I suppose it could vary from deal to deal.

My girlfriend opted for 6k for her first car (First year driving, had no idea how much she'd be doing).. Anyways she ended up doing 9K her first year so she rang Peugeot (Finance) so see if she could pay to have the mileage increased, to avoid paying the extra (5p per mile on this).. They sent her a letter saying the residual value of her car had increased so they'd change it to 10k free of charge ... So we asked them again if we could take it to 12k.. they said yes

Also, Citroen must be different to BMW/Mini as this is from their Elect3 Leaflet:

ARE THERE ANY
AGREEMENT CONDITIONS

Yes. Don’t be caught out. If you choose to hand the car back
or part-exchange the vehicle, it is vital to be accurate with
your estimated usage, because you’ll face additional charges
if you have exceeded the agreed mileage at the end of your
agreement. Similarly if you fail to look after the vehicle properly
– condition should be reasonable for its age and mileage –
you could incur extra charges

But I suppose at the end of the day the dealer could still sort you out if you're PXing

[Leebo]

6p a mile mate I've just bought a ds3 o k with 10k a year limit

[Den]

i guess each company is different.
just had a quick search on the mini finance to check my understanding and it says as follows on a bit of a Q&A area:

"If you increase the monthly payments because you have altered the estimated mileage, the baloon payment will decrease. But I think you need to do the sums to see whether it makes sense if you have to pay £100 for the privilege.

You need to look at the charge you will incur if you hand the car back with excess mileage. Obviously if you decide to keep the car and pay the baloon payment, or trade it in( assuming you have some equity), which has the same effect the excess mileage charge does not arise. It will only hit if you decide to hand the car back and walk away at the end of the deal. If you trade it in, in effect the first part of the trade in value goes to satisfy the balloon payment so that the finance is fully repaid and the balance is your deposit against your newcar.

The balloon payment is normally set at a lower level than the expected value of the car at the end of deal. This is intended to provide an incentive for you to return to the dealer to buy another car using your equity as a deposit. It also helps protect the finance company from a loss if you walk away.

However, in this recession second hand carprices have suffered and some people have found it cheaper to walk away as the second hand value was below the balloon payment.

This is less likely to happen with a deal negotiated now so it is fairly unlikely that you will be better off walking away and the excess mileage charge is therefore unlikely to arise.."

so it seems you wont have to pay if you keep the car to the end. and wont effect part ex (although apparently citroen is different?), just if you hand it back.

[Bigfeet]

In response to the OP's question.

Mileage charges will only ever occur if at the end of your Elect 3/ 4 agreement if you opt to 'hand back' the car to the Finance company, and then only if you breech the agreed mileage total. At 20,000 miles a year you would have on a 3 year agreement a total of 60,000 miles. Lets say you have a excess mileage charge of 9.5 pence per mile and you hand back with 61,455 miles then you would have a charge of £138.23 to pay.

Rule of thumb is that you will pay about £50 per extra 1,000 miles covered.



It's true that mileage charges don't occur when you part exchange but the GFV DOES, so if you go silly with the miles you are more likely to lose out on the difference in the car's real value compared to the GFV so in essence you could end up paying just as much!

[Den]

i knew we could rely on biggie to clarify it all

[ZACK]

Buy The Car...

Don't Be A Pussy...

:L