Which Company Car

Casdawer

Casdawer

Casdawer

Soldato
Joined
14 May 2009
Posts
4,281
Location
Hampshire
Morning all,

Some of you may remember my fiasco thread a couple of weeks ago where I stupidly agreed to a DS4 deal which made no financial sense so taking the advice of OcUK, I cancelled the deal. Thanks again for this.

Lucky enough after all this happened, I was sent an email from Lex Autolease with my company car options and I was very surprised by the cars that I could choose from.

These include:
  • Audi A1/A3
  • BMW 1/2
  • Mini (All Models)
  • VW Beetle, Golf, Polo, Tiguan and T-Roc.
There are others but they're either MPVs or city cars which aren't suited for me.

At the moment, I'm eyeing up the Audi A3 S-Line which sets my back £88pm with BIK, but wanted to get the opinion of you guys as to which car would be best suited for me.

I travel 60 miles per day, majority is A/M roads so needs to be good on the motorway. Worth getting diesel with 60 miles or stick with petrol?
 
Depends if you have to pay for your own fuel or not, and if you care about saving a few quid? I'd look at the BMW 230i M sport coupe, alongside the Audi A3, if it is available to you.
 
You still pay the tax on the private fuel, not sure thats really a perk unless you are doing mega private miles.

I like the look of the A3 compared to the 1/2 series, no doubt the BMW will drive a little better, but iirc they are all FWD now anyway? Not a great fan of VAG cars, but at least the Audi's have a nice interior rather than the plasticky bits on the Golfs, Ive never really been impressed with the Golf, you really need to have them specced up for them to be nice inside, and some of the lower plastics are cheap feeling for a premium hatch.
 
Well in true OCUK style I will have to disagree with Tinders :)

Having just moved to audi after BMW3/BMW5/Mini I would say the Audi drives are far nicer. My other half still has a BMW, she is constantly nagging to use the Audi where as she would always complain if I wanted to swap and borrow her BMW previously (hers has foldable seats where mine didn't)

I would generally tip Audi to have slightly better equip but its very model dependant so you would have to compare your exact shortlist.

60 miles per day puts you just into the diesel range really, and as its a company car its worry free motoring.

On mainly A/M roads diesels are in their element, its what they do so well. As much as they are "not as much fun" I would lean that way personally.

I hate petrol stations so you may find the routine fill up is noticeably more frequent with the petrol, although also depends on your pattern, wait till near empty, once a week etc
 
[TW]Fox said:
Why?
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Funny you dont pull up Tinders saying BMWs are nicer ;)

But anyway, thats an interesting question. Its subjective I never really thought about it, so this is a brain dump.
I would say the ride is a little firmer in Audis (and I do prefer firmer) although if you go for the firmer BMWs on the smaller ones I find they feel less compliant.
The seats are nicer as STD, BMW standard seats are and always have been shocking. Upgrade the seats they are nice.
It just feels more right when you get in.

Take the 2011 or so 3 series, the pedals aren't lined up with the seat properly so your literally slightly twisted. maybe I notice this sort of thing more. When I pointed it out to people they were always surprised then agreed.
I must just be sensitive ;)
 
Be wary of BIK increases on diesels for company cars. Investigate your mileage reimbursement situation and what you're then entitled to for tax relief.

At the moment I would say hybrids are the magic solution for company cars in most circumstances as many companies will pay a better mileage reimbursement than diesel, you get decent enough economy and the BIK is peanuts vs a solely ICE powered car.

You also need to look at whether you are sacrificing an allowance payment to take the car. I know a few people who excitedly jumped into Golf GTDs and A4 SLines etc. and realised afterwards it was effectively costing them near enough £600 per month once everything was accounted for.
 
Good point on the hybrids, they are typically a little more expensive to lease than a ICE car though so depends what the companies criteria is (ie do they allow upto £x per month)

The BIK is going up quickly as well, but there is a chance to get effectively very cheap company car motoring for the next few years.
 
No hybrid options I'm afraid.

I will have to fill up the car myself so no private fuel.

Lex Autolease provides a BIK calculator and shows the next 3 years of increases so I'm aware of the rising costs.

I do have the option for car allowance which is what I receive at the moment and this is around £340 after tax.

The problem I have is that I still owe about 3k on my car finance before I qualify for the voluntary termination so I can't pay this and then put a deposit on a car.

With the company car, there are no upfront costs which suits my situation better.
 
Kenai said:
At the moment I would say hybrids are the magic solution for company cars in most circumstances as many companies will pay a better mileage reimbursement than diesel, you get decent enough economy and the BIK is peanuts vs a solely ICE powered car.
Click to expand...

Not for long. A typical petrol hybrid putting out less than 50g/km of CO2 currently has a BIK rate of 9%. In April that'll go up to 13% and then next year 16%.
 
Casdawer said:
I do have the option for car allowance which is what I receive at the moment and this is around £340 after tax.
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Remember though that you will also NOT be paying tax on the BIK of your chosen company car (let’s say that’s £120 / month for this calculation), so you can actually spend £460 / month buying and running a car without being worse off than in the company car.

You will also be able to claim additional tax relief if your employer pays less the £0.45 / £0.25 per mile for any business trips you do.

Can you not take the allowance and just keep running your current car for a while?
 
Havana_UK said:
Remember though that you will also NOT be paying tax on the BIK of your chosen company car (let’s say that’s £120 / month for this calculation), so you can actually spend £460 / month buying and running a car without being worse off than in the company car.

You will also be able to claim additional tax relief if your employer pays less the £0.45 / £0.25 per mile for any business trips you do.

Can you not take the allowance and just keep running your current car for a while?
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I've got a Citroen C1 and while it's fine for city driving, it's not great for a 60 mile trip on the motorway every day.

If I kept the allowance, I'd have to pay to get out of my current finance and then get another vehicle which will require a down payment of some kind.
 
Looking back at your last thread and the £2700 worth of negative equity you have in the outstanding £7,700 you owe on the C1, the company car does seem an easy way out at first glance.

You've quoted £340 and £240 in different threads as your allowance after tax, if we go in the middle of that and work at £300 per month repayments, you could finance a £10,000 ish loan over 3yrs, so lose £3,000 to getting shot of your previous car and you've got £7,000 to put into a half decent but few year old Focus, Mondeo, Golf, Leon, Auris, etc. etc. to get you back in a 'positive' position, which you could chop and change and upgrade as and when you pleased. Add to this tax, insurance, maintenance and so on and you're probably around an equivalent spend to what a company car would be costing you monthly. 3 years later and you've got a car worth some money still which you can use to start again.

Weigh that up against driving a brand new but in comparison relatively expensive company car (though it may include insurance etc. which obviously adds a bit of value back into the equation) and I can see why the company car seems appealing in the circumstances. Though potentially you'd still need to fund a loan to terminate your current finance agreement? £3,000 loan over 3 years is still £100 a month to service, on top of losing £240/£340 of your salary and paying £100 in tax, so you could be looking at effectively paying/losing over £500 per month to get into a company car right now.

Obviously I don't know what your current monthly payments are on the C1 but you'd gain that back in either scenario.

Personally, I think i'd be minded to try and endure the C1 for a bit longer to reduce the negative equity problem and reassess in 6 months time maybe.
 
Casdawer said:
I've got a Citroen C1 and while it's fine for city driving, it's not great for a 60 mile trip on the motorway every day.

If I kept the allowance, I'd have to pay to get out of my current finance and then get another vehicle which will require a down payment of some kind.
Click to expand...
Whilst it’s not great for motorway driving it will still work. You can use your allowance to overpay on the finance to quickly get in to a position where you DON’T have negative equity and then work on building up a deposit for something to replace it.
 
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