Tell me about your lease returns

[Andybtsn]

The contract hire car goes back on Friday. Like most, it's been used sparingly in the past year and rather than the 60k miles it should be going back with, it's actually on 46k.

There are three scratches/marks, call them what you will.

One above the front wheel that is 3cm in length.
Another on the drivers side mirror again around 4cm in length where the paint has rubbed off.
Last scratch around 10cm.

I'm expecting the worst, although have no real idea how much they charge for the repair of these marks?

Anyone got some good/bad experiences with the lease returns?

 

[Housey]

I have handed 2 cars back to a lease company, both with Arval finance. The first was the Polo GTI around 34 months ago, the second was my E Class last week. Both cars were in good condition really. Stone chips of course, small nicks on windscreens (nothing big or line of sight) and interiors in good condition as I didn’t really have people in the back much or in the front seats that often either.

The Polo did have a stain on the bonnet from a bird dump that I did not get off quick enough, but that was never picked up or seen as a reason for anything more. The E Class was smashed up at the back, but high standard of repair was obvious and Arval were aware. Tyres matched and were legal, my neighbour had to pay for 2 brand new tyres on return that did not match, they were new but none spec so I just ensured I matched tyres.

I think if the car is generally in good nick, has no panel damage or long deep scratches they are fine. Wheel damage small in nature is expected, bigger stuff comes with a fixed price to fix normally. The process this time was thorough, included driving the car a few yards, testing brakes, steering and plugging in a computer to check miles etc. But I again got the all good, emailed the confirmation and took the car away.

Both times for me were pain free. Polo was over the miles too I seem, to recall, couple of thousand and they never billed me.

 

[Greebo]

In general, and at work we use a lot of lease companies, they are all very reasonable with their charges.

Almost all are signed up to the BVRLA and follow their guidance

https://www.bvrla.co.uk/fleet-services/fair-wear-and-tear.html

https://www.alphabet.com/en-gb/bvrla to get a copy for free

We have just returned a Discovery Sport to Landrover Hire with two scratches above 25mm and got charged £43 for each scratch.

You can of course get the work done yourself first but not sure I could get the work done for much cheaper.

Have you tried buffing the scratches out? we have sometimes done that and managed to remove some scratches sometimes.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

When my A6 went back to Arval, they wanted close to £1000 but after haggling and involving the BVRLA it came down to around £500, however I had cancelled the direct debit and they have never come after me for payment.

 

[booyaka]

https://www.bvrla.co.uk/resource/returning-your-leased-vehicle.html

Fair wear and tear guide linked above

Depending on the severity of them they can charge - £20-£80 each I've found in the past. I polished out a few last time and took a hit on a couple on the wife's car. They usually measure them and take pictures - give you an estimate there and then.

Normally they use and ipad, take pictures, give you a ballpark estimate there and then. It should NEVER be more than the estimate you signed for.

I've return 6 or 7 lease cars over the years and despite one post return "hassle" - everyone has been fine.

Take your own pictures as well prior to pickup. Kia return tried to charge me for a new passenger door which had a massive dent in it post pickup pictures - I told them to do one as it wasn't there at pick and had the pictures to prove it. They backed down immediately and apologised.

Most are fine, never really had much trouble. Did laugh when 3 guys turned up to pick up my wife's 3 year lease diesel juke, they took 45 minutes going over the whole car in detail including paint depth gauge for some bizarre reason..... a week later my vRS was uplift - guy turned up, check it had 4 tyres, 2 keys and was like - sign here mate - nothing I can see wrong with it. off he went!

 

[Greebo]

When my A6 went back to Arval, they wanted close to £1000 but after haggling and involving the BVRLA it came down to around £500, however I had cancelled the direct debit and they have never come after me for payment.

Wow, what state was that in?????? I have never had a car anywhere near that much. The worst, and most common, error is people taking the parcel shelf out and putting it in their garage and forgetting to put it back in. You get charged between £400 and £500 depending on the vehicle for not returning them. Usually solved by forcing the employee to take it back in their own time.

 

[dlockers]

A scratch like this?

 

[Greebo]

That will just polish out

 

[Journey]

My first PCH'd Merc with MB Finance, had usual wear and tear, but also had two of the alloys pretty mangled around the edges, it was something like £70 for both, one phone call later and they were dropped.

Second Merc was with BlackHorse/Lex, the car had been smashed into the passenger side after 6 months by some plank who didn't look when leaving a junction, repair work carried out at a Merc specialist, and reported to Lex at the time of the accident. It also had most of the driver side wing mirror indicator melted, due to a bus trying to squeeze past down a narrow road, that was never fixed, and it had one alloy damaged. I wasn't charged for either of these, nor did the inspector give two hoots apparently. I think he was just pleased it was really clean outside, and inside, and smelled nice and wasn't full of trash, as apparently that is quite normal, I also made him a cup of tea as it was winter and cold, so maybe that helped.

The worst one was with VWFS Passat, well over mileage, massive dent in the rear bumper, huge scratch on the passenger door, three of the four alloys were damaged, the front passenger seat had a rip in the cloth near the lower back, and the boot was stained badly due to a spillage that would not come out. I negotiated that one down from over £900 to just the cost of the extra mileage, plus £70 towards the wheels. I think they got fed up after phone call number 5.

 

[Sirrel Squirrel]

Wow, what state was that in?????? I have never had a car anywhere near that much. The worst, and most common, error is people taking the parcel shelf out and putting it in their garage and forgetting to put it back in. You get charged between £400 and £500 depending on the vehicle for not returning them. Usually solved by forcing the employee to take it back in their own time.

I found the old thread, here's the full list of what they wanted to charge me for:

https://imgur.com/a/9Jbum

 

[Greebo]

I found the old thread, here's the full list of what they wanted to charge me for:

https://imgur.com/a/9Jbum

Lol unlucky. thats nothing, I have returned cars worse than that. Tyre and one wheel I would say fair cop. Rest look like they will buff out.

 

[Vanquish-Storm]

The agent can tell if you have looked after the car. We gave a Mini back the chap who collected and evaluated was a delight. He went around the car and said it was in great condition filmed it all on an iPad. As he was about to leave he saw a small dent he had missed and had to start again. He was very apologetic, but understandably he had to mark it down otherwise they would have said he did it!

He said we would be charged £150 but in the end Mini said don’t worry about it!

It was all done to BVRLA

 

[MeAnBoY]

Between my partner and our families we've returned around 6 leased cars and it's always been a simple process. They seem very fair when it comes to cosmetic damage to the car, for example our last one had a decent scrape on the rear bumper and I seem to remember it was <£100 to get sorted with some other scratches being noted but not charged for.

 

[Avalon]

I have only had one real problem over the years, but based on that I would suggest you should always assume the worst.

I had a PCP that I terminated after paying over 50% (wife dumped her car on me as I paid for it when she wanted something awful/new and I didn’t want her old car - also the last time I paid for her car). I took video/photo’s and copies of all the docs they insisted were returned including getting a replacement copy of the MOT certificate, I literally made sure it was exactly as required. After handover I chased them once for confirmation everything was in order and heard nothing, 3 months later they came back demanding north of a grand for ‘damage’, missing paperwork, parcel shelf, spare wheel, toolkit etc.

I can imagine this may work with some people who are willing to just pay them to go away, especially if they will take a reduced settlement figure to ‘avoid legal action’, the call centre doing this seemed to have multiple agents doing the same thing from what I could hear. The call lasted over an hour and despite advising them clearly at multiple points that I had no intention of paying them anything without an invoice and pictures showing the alleged damage, they were instant that they would be passing the ‘debt’ onto a DCA for ‘enforcement’, something that they can’t actually enforce without taking me to court and receiving a judgement, though they could get a DCA to threaten to do exactly that. Eventually when it became clear I wasn’t going to cave, and the advisor refused to escalate the call, she went off to instruct the heavies and I sent a recorded delivery letter with copies of the photo’s, a transcript of the call and a link to the call audio and the video of the car with a covering letter explaining as I had no invoice let alone evidence provided to me, it wouldn’t be paid and if they did want to take me to small claims court, I had very strong evidence showing the claims made were false, I would also have the hearing moved to my location and counter claim for costs/loss of earnings - ironically HMCTS were one of my clients. I also suggested that while I welcomed my day in court, it appeared that they were potentially attempting to obtaining a pecuniary advantage through deception, which falls under criminal rather than civil law. It took them less than two hours after they received the letter and viewed the video/listened to part of the call before they called me and said I would have a letter the following day confirming they would be taking no further action.

The other three leases that we have returned since have been totally painless.

 

[dlockers]

I have only had one real problem over the years, but based on that I would suggest you should always assume the worst.

I had a PCP that I terminated after paying over 50% (wife dumped her car on me as I paid for it when she wanted something awful/new and I didn’t want her old car - also the last time I paid for her car). I took video/photo’s and copies of all the docs they insisted were returned including getting a replacement copy of the MOT certificate, I literally made sure it was exactly as required. After handover I chased them once for confirmation everything was in order and heard nothing, 3 months later they came back demanding north of a grand for ‘damage’, missing paperwork, parcel shelf, spare wheel, toolkit etc.

I can imagine this may work with some people who are willing to just pay them to go away, especially if they will take a reduced settlement figure to ‘avoid legal action’, the call centre doing this seemed to have multiple agents doing the same thing from what I could hear. The call lasted over an hour and despite advising them clearly at multiple points that I had no intention of paying them anything without an invoice and pictures showing the alleged damage, they were instant that they would be passing the ‘debt’ onto a DCA for ‘enforcement’, something that they can’t actually enforce without taking me to court and receiving a judgement, though they could get a DCA to threaten to do exactly that. Eventually when it became clear I wasn’t going to cave, and the advisor refused to escalate the call, she went off to instruct the heavies and I sent a recorded delivery letter with copies of the photo’s, a transcript of the call and a link to the call audio and the video of the car with a covering letter explaining as I had no invoice let alone evidence provided to me, it wouldn’t be paid and if they did want to take me to small claims court, I had very strong evidence showing the claims made were false, I would also have the hearing moved to my location and counter claim for costs/loss of earnings - ironically HMCTS were one of my clients. I also suggested that while I welcomed my day in court, it appeared that they were potentially attempting to obtaining a pecuniary advantage through deception, which falls under criminal rather than civil law. It took them less than two hours after they received the letter and viewed the video/listened to part of the call before they called me and said I would have a letter the following day confirming they would be taking no further action.

The other three leases that we have returned since have been totally painless.

Interesting that they went through that even under VTA. I have heard of some real rotters being sent back to the finance company under VTA. They must have 'tightened up' their process (see: outsourced it to some rottweilers to chance some cash from those who would rather pay than have the hassle).

 

[SDK^]

I’ve always got my lease cars repaired before returning them.

- BMW 1 Series : I damaged the rear bumper from sliding on ice and that cost me about £300
- Golf R Touring : I reversed into a post and split the rear bumper/splitter and that cost me £400
- BMW 5 Touring : I crashed into the back of someone and did some other damage to the front and rear bumpers and that cost me £850.

As well as those fixes there were a couple more things to mention.
- Golf R : they charged me £100 for 2 wheel refurbs.
- BMW : they didn’t charge me for a cracked wing mirror indicator lens, which I hadn’t even noticed was damaged.

 

[Dianbobo]

When I returned my Alfa Giulia pch a couple of years ago they didn’t even notice the rear tyres had been replaced with ones much cheaper. I think it was P zero’s they came with, no chance I was buying a set of them after a puncture!

 

[Avalon]

Interesting that they went through that even under VTA. I have heard of some real rotters being sent back to the finance company under VTA. They must have 'tightened up' their process (see: outsourced it to some rottweilers to chance some cash from those who would rather pay than have the hassle).

The impression I got was the finance provider had suffered a shortfall post auction and was out to get absolutely everything they could out of me. Any reputable company itemises the costs, puts them in a letter and asks you to contact them to make payment or with any queries within 30 days, then call etc. The only damage was slight wear to the ‘sports’ fabric on the bolster and a tiny indentation to the p/s door skin that was smaller than a 5p (as that’s what I used for scale), it was noted on the pre-delivery paperwork which I took a copy of, so irrelevant to a VT anyway.

The last three PCH’s after that we had zero issues. Either way we’ve made a point of covering our arses.

 

[Andybtsn]

I must admit my concerns were eased somewhat with the majority of responses here...however, the car has gone and they’ve emailed the following issues.

Service history - Incomplete
Bonnet - Paint chips
Door mirror assy LHF - Scuffed (Unpainted)
Door LHR - Paint chips
Qtr panel LHR - Scratched
Bumper rear - Scratched Multiple Areas
Load area carpet - Scuffed
Load area trim panel RH - Scuffed
Load area trim panel LH - Scuffed
Door moulding RHR - Scuffed (Unpainted)

The service history is complete and I’ve since had confirmation of that from the dealer. The rest are somewhat trivial. Boot carpet scuffed? What in the world. The stone chips come to £298.... so far some prices have to be confirmed but the total comes to £1100. Argh!

 

[tom_e]

I can't see anything in the door mirror picture and most of the scuffed bit's just look like it needs a clean.