Help my mate out

easyrider

easyrider

easyrider

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My mate was made redundant so his Audi A4 will have to go which was part of his salary.

He's just got a new job and they have offered him £250 per month car allowance on top of his salary.

What are his options?

He has been told there is no company car but the allowance will allow freedom to choose what he wants to do.

Is a lease car the way forward? Are there any good schemes out there from say BMW or Audi?

what would £250 per month get him...He said he doen't mind putting a liitle extra toward the right car...But he says he wants to avoid buying a new or used car if he can help it.

His plan is to upgrade every 3 years or so.

Cheers

easy
 
[TW]Fox;21626397 said:
A £250 car allowance is pitifully low and probably wont even run a mid spec Focus let alone a BMW or an Audi.
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Indeed thats what I thought. But I didn't want to put a downer on his new job even though its 5K more a year not including the car allownce.


what will an audi/bmw cost?
 
Yes, the cost of a lease is heavily dependant on the residual value of the car, and the residual value of the car is heavily dependant on the mileage it has covered. The lease company buys a car, rents it to you, takes it back after 3 years and flogs it. So the rental amount is based on the price they paid for the car, minus what they get back, plus some profit margin.

A lease can double or more in price purely on the mileage chosen...
 
With £250 a month to play with I'd be looking at a personal loan to buy a car and using the allowance to repay it.
 
what's his mileage ? and is the 250 gross or net ?

one other question, do you know his mileage rate ? if they are paying the full 45p/25p then 250 a month is not that bad
 
You need to confirm the following before anyone can give any useful advice:

-Annual mileage
-Whether the £250 is before or after tax
-How much work will pay him per mile
-Any limitations on what he can run (e.g. maximum age, or size of car)
-What the Audi A4 used to cost him (even as a company car it will have cost him a fair amount in tax liability which he will no longer have to pay)
 
Abyss said:
You need to confirm the following before anyone can give any useful advice:

-Annual mileage
-Whether the £250 is before or after tax
-How much work will pay him per mile
-Any limitations on what he can run (e.g. maximum age, or size of car)
-What the Audi A4 used to cost him (even as a company car it will have cost him a fair amount in tax liability which he will no longer have to pay)
Click to expand...

Ok will do....will post back with this info cheers
 
Abyss said:
You need to confirm the following before anyone can give any useful advice:

-Annual mileage
-Whether the £250 is before or after tax
-How much work will pay him per mile
-Any limitations on what he can run (e.g. maximum age, or size of car)
-What the Audi A4 used to cost him (even as a company car it will have cost him a fair amount in tax liability which he will no longer have to pay)
Click to expand...

-Annual mileage = 20,000
-Whether the £250 is before or after tax = after Tax
-How much work will pay him per mile = 15p approx based on 2ltr diesel
-Any limitations on what he can run (e.g. maximum age, or size of car) = No
-What the Audi A4 used to cost him (even as a company car it will have cost him a fair amount in tax liability which he will no longer have to pay = £100
 
For £250 a month and 20k miles he'll struggle to get anything more than a small hatch on a personal lease I'd have thought :(

Might be better off buying something as said and using the cash towards loan repayments.

Although Lingscars have some C class diesel for not a bad price on a personal lease, offers do crop up quite a lot on the lease sites so see what's about I guess

http://www.lingscars.com/Mercedes/C...4bhp)_C200_SE_Saloon_4dr_2143cc-personal.html
 
Last edited:
easyrider said:
-Annual mileage = 20,000
-Whether the £250 is before or after tax = after Tax
-How much work will pay him per mile = 15p approx based on 2ltr diesel
-Any limitations on what he can run (e.g. maximum age, or size of car) = No
-What the Audi A4 used to cost him (even as a company car it will have cost him a fair amount in tax liability which he will no longer have to pay = £100
Click to expand...

He's going to need to pay well over 500 quid a month for something like a 520d on a lease with that sort of mileage PA.

The money they are offering simply isn't enough to run a car like that without spending a vast amount of your own money. The mileage rate will barely cover fuel leaving only that £250 a month to lease and maintain and fit tyres to and insure a car doing 20k a year. It just isnt going to happen.

Infact he'd probably not even break even on a diesel Clio.
 
Ok 250 net is not great by any means but there are some real positives, namely no age restriction and the 15p per mile combination.

I would be spending 1500 on an older toledo tdi and offsetting the purchase on a 0% card if he hasn't the savings after losing his previous job. Use the 250 net to pay back the 1500 in the first year and cover insurance, tax and maybe tyres. Assuming nost of that 20k is recoverabke thats some pretty cheap motoring there really

He will also be safe if the job goes **** up with a car to sell and recover costs rather than being stuck with a lease car for x years. If possible never ever finance a car for work, its not worth it
 
Depending on security of his job and salary etc I'd buy something but what would depend on those things as to if it was something cheap or not, using the £250 a month to go towards running it.

In a similar situation as new job starting next week has an allowance which if you take the cash value is pants, but if I use it for a lease car through the company it's 'worth' twice as much.
 
For me no job can be considered secure before you've been there at least a year and have a good feel for what's going on in the industry and within the company itself. The most important thing is never to commit to anything that you cannot get out of at little to no cost to yourself if things go wrong. For this reason I would never lease a car for work unless the company were directly paying for it, even the likes of a pcp would be a safer.

In this situation, given the amount available I would say stuck with my post above. Cash for a car outright for at least a year then maybe a loan with a decent sum of cash down on the purchase price (at least 20%) and lowish payments spread over a few years. Having used my own car for work I fine it very hard to reccommend paying out every month for a vehicle that you will be devaluing at quite a rate and potentially servicing twice a year at a couple of hundred a time (ok worst case but who services a car within or just out of warranty themselves?), tyres, business insurance etc.

The 15ppm will barely if even cover fuel so everything else needs to be kept to an absolute minimum imo. Treat this car as a tool not something nice, though that doesn't mean it cant be a half decent older car
 
rodenal said:
For me no job can be considered secure before you've been there at least a year and have a good feel for what's going on in the industry and within the company itself. The most important thing is never to commit to anything that you cannot get out of at little to no cost to yourself if things go wrong. For this reason I would never lease a car for work unless the company were directly paying for it, even the likes of a pcp would be a safer.
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I agree, the way the leases have worked at my current and new place are that they give you money, but you can pick something from the lease list and they take the money out before tax. Whilst you're employed there you're obliged to take the car for the full term, but if you leave/get fired you just hand it back.
 
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