help with finance please

[cm1179]

i bought my vw lupo from a vw main dealer in august 2009, got £1000 p/ex for my golf (MOT failure - needed a whole lot of work) and the remaining £4500 is through finance over 4 years, so 3 years finance @ about £80 p/m left.
i now find myself in the position of needing a van, (something like a vw transporter), instead of a car. i have checked my closest vw van centre and a year old transporter can be had for about £12k.
now, as much as i love vw's, i realise a van which would do the same job (though be a bit older) could be obtained for half the price or an equivalent ford transit could be had for a little less than £12k, probably closer to £10k if i shopped around.
i would like to know if there is any way out of the finance, though i am assuming this would mean taking a hit on the lupo or whether a ford van centre could transfer any existing finance i had paid, take the lupo in px and leave me with a recalculated finance payment on a transit, or whether i have no option other than to stay with vw and transfer the finance and px my lupo through them? would a van centre take a lupo as px?

any help appreciated

 

[cm1179]

You can obtain a early settlement figure for the car finance, it should mean that interest is only paid upto the point of settlement. The garage will deduct the settlement amount from part exchange value and settle on your behalf.you will then be able to use the equity as deposit for the van, the balance can then be financed normally over 1-5 years. Given the state of the car industry at the moment you should be able to secure a new loan with a flat rate of interest close to 4%.

Hope it helps.

(car sales exec for last 10 years)

what would you advise? please take your salesmans hat off

 

[cm1179]

torinn, can i ask (iye) how much a van of £11.5k could be knocked down? it's a vw transporter with 4k miles and has apparently 'just arrived'. do they want to get rid of stuff that has just arrived as quickly as possible, or is there less room for negotiation as compared to a car that has been on the forecourt for a few months?

 

[cm1179]

Why are you set on getting a 12k VW van? Why not a 6k one, just curious.

it's a 2009 model from a main dealer and has only got 4k on the clock, a quick bit of research shows this is a good price and i am going to ask them what finance payments would be (it's at the same dealership i bought the lupo from) i'm not commited to this route but finance does have it's benefits with a VAT registered business and cashflow against initial outlay

 

[cm1179]

Yea i know that bit, im just wondering why you want to jump from a 4k car to a 12k van, whats the matter with a 6k van?

well, a 6k van (in all likelihood) wont be as reliable (if my van doesn't work, i can't work) it wont have a warranty and also i may be able to come to some sort of finance agreement as i know the dealership and brought the car from them, just weighing up my options atm

 

[cm1179]

Hey thats not true, the student loan only paid for the insurance

He wont be VAT registered, he'd probably have a bit more idea what he was doing if he was VAT registered.

i will be VAT registered from the 1st Dec thanks for your comment on me not having a bit more of an idea of what i'm doing but i'm not an accountant though i am a little aware of the benefits of offsetting certain things, this being one of them

 

[cm1179]

seriously can't see a £12k main dealer van being much more reliable than a slightly higher mileage £6-8k van, They are built to pile miles on. You are just getting sucked into something shiney imo.

i'm weighing up my options, if i can get a good one for £6k and get rid of the lupo, i may very well do

 

[cm1179]

If your are doing a lot of commercial work or know from the outset that your turnover will exceed VAT threshold by a lot, then it's not a bad idea to get registered asap as it can save a lot of hassle later on!

i take over the franchise on 1st december, it's already over the threshold and the franchisor is VAT registered, so, it is a requirement. i had no idea really how VAT worked in business up until very recently (never needed to know) but i have now got a clearer picture. all my clients are VAT registered so it's no big deal, even when it does go up to 20%

 

[cm1179]

Whats the franchise?

cleaning

 

[cm1179]

Pretty sure best idea is to look at leasing then, with the tax benefits you can keep a well maintained new van for not much compared with dealing with it all yourself.

thanks. this may be a better option

 

[cm1179]

Hold on, you've been jobless for a long time. In what mind is borrowing so much money a good idea?

let's just say inheritance is often the only positive thing to come out of a family bereavement and it wasn't that long (july)

 

[cm1179]

But make sure you go in with your eyes open and don't sign anything then and there, take it away and think about it.



+1

cheers

 

[cm1179]

a brief update. i went to the vw dealership today, the van with 4k on the clock was sold so, i looked at other vans. it now seems apparent, that no matter what the mileage on a transporter, they all hold around the same price. the salesman showed me ones with 100k+ on the clock priced the same as ones with less than 30k! i couldn't quite understand this but apparently this is the norm and one with 100k plus on it had sold for less than £1000 less than one with 30k on it.
i have just over £3k left on my finance but i can pay this off and sell the car privately. vw offered me £2k trade in on my lupo, which has less than 40k on the clock, is not a reasonable offer.
finance on £11.5k 09 van was only a little less than leasing a brand new one. the used van market is certainly a bit of a surprise to me!