[paul alan]

My 2012 transit will be 6 years old soon, it is just under the 100k mile mark and has the trademark rust spots developing.

I have 1 year and a couple of months left of finance to pay.

Looking to the future, I need to consider if leasing (or similar) works out more cost effective/beneficial.

Taking all payments and costs into consideration, what are peoples experiences please?

[John Mart]

My 2012 transit will be 6 years old soon, it is just under the 100k mile mark and has the trademark rust spots developing.

I have 1 year and a couple of months left of finance to pay.

Looking to the future, I need to consider if leasing (or similar) works out more cost effective/beneficial.

Taking all payments and costs into consideration, what are peoples experiences please?

From a cost point of view, buy over 3/4 years and run for 6/10 years. If you want the luxury of a new one and don’t have a car consider leasing. If you’re flat rate VAT as we are for another couple of months, don’t lease as you can’t reclaim the vat.

[AuRavelling79]

What 8 weekly said ...

Also I understand that if you are VAT registered then leasing is more attractive to some.

Personally I'm not and I have bought 2 vans from new.

1. (I had no capital and 3 kids to support) I did a lease and at the end I paid a balloon rental and was able to buy the peppercorn rent out and so owned it. Essentially I bought over 4 years, kept for 8 and sold it to Dan the Man who runs it still at 12 years old.

2. I was prepared to use a loan to buy over 2 years but the guy at the bank said it would be cheaper to use an overdraft of 15K (after I paid a deposit of £1500) if I was very careful to pay it off within two years. I actually paid it off in one (by transferring some savings) and so avoided a rearrangement fee at the end of year one.

So I bought over 12 months and have had it for over 6 years. I intend to keep it for at least another 4 years, maybe longer if it continues reliable.

Looking ahead all things being equal (me being not VAT reg) I think I will start saving now to buy in 4 - 6 years time and get a loan over 1 or 2 years to cover the balance. Hopefully that will be my last work vehicle even if I employ and go part time.

TLDR? I would look at different options - lease/purchase etc. and work out exactly how much I would pay
 in total for however long I had the vehicle and take a guess at it's residual value and take into account any tax saving possibilities too.

[dazmond]

My 2012 transit will be 6 years old soon, it is just under the 100k mile mark and has the trademark rust spots developing.

I have 1 year and a couple of months left of finance to pay.

Looking to the future, I need to consider if leasing (or similar) works out more cost effective/beneficial.

Taking all payments and costs into consideration, what are peoples experiences please?

i lease both my van and my golf GTD.easily affordable monthly payments and virtually no upfront costs(apart from 3 months rental on both vehicles)road tax is included in my car rental BUT not on my van rental(it also attracts VAT which i didnt know until they invoiced me!).

i dont think theres much difference between buying a brand new van on finance or leasing a brand new van.mines a BUSINESS FINANCE LEASE so at the end of the 5 year contract i have the option to pay the balloon and keep it or hand it back and get another new one......ill probably keep it because i only do around 4k miles a year so will probably have a least another 5 years life left in it......

[Slash]

I used to lease my vans but  I buy them outright now,I don't see the point of leasing them if you can afford to buy them and as for tax deductable I found there was  not a lot difference it you were to buy one outright to leasing them,that was my experience anyway.

[Cookie]

You can buy a "nearly new" van from places like Motorpoint & Van Monster.

Save £s off buying brand new & you also get the balance of the manufacturers warranty. 

[Shrek]

I always try and pay for everything in full - keeps my outgoings to a minimum, i wouldn’t part with a lot of cash for a van though , I paid about 2k for my tranny , keep it clean and tidy. And it’s cheap to fix , the rust spots I was getting on the sills Iv had the garage paint them in some sort of black paint and it looks pretty good

[dazmond]

I always try and pay for everything in full - keeps my outgoings to a minimum, i wouldn’t part with a lot of cash for a van though , I paid about 2k for my tranny , keep it clean and tidy. And it’s cheap to fix , the rust spots I was getting on the sills Iv had the garage paint them in some sort of black paint and it looks pretty good

i always used to do that mate but got sick of changing my vans all the time,breakdowns and the general hassle that comes with owning an older van.....is wasnt too bad when i was trad but with WFP,500L tank and a diesel hot system it wouldnt be workable in the longer term.......

[Shrek]

I always try and pay for everything in full - keeps my outgoings to a minimum, i wouldn’t part with a lot of cash for a van though , I paid about 2k for my tranny , keep it clean and tidy. And it’s cheap to fix , the rust spots I was getting on the sills Iv had the garage paint them in some sort of black paint and it looks pretty good

i always used to do that mate but got sick of changing my vans all the time,breakdowns and the general hassle that comes with owning an older van.....is wasnt too bad when i was trad but with WFP,500L tank and a diesel hot system it wouldnt be workable in the longer term.......

Totally understand mate , if I had an expensive system I suppose it would be a hassle taking it out and swapping it into different vans if it broke down. Luckily, my mechanic is my dads mate and if ever my van breaks down, he comes and picks it up & fixes it the same day , van back on the road the next morning. He also sells vans so has vans sat in his yard if I need to borrow one.

[windowswashed]

If buying he van outright then it's worth considering the resale value as some vans are more expensive initially but lose less value when reselling like VW transporters compared to vauxhall vivaro as an example

[Crystal-clear]

This is an interesting subject the situation is if you're putting expensive equipment in the back hot wash etc and buying expensive hose reels polls tanks etc ro you want a good van that's going to be able to keep this stuff in long term you don't want to be taking it out putting it in again incuring costs
And more importantly you want reliability van breaking down for one day or two day is already pretty much the turnover required for a monthly payment potentially isn't it and then you have the Horror Show which happens where van decides to stop working and you need to find a new van and sometimes you might be out of work for 2 weeks
Retransfer everything and then guess what the new van decides to blow up I have heard this happened to some window cleaners and it kind of wipes them out
So perhaps leasing a van any problems they sort it how much do people pay for this and they heard of that company which leases you a water fed pole van fully loaded is that true and how much is that and can you even signwrite the van etc?

[dazmond]

This is an interesting subject the situation is if you're putting expensive equipment in the back hot wash etc and buying expensive hose reels polls tanks etc ro you want a good van that's going to be able to keep this stuff in long term you don't want to be taking it out putting it in again incuring costs
And more importantly you want reliability van breaking down for one day or two day is already pretty much the turnover required for a monthly payment potentially isn't it and then you have the Horror Show which happens where van decides to stop working and you need to find a new van and sometimes you might be out of work for 2 weeks
Retransfer everything and then guess what the new van decides to blow up I have heard this happened to some window cleaners and it kind of wipes them out
So perhaps leasing a van any problems they sort it how much do people pay for this and they heard of that company which leases you a water fed pole van fully loaded is that true and how much is that and can you even signwrite the van etc?

i pay just over £200 a month for my van(including VAT)its the top spec LWB connect.i put up some prices to cover the monthly cost.at the end of 5 years i can either hand it back and get another brand new one or pay the balloon(7k)and keep it.....

you hit the nail on the head.....i got sick of messing around with old vans with 100,000+ miles on the clock and with a decent system fitted in the back you need a van thatll last years and years as its a fairly big investment(esp if you go for a diesel hot system)......

of course you can sign write a lease vehicle.......

[G Griffin]

Oh for the days of buying second hand trad wagons.
It's much easier to come across a good second hand car.

[paul alan]

This is an interesting subject the situation is if you're putting expensive equipment in the back hot wash etc and buying expensive hose reels polls tanks etc ro you want a good van that's going to be able to keep this stuff in long term you don't want to be taking it out putting it in again incuring costs
And more importantly you want reliability van breaking down for one day or two day is already pretty much the turnover required for a monthly payment potentially isn't it and then you have the Horror Show which happens where van decides to stop working and you need to find a new van and sometimes you might be out of work for 2 weeks
Retransfer everything and then guess what the new van decides to blow up I have heard this happened to some window cleaners and it kind of wipes them out
So perhaps leasing a van any problems they sort it how much do people pay for this and they heard of that company which leases you a water fed pole van fully loaded is that true and how much is that and can you even signwrite the van etc?

i pay just over £200 a month for my van(including VAT)its the top spec LWB connect.i put up some prices to cover the monthly cost.at the end of 5 years i can either hand it back and get another brand new one or pay the balloon(7k)and keep it.....

you hit the nail on the head.....i got sick of messing around with old vans with 100,000+ miles on the clock and with a decent system fitted in the back you need a van thatll last years and years as its a fairly big investment(esp if you go for a diesel hot system)......

of course you can sign write a lease vehicle.......

How much of the maintenance are you responsible for? If the van breaks down or the engine goes what happens then? How about the system in the back, do the lease company know about and are ok with it being fitted? Cheers

[֍Winp®oClean֍]

If your transit is in good condition, has been serviced well and generally doesn't give you much trouble I would keep it. It should be good for 150-170k and you'll be payment free from next year. If not then I would sell it, put a bit of effort into buying a good second hand van, private with NO vat for around 4.5-5k outright. It's a business tool, an expense at the end of the day- depends on your personal situation I suppose, all I would say is don't be too eager to hand over more of your income to someone else than you need to- all that counts is how much of your turnover YOU get to keep when the sun goes down!! The easiest thing in the world is to spend someone else's money!

[Crystal-clear]

Are you serious £200 a month ? So I paid last year about £1,300 maintenance and the year before essentially you're saying over the last two years I would have only paid £100 a month on average because I obviously wouldn't have had to service that new lease van ? I also had downtime and rigmarole with MOT to be honest of you it sounds like I lost more can you please tell me the details of this company

[֍Winp®oClean֍]

Are you serious £200 a month ? So I paid last year about £1,300 maintenance and the year before essentially you're saying over the last two years I would have only paid £100 a month on average because I obviously wouldn't have had to service that new lease van ? I also had downtime and rigmarole with MOT to be honest of you it sounds like I lost more can you please tell me the details of this company

Remember that this equates to 20k...…. for a small van! So yes, you could eliminate some of these issues with 20k!! :-)

[Kev Martin]

I finance my vans over 3 years. they cost nearly £18K new inc VAT.  Because we are VAT Registered I claim the £3K VAT back straight away and I pay £495 per month over 36 months interest free and own it at the end of the 3 years

[John Mart]

I finance my vans over 3 years. they cost nearly £18K new inc VAT.  I claimed the £3K VAT back straight away and I pay £495 per month over 36 months interest free and own it at the end of the 3 years

Same here. What vans do you get Kev for £18k.

[Kev Martin]

I finance my vans over 3 years. they cost nearly £18K new inc VAT.  I claimed the £3K VAT back straight away and I pay £495 per month over 36 months interest free and own it at the end of the 3 years

Same here. What vans do you get Kev for £18k.

This time I went for Peugeot Boxer L2 H2 MWB Medium Roof they are a decent spec with Sat Nav, EW, Electric Mirrors, Central Locking with dead bolts, Alarm, Immobiliser, A/C etc.   Last time I had the Transit Custom but they were just too much money this time and Peugeot had the offer on