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Advice on car to buy or lease for 7 months - Serengetisnow
Hello,

We need a car for about 7 months and are looking at options for either buying for that period or leasing. We need a medium sized reliable car. Ideally one that won’t lose too much at resale. Wondering if anyone had any wise advice as to makes and models? Many thanks!
Advice on car to buy or lease for 7 months - Bromptonaut

I think we'd need some idea of needs/size of vehicle you want to talk makes/models.

If you can buy/sell at right prices this is bangernomics territory and with right vehicle you could cover that time at nugatory cost.

As a baseline, what would a long term hire cost for sort of transport you need.

Advice on car to buy or lease for 7 months - craig-pd130

As a baseline, what would a long term hire cost for sort of transport you need.

I looked into a month-long rental recently, it would have been £1,025 for a Focus / Astra sized car from Enterprise. Other firms may be cheaper but I doubt a 7-month rental for this class of car would come in any cheaper than £4K to £5K.

I think your suggestion of buying something in the bangernomics range (mid-2000s Honda Jazz, petrol-engined Focus or similar) is the most practical and if chosen wisely, shouldn't cost too much more overall than tax / insurance & fuel.

Advice on car to buy or lease for 7 months - SLO76
Buy an old Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla privately, avoid the dealers profit margin then sell it privately at the end and you could run it over that term for nothing. Tell us where roughly you are and I’ll take a look at what’s worth a view nearby.

Thinking of examples I’ve bought or sold...


I ran a Mitsubishi Carisma 1.9 diesel for a year, paid £700, spent around £300 on repairs then sold it for £1,000

A Mazda MX5 bought for £1475, spent around £350 on repairs and servicing then sold it after two years for £1,600

A Toyota Corolla supplied to an old customer as a stopgap while I found her something better. She paid £360 for it and two and a half years and two cheap Mots later the thing is still going.

A Honda Civic 1.4 bought for bro in law during his divorce, paid £550 and again almost three years later and a 60 mile daily commute it’s still going and has never had a major repair. Likely resale value every bit of that £550.

Edited by SLO76 on 19/01/2020 at 12:32

Advice on car to buy or lease for 7 months - Bromptonaut

Facebook is clearly reading what I post on forums as I've had a targeted ad based on long term car hire. Should it be any use to OP site advertised is this one:

https://www.switchsaver.net/s/cars/car-rental-autoeurope?

Advice on car to buy or lease for 7 months - Engineer Andy

Rather troubling given social media firms aren't very good on keeping personal data. I'd probably go with SLO's recommendation, perhaps a car owned by a pensioner for the long-term, and with lots of main dealer receipts having serviced it on schedule for years.

My own car is in that sort of bracket now, being 14yo, never failing an MOT, but being looked after even though it's probably worth £1500 tops. I'm not selling it though. :-)

Edited by Engineer Andy on 19/01/2020 at 16:47

Advice on car to buy or lease for 7 months - expat

Facebook is clearly reading what I post on forums as I've had a targeted ad based on long term car hire.

Try deleting all Facebook cookies. When ever you use Facebook do it in Private Browsing mode. That way the Facebook cookies get deleted when you exit Private Browsing. Also Firefox has an Addon which deletes Facebook cookies. Even with all that they may still track you but it makes it more difficult for them. They are a creepy bunch.