To the garage ! Or not ...

Was intending to take a trip to the Lexus garage today to have a look at cars ... Didn't happen though, at least not today.

I now own my current car (had the "your loan is finished" letter come through) so that's the last of the barriers to changing now out of the way. The change is getting closer, as a few things are ticking away :

The Focus is out of its "Just Been Serviced" perkiness and has slowed down a bit. It still has its power but seems less free with it.
The rear brakes will need changing within the year due to pads & discs wearing out. What is it with me and brakes on cars ? I don't think I'm that heavy on them ...
Car tax - shouldn't be an issue as there's 5 months left but see below.
Impending mechanical failures ... The paranoia is ticking away saying that summat's gonna break.
Continuing pressure to raise base interest rates.

I still need to verify the choice with a test drive but it's looking fairly certain that my next car will be a Lexus CT200h SE-L with a couple of extras (see link for Toy Count + Pics). I was thinking that it would have to be a new model, as it's too new a car for used ones to be hitting the market in any reasonable quantity. However ...

Dunno if you've seen the news reports (how could you miss them !) about a massive earthquake in Japan ... One of the consequences is that the much vaunted Just In Time manufacturing principle falls to bits when the supplier base doesn't have the resilience through diversity to support operations after a disaster like the earthquake. That's lead to extended delivery times for new stuff as they run out of parts.

If that sounds a bit callous and unfeeling, it's unintended. I was one of the people keeping an eye on the news with fingers crossed that the casualty reports didn't increase. I just hope they get themselves back on their feet quickly and one sign of that will be that they crack the problems that lead to these extended delivery times. That will mean that Normality has triumphed over Earthquake Chaos.

Drawback No 1 of buying New : delivery lead time of over 3 months.

With that amount of time (possibly more), I have to wonder if I'd be buying another 6 months worth of car tax for my Focus (£143) due to the new one not turning up before the current car tax expires.

Drawback No 2 : Off the forecourt depreciation.

It's a fact that as soon as you drive your car away from the garage, it's lost a fair percentage of its value. Getting an ex demonstrator or other car with a few thousand miles on the clock means the garage takes that first few £1000 of lost value.

The penalty - you know that your bum isn't the first occupant of the driver's seat. You know, after owning 6 used cars I think I can live with that. And it's not like you can thrash a car to death inside 5000 miles, it would actually be an achievement in a CVT hybrid ...

Drawback No 3 : New costs more.

Even after the depreciation, it looks like the finance terms aren't particularly favourable ... Let's have a look :

Lexus CT200h SE-L with pretty paint + Tailgating Enhancement (aka Cruise Control)
Cost £26,220 new on the road.
The finance terms I'd go for include a big deposit (£9177), 10,000 miles a year and 3 year loan term. They use a wizz called Guaranteed Future Value that defers part of the loan until after the 3 years.
Cost - £9,177 early, £260 for 35 months and £12,141.90 of Guaranteed Future Value for a total of £30,392.

Guaranteed Future Value sounds great until you realise - there's probably interest going on it and that £12k means you're needing to set aside £4k per year (£333 per month), although that could be earning interest in savings until it's needed. That makes approx £593 per month going towards the car. That's more than my mortgage !

How about used ?
There's a CT200h in Swindon with 4000 miles on the clock that's listed at £25.5k. Similar spec to what I have my eye on, it would actually cost slightly more if new. Finance info :
£25.5k - £9,177 deposit again, £526 for 36 months, no GFV to pay at the end. Total of £28,191 on the same interest rate.

You can probably tell I'm going right orf the idea of being tied into a GFV contract ... Especially as it adds on an extra £2000 that I don't think a savings account would make up. Can I afford the £526 and big deposit ? You betcha :-) Although it does mean I'll shelve the PC upgrade plan for a little while longer. I'd probably do the loan over 4 years for £412 per month and £29k total.

So :

Buy new and be the first to own the car ... after waiting 3 months for it to arrive. I dunno about you but I prefer to play with my toys as soon as I buy them.

Buy used - at work we used to have a saying : Cheaper, Faster, Better. Well - a used one is cheaper, I'd get it much sooner and it would be More SHINY ! We don't hear that saying so much now because the procurement buzzword it belonged to went out of fashion a few years ago. It still applies though.

And there just so happens to be a blue mini-Lexus waiting at Bristol Lexus for me to have a look. Maybe after work on Monday because I finished too late today (CURSE YOU WORK NETWORK PROVIDERS !) to get there and back for a chill out ahead of driving tonight.