[racer7]

Hello all. I've read a number of posts on here about playing the lease game to effectively cheapen the purchase price of one's i8. I'm not sure how many go own to pay the balance but I thought I'd ask to understand a bit more clearly how this works and what to look for. UK specific as I'm guess there will be lots of territory differences (i.e. we in the UK generally get shafted on prices!).

So essentially is this a viable route? Take a late model 2019nor even 2020 on lease that works out to say a £60k total purchase. Run it for the lease period. Then buy it at the 1 or 2 year depreciated price.

I'm not sure how a finance company would let this hack be open so I just want to get a better understanding.

My original plan was to put the 10k deposit down, whack the rest on a credit card (or two) and try and find a 0% credit card deal with minimal transfer fees. Then run that to the 0% period and repeat.

I know the car will depreciate unless I buy one of the earlier years but I do think this will be a keeper. Even if it doesn't appreciate then I'd just wait for some clever person to work out how to engine swap to full electric.

The cheaper I can get this the better. My next plan is to learn what the tolerances on price reduction and the dance that needs to be done with the dealer.

[MolarBear]

By lease hacking do you mean PCP? Which strictly speaking, is not a lease? When I asked earlier at Park Lane, they gave no discount or advantage whatsoever for PCP. Some dealers can give discounts if PCP chosen over cash, but you'd need to make sure the % rate is good. But as cars in the spec you may want could be rare, you might struggle.

Up to 18 month old cars got 1.8 or 2.9% I think at main dealers, but after that it became 10.9%. That's insanely high. For that money a bank loan or buy it outright.

[Maxxsirrah]

Originally Posted by MolarBear

By lease hacking do you mean PCP? Which strictly speaking, is not a lease? When I asked earlier at Park Lane, they gave no discount or advantage whatsoever for PCP. Some dealers can give discounts if PCP chosen over cash, but you'd need to make sure the % rate is good. But as cars in the spec you may want could be rare, you might struggle.

Up to 18 month old cars got 1.8 or 2.9% I think at main dealers, but after that it became 10.9%. That's insanely high. For that money a bank loan or buy it outright.

Yeah, those PCP deals only really work for new cars in my experience as its the manufacturer paying an incentive to use their finance package. I saved £4k on an Audi S3 like this, bought with the finance package, got the discount, paid off the loan.

[racer7]

Thanks guys. Yes. I guess I meant PCP ( which I'm sure meant something else in the film Training Day...). I was getting mixed up with all the US based i8 videos.

Spoke to park lane. The idea of discount was pretty much shut down from the off so I'm going to hold out for the spec I want.

I would have thought business would have been falling over themselves to move cars. Especially less practical ones!

I wonder what their margin is on these. This instance was ex management car.

One more option to check out. So will see what bites.

Am I'm limiting myself with just looking on the approved used BMW list? I worry about warranty after what everyone keeps saying about it.

[MolarBear]

See my experience with Park Lane. The most lacklustre underwhelming sales experience ever! I asked them how much did they want to sell the car as it sounded like they wanted to retain the car as much as they could 😂 it sounded like I was doing them a favour to buy the car from them! In the end I managed to negotiate a £500 discount - I took a day off work and collected it.