Cheap personal car lease deals: why you should avoid them

• What is the cheapest way to lease a car?
• Is it cheaper to lease or buy a used car?
• What are the downsides to cheap personal car lease deals?

Cheap personal car lease deals: are they really worth it?

Last year upon moving into my new flat I scoured the internet in search of the best and cheapest fridge I could find. What I really was looking for, was to make a purchase of the best product money could buy – at an affordable price. This resulted in me buying my well-researched, reliable refrigerator from the well-known national electrical retailer, Currys.  

As a result, this ended in a four-month delivery delay accompanied by very limited contact with any real human. When the arrival of the long-awaited giant cooler finally came, it was broken. Just like my relationship with Currys.  

If I had, however, gone to and supported a smaller company and paid a small percentage more, it is very likely this type of service and experience would never have happened.  

Life lesson learned: you pay for the service you receive.  

So, is ‘cheap’ something you want to look for when selecting your ideal car? Is ‘cheap’ what you want in mind when you are driving down the M5? Or do you simply want something that will take you from A to B with four wheels?  

There are many reasons why you should avoid, at all costs, cheap personal car lease deals. Simply because you really do pay for the service you experience. So, if you are happy to finance a car which is likely to give back ‘cheap’ service, then, by all means, I would advise leaving this article here… 

What is the cheapest way to lease a car? 

Now, like most people when they enter into Google, ‘cheap [insert desired product]’, more often than not they are not actually asking for the cheapest option. As I mentioned about my fridge-buying experience beforehand, a lot of us want something that offers great value. No one wants to feel ‘ripped off’ or like they are paying more than they should for something.  

So, keeping in mind that you still want the best value from your car, how can you achieve this whilst on an affordable budget? Can this even be done?  

1. Have a 900+ Credit Score with Experian 

2. Do not be specific about which vehicle you want 

3. Compare maintained and non-maintained prices and reflect which presents better value for you 

4. Lease over a longer period of time e.g., 4 years 

5. Go for the lowest mileage you think you will need. If you need more, it is better to pay a small excess fee at the end of the agreement 

6. Avoid adding unnecessary extras such as metallic paint and huge alloy wheels  

Is it cheaper to lease or buy a used car? 

Whether you will save money leasing or buying a used car will depend on a number of factors. This includes the brand, how long you would like to keep the vehicle, and your estimated usage such as the annual mileage. This is not necessarily down to cheap personal car lease deals. 

The vast majority of the time, if you are looking to drive a used vehicle, then the more affordable option is to lease rather than outright purchase the vehicle. 

Why is this? 

When you outright buy a vehicle – new or used, the minimum guaranteed future value (how much the car is worth in the future) affects you directly. When and if you come to sell your vehicle, if its value has dropped, you tend to lose out on money. With leasing, this does not affect you in the slightest. 

If we take the effects of world events such as COVID, the microchip shortage, and the Ukraine war, then there has been an exception to this rule. Used car prices have increased by 30%, plummeting in March 2022 and are due to decrease again by August 2022. Overall, with such unstable figures, it is a high-risk market to dabble in. 

What are the downsides to cheap personal car lease deals? 

It really is true that when things go wrong, only then will you discover whether you have picked the right supplier – this applies to all products and services. Do you want to be buying from a company that offers superb customer support, or doesn’t care? 

In our experience, those who look for cheap personal car lease deals and obsess about getting their car for the cheapest price, usually end up with a vehicle they are not happy with.  

Over 70% of motorists experience buyer’s remorse within the first month of receiving their new car. Quite a bit of this is down to obsessing over the price, rather than prioritising the value and what you want to experience with your new vehicle. 

Let’s take the story of Steve and his SUV. Steve wants a new stylish and overall swanky SUV he can trust and rely on. He begins his vehicle search by looking for cheap personal car lease deals for the lowest-priced SUVs on the market.  

The lowest-priced option for this is typically a Dacia Duster. This model is not really what Steve had in mind when he envisioned his stylish new SUV.  

If Steve goes ahead in buying a Dacia Duster, then he will have successfully achieved finding his car through cheap personal car lease deals – but at a price.

Every car wash and valet service, every trip to the supermarket, every journey driven in the Dacia, Steve is reminded for the next four years that he did not follow through with securing the ideal SUV he really wanted, or that perfectly suited his needs.

Often people forget to invest in something as big as the vehicle they will be driving for years of their life. As one of the major purchases you will make in your lifetime, it is worth investing a little bit more so you receive the best experience you can get.

It is also worth remembering that service has a cost. If you squeeze your vehicle supplier to the last degree and push for the lowest price, they may not have the margin of support when you need it or things go wrong.  

Why? 

This ultimately comes down to company culture and what each brand values most. It is easy to generalise ‘brands’ from whatever industry and assume they are similar to the next one. But what a company values really does differ between each one. 

Let’s take a vehicle supplier that pushes and promotes the cheapest possible car deals on the market, and compare this with a company that provides a quality personal vehicle shopping experience.  

Which do you believe will value you the most? Which do you think will provide you with the best experience, where you know you can trust the person behind the brand rather than the logo? 

So, whether or not you do choose to prioritise searching for cheap personal car lease deals will depend on what you value as an individual. If you prefer to be treated as a person rather than a number, OSV could be the right broker for you. Find out if you are a good fit for OSV.