Getting Started
Your Personal Profile
To begin you'll need to set up pesonal information.
How much data you need to provide will depend on whether you have the savings available to pay cash for the car.
If you don't have the savings available to buy outright then we just need some details about your preferences for finance repayments.
In other words, we need to know if the total cost of finance or the lowest monthly payment is more important to you.
If you do have the savings then we'll look at whether it could be better to use your savings to buy the car or use finance instead.
To do that we'll need some extra data, but we'll take you through what's required step-by-step. It's mainly information about the savings or investment return you could get on your spare cash and whether you pay tax on your savings.
This reason is to calculate the effect on you of tying up your savings in a car rather than using finance for it.
If there's any information you're not sure about then just use the example data we provide - you can always go back and change the details at any time.
Remember that we won't keep any personal data you provide. Once you leave our site and close the browser window any data will be erased from our servers, but remember that your web browser may keep your browsing data for a period of time and this is beyond our control.
Also, if you leave your computer, tablet or phone for a while when using our 'Lease or Buy' analyser then your session on this web site will eventually 'time-out'. We'll then wipe the data to help prevent someone else from seeing it (but please don't rely on that - just close your browser window and come back to us later).
Car Selection
Next we'll ask you about the car you want to analyse.
Simply select a car from the manufacturer lists including the maodel range and 'trim'.
Finance
Once the vehicle is selected we'll ask you about finance.
You can select the period you expect to keep the car (usually up to 5 years or 60 months).
You can then select the monthly payment plan for your finance. Typically with finance you will require a deposit and usually this will be a multiple of the monthly payments.
A typical deposit is between 1 and 11 months (3 months in advance is typical).
Once you've selected the finance plan you can select the annual mileage you will travel each year.
This is because car finance such as personal contract hire (or personal leasing) and personal contract purchase is often based on your annual mileage to forecast the value of the car at the end of the finance period.
We'll then calculate the monthly finance for your selections and if you have indicated that you can also buy the car from savings we will also workout the cash-flow impact on your savings.
You're Ready To Go!
Once you've completed the personal profile, vehicle and finance selections you're ready to see the analysis results.
Click on the 'Calculate' button to see the results.
Depending on your data selections we'll show you:
- the monthly payments for outright purchase, plus finance for your car from the leasing, contract purchase and hire purchase;
- the total cost for finance for your car (this is not not necessarily the same as the above item)
- the cash-flow impact on you of buying outright from savings compared to our finance alternatives;
- the cost impact of using finance compared to buying outright.
In our introduction to 'Lease or Buy' you can read about finance - we'll keep your place here until you've read the explanation.
So let's get started on your 'Lease or Buy' analysis - just click on the link below: