Can someone help me with this car leasing thingie! I was thinking of buying a new accord but see that Honda are doing leasing here. How does it work? Do I lease for a set time then pay a final figure and own it, or do I lease ad infinitum and just keep changing the car etc? Never done it before so would appreciate advice or thoughts. BTW I will be paying for it not the company.

TIA

Hey S!
At our garage, you have the option of doing either one!

The larger the down payment you make, the lower your monthly rates, and you typically keep the car up to 4 years, at which time you can finish paying it off to then own it or you change up and get a different car.

Leasing is not the way you want to go if you know in advance that you want to own the car. You end up paying more in interest in the end with leasing. However, some people decide to lease for obvious reasons - they haven't got the means to pay for the car outright!

HTH!

leasing is similar to HP in the UK - bar the fact that you can of course elect to lease to zero or lease to the value that the car will be worth at the end of the lease (thus allowing bubble payment to own the car, if you wish).

With the right permit, I believe you can offset the interest on the lease.

A garage will not organise a loan for you; you do this through your bank.

If you want to sell your car before the lease is complete, you have to pay the lease off and get the form from the lease company to allow you to transfer the ownership documents to someone else.

You can offset the interest on finance but leasing is seen as service cost and not finance and for that reason you cannot offset the interest. However the interest is appreciably lower than finance so it probably is the way to go.

Note also that while it is possible to lease down to more or less any amount you need to cover your backside. Same goes with the Km. I had a company lease agreement where they simply put down km at 15k per year. After 3 years I was by 115K. The lease agreement had something like 60 raps per km over the agreement ie SFr. 42K to pay. The leasing company promptly sent a bill for that amount and refused to sell the car on. It needed lawyers to get them to sell the car. Every since I have had a side agreement that they will sell the car after 3 years for the restwert ie residual value. And never used the leasing company again - been bought out anyway but neverthless.

So be honest more or less with the Km and ensure you have as big a bubble as possible - costs more but makes life easier at the end of the lease.

Just an idea: how about getting a cash loan from, say, Migros Bank. Pay for the car cash (should get a sizeable reduction) and pay back the loan monthly to the bank. That way, the car's yours and you can decide if you want full- or just 3rd-party insurance...

Garages don't tend to give reductions in the price for cash sales. We tried it when buying 2 of our cars over the past few years and on both occasions were told the price is the price. Friends have also had the same experience.

I have experience with both owning and leasing.
After several attempts I realized a lease works better for me. I get bored with every car quite soon and it's very hard to get a good price when selling your old car. Dealers try to rip you off. In many cases they simply refused to buy the car (no offer at all; just said "no").
So when the time comes to get a new car you will have trouble if you pay cash & own. Even trade-ins suck.
When you lease you have a guarantee that after x years they will take your old car at xxxx value.

From my experience leasing over 2-4 years you'll end up paying 10% more than if you paid cash upfront. No need to spend all your money at the beginning, plus no worries when changing car.
(The only downside is no ad-hoc changes. You're signed until a given date.)

I am going to be in the market for a set of wheels shortly. My only experience of leasing was back in the UK, where my agreement had all servicing & tyres included.

I take it this would be a little bit optimistic or naiive to expect the same here ?

a lease here won't typically be a fully-serviced lease. The Swiss are into paying solely for the depreciation on their vehicles - ergo the lardy slow-depreciating motors are common as muck.

I do know a decent garage both I and Gav have used. Do you speak German or Italian? I think they speak English too.....

Hi Lob,

can speak good enough German unless they start talking carburretors ..
I take it this is in the second capital Zurich ?

yep; I've recommended them elsewhere on here as they've done car and bike tyres.

http://www.englishforum.ch/transport...companies.html

Hi there,

I need to buy a car in Switzerland for the next 2 years. What are the costs/benefits of buying versus leasing Switzerland? I don't have the money currently to buy in cash, but leasing sounds expensive over the long term. Is it better over the long term to buy the car and take a loan from a bank (eg UBS) or lease?

Note - I do not want or need a fancy car. I'm looking for something used, good mechanical condition, decent mileage, a VW type brand, not an Audi or BMW.

I hope you can help, because on leases and borrowing in Switzerland, I am clueless!

Thanks!!
C

Do you have a foreign car already ? If so you could push the envelope of using that.

More information required. What kind of car do you seek, are you fussy about how new it is; who is going to drive it and where.

Do you need to buy ? That is specifying a solution and not the problem.
You could do swissmobility; irregular short-term hire ;long-term hire or even leasing depending on your circumstances.

dave

Just wanted to say that we did get a discount when we bought our car in cash. It was a used car though so dont know how it works with new ones. We were going to finance, and the next day told him we would give them 1000 less than the price that was listed or we would go elsewhere. They ended up coming down 600.

Wow, what a difference between the tyre price of the e-tailer and my garage!

My local VW/Audi dealer gives 10% of VW list prices and 5% off Audi. All I did was ask what discount he gave. Payment by payment slip in 30 days...

I challenge you to find more fun for the money

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Easy. The best car I have ever driven.
dave

I assume you are massively qualifying that challenge by stipulating it must be a NEW car for the same money?

DaveA what the Hell is THAT?