Husband of a colleague wants to buy a car to use for minicab work in Essex. He has come across a company in Newcastle upon Tyne which leases used cars specifically for this and guarantee that their vehicles will pass the rigorous inspection required of vehicles that are to be used in this way. Are there any other places that do this, preferably a bit nearer to Essex ? Are there alternatives, like buying a nearly new vehicle and submitting it for the test yourself ?
At the £80 per week being asked in Newcastle he could probably get himself a newish car under lease or whatever anyway.
Matthew Kelly
No, not that one.
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Sounds expensive. The problem is that, at the mileage cabs do, and with their history, they're going to depreciate like hell! Therefore leasing may not be ideal as there'll be so little value left in the car at the end of the lease.
Still, Motorpoint has a 10k, 52 plate Mondeo LX diesel (don't know which engine, sorry) for £9999, which could be had over three years for £306.07 per month from uk.biz.yahoo.com/loan That's £70.43 per week though and he would own the car outright.
Of course, there is no guarantee that a minicab driver would get the good rate offered by the AA (6.6% APR) but that £80 a week would be the equivalent to about 16% APR.
I don't know if this lease deal includes maintenance, but against that a conventional loan will allow him to sell the car at the end of three years, or run it longer. Even at 3.5 years and 120k it's bound to be worth £2500, which will pay for a lot of maintenance. I haven no idea how stringent the local authority tests are, but I can't imagine that any 10k, 52 plate car, under manufacturer's warranty, would have any trouble at all passing them.
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Apparently the £80 is for a Y reg Mondeo / 406 and includes routine maintenance. At the end of two years the car is yours to keep.
I too have no idea about the rigour of the tests but like you think that surely any one year old car still under warranty would pass.
Matthew Kelly
No, not that one.
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Well assuming it's a new shape Mondeo, it's a great deal if the mileage is sensible.
There are a LOT of variables though.
Assuming the car has done 50k, it's probably worth £7500 tops if it's a diesel, a grand or so less as a petrol.
Assuming another 60k over two years, that means three major
60k may be a low estimate but finance companies wouldn't like taking a car much beyond 120k or so on a maintenance package because of perceived risk.
So, let's say that the car costs £7500
Maintenance from the franchise (50-100k, Dovercourt Chelmsford) £850
Six new tyres - £300
Total £8650, maybe some test fees as well, an MoT and so on.
You can't borrow that kind of money over two years for £80 a week. At the 6.6% APR you'd be getting about £7810. At 12.9% APR that falls to £7370. That's feasible for the finance company if it's a petrol car, especially if it's a high miler to start with. It's not so great for the driver, who wants to minimise his fuel costs (£800 pa difference between petrol and diesel at 30k).
I could be barking up completely the wrong tree, but this kind of package sounds like a way to shift high mileage fleet cars at high rates of interest. An old shape Mondeo or petrol 406 would barely make £5500 at 50k, £4750 at 90k and at that money, who cares about the occasional new engine or whatever being needed?
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Persoanlly if i was cabbing i would buy something a few years old with a load of miles. Say a late mk 2 mondeo t-x reg with about 100k miles. What ever you drive if you cab for any length of time the car will get battered, and be hard work to sell on. Adding say 50k miles to a reliable car with 100k, should cost you a lot less than 50K on a car with 50k to start with.
Ben.
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Think you can get a 'Taxi Pac' spec 406, like they used to do for Ford Granadas, years ago.
Certainly the 406 range is in the process of being reduced, prior to replacement model.
Check your local Pug dealer, see if they can do you a deal, on a NEW car.
VB
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A cab firm in these parts buy late damaged Primera,Avensis and Mondeo,repair them and then run them to starship mileages b4 sending them out to pasture.
Local authority inspections are rigorous but any car in resonable condition can pass.
I used to sell ex-police Mondeos to a cab firm that would just run them on till the death.
Not much point putting a really nice/new car to work as a cab,it won'tstay nice for long!!
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A cab firm in these parts buy late damaged Primera,Avensis and Mondeo,repair them and then run them to starship mileages b4 sending them out to pasture. Local authority inspections are rigorous but any car in resonable condition can pass. I used to sell ex-police Mondeos to a cab firm that would just run them on till the death. Not much point putting a really nice/new car to work as a cab,it won\'tstay nice for long!!
My local cabbie bought a new Skoda Superb (long wheelbase) with the VAG 130 TDi engine. He got an interest free deal and a long unlimited mileage warranty (3 years?) which he got the dealer to put in writing was OK for cabbing. He is chuffed to bits with it even though his high mileage means it\'s on it\'s second set of tyres and in for a service every few weeks!
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Oops, didn\'t mean to quote previous message in reply!
sorted. DD.
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I didn't necessarily mean to suggest buying a six month old car to mini cab. Most taxi firms seem to follow the route suggested by Ben Chapman, although, at auction, that would probably set them back no more than £3.5k (or £35 per week over two years).
However, if you can buy a six month old car for less than the price of a 2 year old, it suggests that the deal is less than keen.
Having said that, some LAs are tougher than others so it's got to be worth examining the rules before making a decision. Alternatively, he might feel that it's worth paying a bit more up front and taking the car to 150k over 5 years rather than 2.
Without knowing the exact nature of the car in question, and the rules of the local authority, it's impossible to make an informed decision, although my instinct tells me that people are usually made to pay for convenience and this deal is unlikely to be too good to be true.
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