Car Leasing
Recently i got my drivers licence and i would like to lease a car. can someone suggest me the good one, and how this leasing things workout. i have seen couple of site saying 90 to 150 euros. Are they so cheap to lease a car(36 months)? any hidden costs, do we need to pay any downpayment? any english webpage where i can get information regarding car leasing.
Regards
Deepak

Hi Deepak

Wellcome to the world of auto handlers.

Of course, you allways have another costs. But overall, I´m not an expert, just the things I know.

The values they mentioned are true IF you make an "Anzahlung" of about 20 or 30 % of the value of the car in advance to the leasing.

In addition, there is also a fee for Licencing/preparation that maybe costs a couple of hundreds euro "einmalig" or only once.

If you calculate, 36x80 or whathever the value + Anzahlung doesn´t cover the hole value of a car. So, after this 36 months you can decide to buy the car, case in which you have to pay the rest of the car cash (about 40%?) of get another new auto and "reset" the plan.

Another cost is you have the duty of making all the services of the car in the official auto handler. This adds about 500 euro yearly to the plan, depending on which frequent you use the car.

The last and better is you have to check before all what will happen with your visum. If you have visum till 2006 and you want a car at 36 months you wont get it.

But, if the necessity of sale a car is big enought, you can deal with the salesman about the anzahlung and duration, but forget the 80 eur monthly.

Regards

YO

90-150 euro prices are normally based on the quite high "anzahlung", where you have to pay, let's say 3000 euros on the beginning of the leasing, and you are allowed to drive not so much kilometers, for example 30000 for 3 years, which is something that I make in one year. According to information in german newspaper leasing is for the private persons financially worst option, because you are smashing the money through window. The calculation is easy - check how much have you payed for the leasing, and how much does the new car costs, and what is the value of the used car with 30000 km and 3 years. The best way is to pay your car cash, you can negotiate the price and spare lot of money. Important option are "EU-Wagen", reimported cars (new) with ca. 20% lower prices. Check for example www.auto-kral.de, there are many others. But it all depends on your budget. Good option can be also used VW Golf, Toyota , Mazda. Fiat is cheap, but no to good. My Punto I (1995) wants new gearbox, it has got already new clutch - on 85000 km :-( Peugeot 206 looks nice but I also had some serious problems before 30000 km :-(
But 90-150 Euro is nothing compared to your car-insurance. I pay currently 1000 Euro / Year for the Golf V, 100%. Since I drove 9 years without accident, now I am at 45%, so I pay only 55 euro / month. Since you are beginner, the insurance will be very expensive, I am not quite sure, but you cannot start below 100%. So you had to pay 100 euro / month only for insurance. This depends very much on the car, but it will be considerable amount for you. This is also one factor to take care of, there are so called "Typklassen" for each car. For bigger numbers you pay more insurance. Also take care about the KFZ-Steuer (Car-Tax). For diesel car with Euro-3 engine and 1900 ccm engine you will pay 300 euro KFZ Steuer / Year. For gasoline car it is much less (around 70 euro probably, even less). So, go for EURO-4 if you can. The best way to chose a car in my opinion is to decide the total cost which you want to invest in 3-4 years, and then chose a car.

Hi Deepak,

The following are only my thoughts. I also did some Research before I brought a car for myself. I went for an used car say 3-4 years old car. OK..now coming to the brand new cars. Once you insert the car keys, the value for the car will immediately go down by 10-15 %. In leasing from the dealers, over a period of years, you are paying more for the car compared to the one that you will own by yourself. So I found it better to search for a used car from the internet (mobile.de or autoscout24.de or local newspapers). Also I found out that German cars have better resale value (though they are expensive) than cars from other countries. The initial investment for a German car will be higher but when you sell the car, you will not loose much. I had to drive a lot and so I went for a diesel. Thumb rule <20T kms - benzin is ok. >20T kms, diesel is economical. A 3-4 yr old diesel car would cost you anywhere between 10000 -12000 euros. One can also approach bank for loans. Hope you found my points useful.

Best Regards,
GC-Friend