PCP is where you want a £30,000 car.
You pay £7000 up front ( in most cases the trade in value of a 5 year old car), £350 a month for three years. Then a final payment of say £15,000.
A perfect example of why I think PCP is a bonkers proposition for many people.
You start with a car worth say £7k. Which is something like a 10 year-old VW Golf Gti, a perfectly good and desirable car. You then chop it in against something new, and fork out another £12k over 3 years, after which, if you haven't got a spare £15k lying around, you end up with nothing
You have saved maybe £3k in running costs, but now you have to buy another car - or commit to another PCP, but this time with no down payment.
If you'd stuck with the GTi and saved the PCP payments, it would still be worth say £4k, it would have plenty of life left in it, and you'd have £9k in the bank. The GTi will have practically stopped depreciating, and as it's comparatively old tech, you'd be able to get it serviced anywhere for peanuts. If by some chance it blows up you've got plenty of money saved to pay to fix it, or you could just walk away from it and buy another.
Renting stuff is great if you have plenty of income, but for most of us I reckon my way makes far more sense.
