Have signed up for a BMW 225xe Active Tourer (the meh-looking small MPV) for 18 months.
Should arrive around November.
136hp petrol turbo motor drives the front axle, 88hp electric motor driver the rear with a small (7.6kWh) battery pack worth 20-ish miles pure EV.
Owners appear a happy bunch, and is pokey enough (0-62 in 6.7s) - expecting 45-50mpg in hybrid mode after the battery goes flat.
8,000miles/yr, £229/mth seems rather good for a £35 grand car.
Guy in the lease company (total motion) reckons they've had 100-200 orders in the last couple of weeks.
Slightly amateur but decent review from youchoob: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vHVq7iBvQA&t
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Never really looked at leasing but my neighbour has recently leased a crossover something.
Is the £229 pm the while cost or is there a deposit or end payment (assuming no damage, miles in limit)
What about servicing? And stuff like tyres? And unexpected stuff which goes wrong ( - but I suppose most would be covered by warranty)?
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Is a 1+17 deal, with no other fees at all, so £229/mth.
Maintenance is not included but BMWs don't usually need a service within the first 18mths, 12k miles as far as I know, and tyres aren't going to wear out in that time either.
It's a lease, so no balloon payment: it goes back to the supplier at the end.
£4100 for 18 months rental of a 35 grand car is way less than the depreciation.
Deal has already expired it seems - current cheapest for 8000 miles/yr is now a 24 month offer that works out as £426/mth
Last edited by: Lygonos on Wed 22 Aug 18 at 23:56
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Two people I know have leased cars recently on similar deals. One has a Tiguan SE-Nav 1.4TSI DSG and other a Volvo V90 of some sort. Both paying similar monthly amounts. And a small initial deposit. Makes you wonder why people go PCP.
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>> amounts. And a small initial deposit. Makes you wonder why people go PCP.
Because you cant always specify what car you want on these short term leases. Its very much a case of "take what we have"
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>> Makes you wonder why people go PCP.
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I think it's largely psychological - people think if they lease they're renting the car (which is true) whereas on PCP they own it (which is untrue). So on the lease they think they're throwing money away, on the PCP they think they're acquiring an asset.
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>> I think it's largely psychological - people think if they lease they're renting the car
>> (which is true) whereas on PCP they own it (which is untrue). So on the
>> lease they think they're throwing money away, on the PCP they think they're acquiring an
>> asset.
Or in my case, I wanted to keep the option of buying the car at the end, which not all lease companies give you. With a PCP, I also knew up front what this would cost me, so I know how much I have to put away and by when.
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>> 8,000miles/yr, £229/mth seems rather good for a £35 grand car.
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It does seem rather good.
What's in it for BMW? Sorry if I have missed the point, but 18 x £229 = £4122, which must be less than the depreciation on a brand new £35,000 car?
A large initial payment?
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>>What's in it for BMW?
Shifting metal, keeping up sales figures? No idea really.
There is no upfront payment on this deal.
Same car can be bought through drivethedeal for around £27.5k (5 grand discount and 2.5 PHEV bonus).
Often see similar offers for Golf R, around £1200 down and £200-ish per month.
Explains their prevalence on the streets I guess.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Thu 23 Aug 18 at 09:00
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Indeed, the high number of Golf R's seen on the road because of leasing deals mean the humble GTi is actually a rarer car, especially on the 'nearly new' used car market (VW dealer network).
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You see a lot more GTD's than GTIs presumably because a lot are company cars so BIK is lower on the GTD.
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>> Indeed, the high number of Golf R's seen on the road because of leasing deals
>> mean the humble GTi is actually a rarer car, especially on the 'nearly new' used
>> car market (VW dealer network).
Yes, I remember when I was considering a GTI at the end of 2016 I found a number of cheaper deals on the R both on a lease and PCP.
Last edited by: DP on Thu 23 Aug 18 at 17:27
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The lease company is buying the car (at a huge discount) from BMW, and financing it (either directly or via a third party) to you. BMW are still selling the car at a profit. They don't care beyond that.
The lease companies will buy the cars by the hundred (or thousand), thereby securing a large enough unit discount that they will recoup most of the initial investment when they auction the car off after 18 months. The monthly payments are almost pure profit.
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Mrs BB bought an ex-BMW management 220i Gran Tourer a year ago, having been anxious to get out of her diesel S-Max before the bottom fell out of the market. She only does low miles, so petrol suits her better, I suppose.
After a year (when I only drive it occasionally) I still find the iDrive unnecessarily complicated and difficult to negotiate - surely car controls should be intuitive from a safety point of view. Hers is the M-Sport and the suspension is too harsh. Would have preferred an SE or Sport but none were around with the options we wanted. (The Lux has a horrid wooden plastic dash, so that was never on the radar).
It's been reliable, but then it's not gone far! Just be warned that BMW will try and recover the discount that leads to the low leasing rates via their workshop come service time!
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>> Hers is the M-Sport and the suspension is too harsh
M-Sport was available for £249/mth but I don't like BMW M-Sport suspension on any of their cars, and also prefer smaller wheels.
Fat wheels are to make designers happy, not engineers.
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>> It's been reliable, but then it's not gone far! Just be warned that BMW will
>> try and recover the discount that leads to the low leasing rates via their workshop
>> come service time!
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I’m not sure that’s really the case is it? Most BMWs seem to end up needing servicing at between 16k and 21k miles or 2 years IME. The current one only had it’s first service after 21,500 miles, and it cost under £200. It would have been £274 if I’d had the cabin air filter changed. I’m not sure it could be much cheaper to service? Now, to be fair, the service was just an oil change and visual inspection of a few things, but still... It’s suggesting the next service will be at around 40k miles (almost 4 years old) or June 2020, which will be more expensive, but that it’ll need a brake fluid service and MOT in July 2019. It also says the front pads need changing in 3,200 miles, but it’s said that for the last 1,000 miles...
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>> I’m not sure that’s really the case is it? Most BMWs seem to end up
>> needing servicing at between 16k and 21k miles or 2 years IME.
You're right, the servicing costs probably aren't an issue for a lease car that you know you will hand back, and can therefore stick to the manufacturers intervals. But we own our BMW and there's no way that I would personally leave oil in my own car for as long as BMW do! Oil and filter change at BMW Cobham? £300! (I went elsewhere)
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 24 Aug 18 at 10:32
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>> You're right, the servicing costs probably aren't an issue for a lease car that you
>> know you will hand back, and can therefore stick to the manufacturers intervals. But we
>> own our BMW and there's no way that I would personally leave oil in my
>> own car for as long as BMW do! Oil and filter change at BMW Cobham?
>> £300! (I went elsewhere)
>>
I expect the £300 included the cabin air filter didn’t it? I own ours now, having bought it at the end of the lease, and I’m comfortable sticking to the recommended intervals. Pretty much every car we’ve owned over the last 20 years has had long life/ condition based servicing with no ill effects. BMWs have had it for more like 40 years, albeit a more rudimentary coloured lights based system on the early ones. But I had a 1988 E30 325i that had done 176k miles by the time I got rid of it and the engine was fine. And think of the environment impact of all those unnecessary oil changes ;)
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I would love to swap out the gaffer's FRV for a pure EV, but family sized long-range EVs are either Teslas, or not quite here yet.
KIA Niro 64kWh arrives early 2019 which may fit the bill.
An 18-mth experiment with a PHEV seems fairly low risk at the price I'm paying - the gaffer's commute is 10-11 miles daily which could easily be managed on electrons, and family holidays could be managed with hybrid drive and no need for charging every 200 miles.
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The examples I gave about a Tiguan and V90 were leased directly from VW Finance and Volvo Finance directly. No lease company other than the manufacturers involved.
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The VW Tiguan was a bit odd deal wise.... deposit was quite large (over £900) but the dealer refunded most of that to his bank account to make it £250. And then about £250 a month for another 23 months with a 10k miles limit.
Dealer said don't take servicing package because only one likely to be needed. And if mileage exceeded then he'd sort it.
I wonder if this is related to VW diesel-gate.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 23 Aug 18 at 18:51
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>> The lease company is buying the car (at a huge discount) from BMW, and financing
>> it (either directly or via a third party) to you. BMW are still selling the
>> car at a profit. They don't care beyond that.
>>
>> The lease companies will buy the cars by the hundred (or thousand), thereby securing a
>> large enough unit discount that they will recoup most of the initial investment when they
>> auction the car off after 18 months. The monthly payments are almost pure profit.
>>
I imagine that the lease company is Alphabet (owned by BMW) and the finance company BMW Financial services in this case. Just another way of BMW shifting metal cheaply in a controlled way, and minimising switching sales from people who were willing to pay a higher price. They also retain control (and timing) of when the returned car is auctioned, so they can control to a certain extent the impact on residuals in 18 months time. Which is why these deals are generally on cars in the most resellabe spec. M Sport, auto (not relevant for the PHEVs), metallic etc etc.
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Shifting metal without cannibalising too much of the business you would have got anyway, which is what happens if you just reduce the list price.
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Lygonos, will be interested to see how you get on with this.
A while back when I was passing time on autotrader and narrowing my searches to hybrids, high up seating etc the 225xe appeared!
Looks good but as I have them just now, I would want front and rear sensors on my next car and I struggled to see any with these.
What toys does your have?
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" I would want front and rear sensors on my next car"
Surprising what sells a car these days. Are cup holders also becoming a must-have?
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I put about £6k of options on the car I have. Most would be standard on the top spec model. That you can't get with the 1.4TSI DSG engine/gearbox option.
If I'd gone personal lease I'd have got top spec and foregone those options. And maybe got the 280PS 4x4 version :-)
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>> " I would want front and rear sensors on my next car"
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>> Surprising what sells a car these days. Are cup holders also becoming a must-have?
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My new to me car has F and R sensors. They beeped continuously when I had the boot open and full of fire wood so I turned them off. It was about a week before I realised that I hadn't turned them back on..... so far I haven't bothered, and I can reverse in the drive without getting an aural assault!!
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>> My new to me car has F and R sensors.
Still a Citroen Richard?
The Roomster has rear sensors and while they're not something I'd have treated as essential or opted for on a new car they're quite useful.
Helpful for judging my position in the rather tight public car park work pays us for. Twice they've saved me from being embarrassingly close to another car and once saved The Lad from a near certain dinner plate sized ding in somebody else's door.
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My car as standard came with only rear sensors. Front ones would be handy. The car is really quite wide so side ones are also handy.
So I opted for park assist which will park the car but mainly for the sensors on the side.
I also wondered if it had improved since I last tried in 2011. And it has. I don't know about anyone else but I can park a car reversing into a parallel space easily on the left. On the right I take a bit more time and need to adjust - but it's easier parking on the other side and I think legally you should be parked facing traffic anyway. Outside the house the auto park can be useful ;-)
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".................and I think legally you should be parked facing traffic anyway."
You should park nearside to the kerb except in a one way street where you may park offside to the kerb and in a 'recognised parking bay'.
In a 30MPH limit you do not have to display sidelights.
Also you shouldn't park within 10M (32ft) of a junction.
Its to do with having the reflectors at the rear so that approaching headlights can see the car.
As a young Probationer we walked the streets issuing our quotas of tickets. Infact I got one in my first week. Well I didn't know did I! Every day is a school day as they say.
Last edited by: Fullchat on Sat 25 Aug 18 at 09:44
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>>Still a Citroen Richard?
No.....but not far away as it has a Lion on the front! MK1 3008 - I wanted something with a bit more bad weather capability, and this one has 'Grip control'. It replaced a 308, so I've had one from each side of the PSA stable for the last 4 and a bit years.
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>>What toys does your have?
Lowest spec for the 225xe (Sport) in non-metallic white, 17" alloys.
Dual zone climate
Rear park sensors only
Automatic tailgate
Halogen headlights
Cruise
DAB radio/NAV
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BMW - Having a go at leasing - smokie
