I'd agree with that, but my point was that they can easily get hold of that sort of money should they choose to.

Aint just VW offering the tempting offers... BMW are, Ford, Vaux, Hyundai etc etc.
Whether you're enticed by a Citroen C1 Hatchback 1.2 PureTech Feel 5d for £77 a month, or a 140i for £260 a month... they have their own market appeal.

If you're implying that leasing is gonna make the bubble burst.. so what? We already know what Brexit will do to us all.

PCP - that way was always the balloon at the end (never yours until you pay). On expensive cars, most people swapped to a newer one and handed back to the finance company -( same dents/condition clause applies) as it was always too dear to re-finance the bubble and tart about extending the warranty. A few years back, the car market flopped and not as many bought new - I was selling new cars and felt it like others. Leasing was always a bit dear. Then the market crashed.
Maybe overall, currently, VW has dragged the lease market down and got pricing overly competitive, who knows.

(side point..you can bet your bottom dollar, another manufacturer will be unveiled rather soon for some other issue they lied about).

I had never leased myself before, but 190 a month for a 27 Grand GTD was a no brainer. We also have a 10yr old work horse that I look after for servicing myself. Its done 164k miles now, passed its MOT this month no advisories. I CBA to run 2 sheds, we wanted a new car but to avoid the bubble. And an R will be considered in 3 months time.

I appreciate the money aspects and you're implying we are in for a massive crash. Seems that Gad and Nick are not a minority, however choose to buy older, which I myself have always done. Cars are just one manufactured product of thousands of things, which we can all buy on the knock/lease. Knee jerking financial turmoil ahead is entirely a personal opinion by you both. Look if it happens, it happens. And car leasing isn't causing it on it's own.

Silver lining as described - loads of ex-lease cars whether they are performance bargains of the time, or low end cars - will be likely to be on the cheap with plenty of choice. In actual fact, my basic tdi workhorse was an ex-lease car!

No doubt the scrappage scheme might gather pace to evict rusty old bangers off the highways to make way for the flood of lease cars in 2,3 or 4 years time. Watch out Honda Legends :LOL:

The underlying point being that the line of "why use my own money when I could lease" is a delusion for most.

Getting hold of the money is rarely the problem - it's the paying it back where it tends to go wrong.

I remember self cert mortages and 120% loans and where that got us.

All starting to look very 2006.

I don't see any implication that renting is going to make the bubble burst.

I simply see it as one symptom of a bigger problem.

What exactly will prick the bubble (the equivalent of the sub-primes in the States in 2008) is largely academic.

But something will.

Remember endowments? Hahah

Good call. There are still legacy issues with those and it's surprising how many people still have substantial interest only loans.

Not good if you aren't in an area which had had huge increases in property value.

Even something modest like £100K could sting at the end of the term.

I have one that "matures" next year, guaranteed £25k when it was sold, more like a tenth of that in reality - tossers!

I had one that matured to almost precisely the cash price of a Toyota 86 a couple of years back.

They tell me millionaires are being created all the time, but all you need to do is buy some property and wait for inflation to do the rest. By my reckoning, one would require £5-10m to be a millionaire in its idiomatic meaning. Perhaps more, if one is of an older generation.

So I'm not gonna one of those old farts who converts prices to pre-decimal and grumbles! Simply halve them or knock a zero off to determine their approximate PPP!

interestingly, why did the previous gen S4 not make it only any of these lists? I was looking last night and a 2010/11 car is around the 15-18k mark, which seems pretty good value.

I recall Chris Harris ran one for a year or so and was more than happy with the overall package. Not the sharpest tool in the box, but it was never supposed to be, however for a family wagon (bigger than a golf), seems a pretty safe bet to me.

It's on my shortlist as the realisation of chucking a dog in and out of a lease car could end up costing me a few quid in repairs and that is not appealing in the slightest.

I well used S4 at the right price ticks a lot of boxes for me.

fickle... me?

There's one here of you want one. Saying that, someone is coming to look at it this weekend :)