I have put this little guide together to help those not familiar to Car Leasing or otherwise known as contract hire understand how it all works.

Well lets start with the basics, when searching for a deal you may see the terms 3+23 or 3+35 these will indicate that the 3 is the initial amount payable, for instance if the car is £200 per month you initial payment will be £600 and the 23 or 35 part will be the period the contract is over 23 is two years 35 is three years, the initial payment will be taken as and when your lease car is due to be delivered and then from month two your regular monthly payments will commence to the end of your leasing contract.

To Save money make sure you have a good look around the web at various leasing company’s to see what offers they have, don’t be fooled by misleading prices, there is normally a reason why One company can be much cheaper than all the others and its normally because of a few things

• The initial payment has been inflated (many company’s advertise six times the initial payment opposed to the standard 3 times

• The Company will Charge a high document fee to make their monthly prices look cheaper

• Or the company may have the car advertised over four years instead of the standard three years

All the above are things to be aware of when comparing car leasing prices, if you are getting charged a document fee ask the company if this is something they charge or is the fee from the finance company? There is really no need to charge a processing unless the finance company insists and at the time of writing this article the only company I am aware of that charge a fee is Mercedes Benz

What is and what’s not included in Car leasing

Insurance: Will not be included in the monthly contract hire price, this will be down to you and you must have fully comprehensive cover, most insurance companies will cover lease cars, you just have to let them know that the registered owner of the car will be the leasing finance company

Maintenance: Again will not be part of the monthly price, maintenance can be added to any leased car or van, one thing to be careful of when taking out full maintenance is wear and tear, tyres wont be replaced unless they have worn out, which means if you get a puncture or you drive too fast around corners and the tyre prematurely wear out, the cost will be down to you

Delivery: All contract hire cars will have free delivery to your home or place of work and at the end of your contract all cars will be collected from home or work, there are a few exceptions to this, which are living in Ireland many company’s will only deliver as far as the port, and wont pay the ferry fee’s and the other exceptions is the Scottish highlands, some company’s will ask for additional delivery costs on some occasions

Road Tax: Is 99% of the time included for the whole duration of the lease, the only manufacturer that I can think of that only gives 1 year is again Mercedes Benz, all the rest will have road tax supplied for the full duration.

Breakdown Assistance: This will be included within the car leasing package, unless otherwise stated

Mileage: The more miles you do the more the price will increase, leasing cars advertised will assume you will be doing 10,000 miles per year, if you are doing less than this get quoted for the actual amount rounded up to the nearest 1,000 as you could save some money off the advertised price, during the contract circumstances may change and you may end up doing more or less miles than when you signed up, if your circumstances do change inform the finance company and they will adjust your monthly payments accordingly

V.A.T: Remember personal customer’s have to be shown the Vat prior to enquiring, unless you see the price including Vat assume you have to add this, this again can be misleading

To recap on the things to look out for when leasing your car are to make sure you keep to the same payment profile and don’t get confused by 6+ payments most company’s will advertise 3+35 and although there is no rule to stop other brokers changing the payment profile to look more competitive we should all advertise the same way, be aware of admin fees, there really is no need to add these but some company’s do, we at Economy Car Leasing only add these fee’s if we are charged by the finance company