Buying a car: finance or not finance

[KentPhilip]

Don't listen to these losers.
You're a contracator.
Send your butler to buy a posh new car for cash.

Sas is quite right of course. If you're a contracator you should reserve the latest Bentley for the butler. For the rest of us who can spell, a souped up Astra chavmobile is just fine..

[Scrag Meister]

Cash if you can.

[kingcook]

Used, tend to buy in 7-9K region 500 down and over 4 years. Hand back at 2 years.

Actually it doesn't look like such a good deal anymore to me.

You're shelling out thousands for a car, then handing it back and getting nothing in return. Any repairs you do (I guess) would be money down the drain.

Much better to buy your own used car. At least you can sell and get money for it after a while.

[dundeedude]

Nobody appears to have mentioned inflation. Finance can be a very good idea in the case of a negative economic outlook that may return positive during the period of your finance terms.

I'd rather finance £10000 at 3% and place the cash I would have spent on the car into a mixture of savings, funds and a group of shares than hand over the cash; especially if it's just for a car.