Leasing...

Now that I'm a high flying contractor *cough cough*, we've decided that we need a bigger car. Well actually, we always needed a bigger car, but now we can actually get one. Squeezing 3 kids into the back of a Magna Station Wagon is not too bad for now, but as they grow, and as they want to bring friends, we will have no room to take anyone else. So, we're looking at People Movers, with at least 7 seats, and below the $35,000 mark There's the Toyota Kluger, that we have been drooling over. It's a very very nice car, but probably just out of our price-range. Then there's the Ford Territory, which just won Wheels Car of the Year. Again, this is a beautiful car (especially the Ghia!), but probably just too much, with the cheapest being $37,990. So, then we go down to the Holden Zafira. This car is only a 4 cylinder, but it has 7 seats of which the back 2 fold right down, and it retails for around $29,990. This is the one we are leaning towards. Mainly because it's still a good branded car (ie. Not Kia, Hyundai, or Daewoo), and it's nice looking car without being too expensive. But it is getting fairly old now (2001) and maybe a new model is just around the corner. Now, it's time to look at leasing, or more specifically, a 'novated' lease. This means that your emplyer pays the monthly (fortnightly) repayments and then you pay them (before tax). I was going to look just at fully maintained leases, where you pay a certain amount that covers the car, all fuel, services, insurance, registration and tyres. Then I can do up to 25,000km a year and just pay the regular repayments. I've been having trouble trying to find companies that do novated fully maintained leases to a small company like the one that I am going through, but hopefully I'll be getting a quote this afternoon.. Anyone out there had experience with leasing a car? Or know about those cars I mentioned above and what I should look for?

Posted by Mick @ 2/09/2005 02:37:00 pm