I can see the benefits of both leasing and outright purchase. I've also done both so my comments are entirely impartial. However as to which is better really depends on two main points;-
1) How long you intend to keep hold of the car.
2) Driving a hard bargain in the first place. A poor deal is poor no matter whether it is by cash or with credit.
My current Octy is leased and I reckon i'm currently around £1k better off than if I had paid cash via DTD. However as time passes I expect that saving will narrow until the point that cash purchase becomes the cheaper option.
The best advantage of leasing is the fixed monthly costs and avoiding maintenance and upkeep, which become more difficult as a vehicle ages. On the plus side, if you have paid cash the depreciation will eventually become incidental and provided your vehicle remains reliable you should then have cheap motoring.
Yes if you own the car the depreciation does tail off after a good few years but then you are at that stage driving an old car which will undoubtedly be an old model and perhaps needing expensive repairs as the miles march on. You really can't compare that to someone driving a new model every two years and never having a car out of warranty or needing anything other than one service. Yes that may cost money but that's the choice. When comparing leasing with buying you need to assume someone replaces the car every 2 or 3 years with a brand new model either by cash or lease. On that model of driving it seems leasing is the clear winner by any financial measure I have looked at. One caveat is that this is likely to change as 2 year old cars struggle to find buyers if everyone wants to lease new ones. This will depress the used values further, very bad news if you own your car and bad news if you are leasing as lease costs may go up if the financiers are not getting the same residuals from used cars.
For now it seems lease all the way for me and this has been confirmed by several VW salesmen sme of whom said it wasn't even worth their while trying to work out a PCP deal as leasing on a special deal with be much cheaper.
I don't disagree with anything you said, but the point I was making is that leasing is only going to save you money if you swap regularly anyway.
I understand the arguments about having the newest model/latest tech etc, but not everyone feels the need to do that. Hence point 1 in my previous post. Some on here pay cash and keep their cars way beyond its first MOT, and those people are unlikely to reduce their costs by leasing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-leasing. Far from it. As I said, my current car is leased. However it was never my intention to keep the car long term.
