Apologies for hi jacking this thread (seems the best one to) for selfish purposes but know some really informed folk are on the MK 7 forum and need their general advice without starting new thread.
Landmark date coming up for Wife in October and I want to lease a Mini Cooper Chili Pack Auto for her as a surprise and could go to local dealer and just pay the price
expected mileage would be low, 5k at most, so it has me looking at lease but PCP also if the deal better?
So what seeking is best option on value to achieve a Mini Cooper Chili Pack Auto for October (so when best time to start process)
All advice greatly appreciated
The 'go to' guy on the BMW forums TRL (username) seems to recommend this guy when it comes to MINI's, same dealer group I'll assume: gareth.roberts@berrymini.co.uk maybe try dropping him a quick email to test the water.
Aside from that and as per the cheap £95 lease deals they did on GTI's very briefly last year the only other way of getting the very best price is when the leasing companies get a promotion deal from time to time. There were several deals on MINI's last year so it can be a matter of just keeping your eye keenly on the leasing company websites. The very best deals tend to be quite short lived.
We have a 53 plate Mini at moment, does less than 5 k a year and only has 50k on it, and we plan to give that to youngest as first car. The replacement for wife would do same miles likely.
So given the expected low mileage of 5k and the expected ownership of maybe 5 years then looking as maybe buying used with low mileage as will hopefully will source a car with options seeking.
Think leasing and PCP on new will not give the value given the low miles?
Still not sure, and will definitely test the waters with Gareth over all the options, so thanks for that name really appreciated.
I've got a three year old Cooper D bought for wife and sons to roll around in which they love. It was the best BHP per £££ as far as insurance goes with teenagers on the insurance. That was bought as a very low mileage two year old car to replace an old GTI I'd had for years and years which was getting a bit unreliable in daily use.
I tend to keep an older car for main family use and have a newish project Golf for an ornament that gets cleaned more than it gets driven.
Until now that is!
Having decided that my R was depreciating several hundred pounds for every mile that it got used for, plus the (smallish) amount of interest I was paying on a personal loan on it too it was pointless keeping the Golf just to sit in the garage for months on end.
After several months of negotiations with different dealers I finally punted the R into the trade for a fair price and bought a hugely discounted ex-showroom Cooper S D which allowed me to pay off the loan and, in theory, have a car that will cost peanuts to run as it has a service plan for five years, breakdown cover for three years and only £20 a year to tax which is less painful than £180 when the thing spends 99% of its time locked in a garage.
So my experience with MINIs is that they used to be good buys new, like VW's did, as their depreciation used to be very slow and they were in high demand. Unlike a few years ago though they face much tougher competition in sales so initial discounts are available where as they weren't a few years ago. However that means initial depreciation is high until they get to a point where they seem to bottom out in value (just like Golf R's funnily enough) and then depreciation slows right down.
You can sometimes, if you time it just right, pick up pre-registered Coopers at really good prices but if you're going to keep the car for years and years and are prepared to roll your sleeves up then you can actually negotiate good discounts on them new at present. If you only plan on keeping it a few years I'd advise against getting a new one though if it has quite a few options as MINIs are hard cars to get a proper trade valuation on except through MINI dealers who will know that immediately a Chilli Pack adds £1k to the used value and so on. The general trade are unaware of that so struggle to value them correctly.
There was a Cooper S D in a local dealer to me over the summer which had a really fantastic spec on it, full JCW and all the packs that would have retailed at £29k new give or take a few hundred(!!). The garage had it up for nearly £18k at 2 years old but would have taken a lower offer on it which doesn't sound to terrible BUT if you put the car into CAP using just the reg the trade value on it was just £13k!! Run the trade value in the correct way for a MINI and it came out at just over £15k trade value...
