Car finance advice please :)

[gh0st]

Here is the situation.

My job gives me a car allowance package. It basically covers the cost of the finance that I pay on my car.

I currently drive an 03 TDCi 2.0 Mondeo. It is currently on 31,000 miles and I do roughly 30,000 a year.

Choices are -

1) Run it until the end of the 5 year finance term and extend the warranties, get it serviced at main dealers and then PX it for another car for whatever I can get (will probably have around 160k miles by then

2) After the warranty expires in feb 2007, get it serviced by a normal garage, keep some money on the credit card and prey nothing major goes wrong until I can PX it when the loan term expires

3) When it gets to about 80,000, PX it for another car and keep the finance rolling

4) Let warranty expire and just run it into the ground (on the basis that techincally I am not paying for it, my company is so its not an actual "loss", but it would be nice to make something out of it!

Your thoughts?


Cheers

Gh0st

[Donut]

Option 2....

But keep extending the warranty, so long as Ford parts are used and the services done as ford advises you can still claim of there warranty.....also check what is covered under the extended warranty because alot are totally shite.

[gh0st]

The current Ford Direct warranty is excellent, unlimited mileage, doesnt cover tyres, brakes, consumables or exhausts and stufff but will cover any actual mechanical or electrical breakdown. They are replaceing my heated front windscreen under warraty at the end of the month as the left hand side wont heat so thats saved me £200 - in that light £399 to extend the warranty for 2 years after feb 2007 is quite a good deal!!

I am also thiking extend warranty and just run it until end of finance life as well.

[Donut]

gh0st said:

The current Ford Direct warranty is excellent, unlimited mileage, doesnt cover tyres, brakes, consumables or exhausts and stufff but will cover any actual mechanical or electrical breakdown. They are replaceing my heated front windscreen under warraty at the end of the month as the left hand side wont heat so thats saved me £200 - in that light £399 to extend the warranty for 2 years after feb 2007 is quite a good deal!! I am also thiking extend warranty and just run it until end of finance life as well.

Makes sense to me



>> Edited by Donut on Friday 15th July 12:49

[ledger]

gh0st said:

The current Ford Direct warranty is excellent, unlimited mileage, doesnt cover tyres, brakes, consumables or exhausts and stufff but will cover any actual mechanical or electrical breakdown. They are replaceing my heated front windscreen under warraty at the end of the month as the left hand side wont heat so thats saved me £200 - in that light £399 to extend the warranty for 2 years after feb 2007 is quite a good deal!! I am also thiking extend warranty and just run it until end of finance life as well.

but the extended warranty is not the same as the ford direct warranty. I bought a Focus with a 2 year ford direct warranty and at the time of sale extened it by a year. The extra years warranty was with a different company and had different terms

[gh0st]

Sales people taht I spoke to said it was very similar in terms of mechanical breakdown and it was still unlimited mileage.

Were there any details that you remember on it that struck you as bad out of interest?

[ledger]

gh0st said:

Sales people taht I spoke to said it was very similar in terms of mechanical breakdown and it was still unlimited mileage. Were there any details that you remember on it that struck you as bad out of interest?

no not really, just didn't want you to think they were identical (which is what we thought). With the non ford direct warranty we hade to pay for the work first then claim it back.

We had a brake slave cylinder start leaking which they would cover, but ford recommended changing both, so we had to pay for one. They would not pay for the wheel bearing which apparanetly collapsed under the strian of taking the wheel off (are you picking up on the subtle undertone of doubt I have ?).

[gh0st]

Yessss I do. Hmmmm. Dont like the idea that I have to pay for the repairs first - kind of defeats the point of getting the warranty to cover what I cannot afford.

Cheers for the headsup, I will have ot look into it deeper