09/07/2026
My experience of leasing a car personally🚗
Yesterday, my 2-year personal lease agreement came to an end and I had the somewhat sad experience of handing a car back that I had grown fond of over the last 2 years🔑👋🏻
There are a lot of videos on social media about how a personal lease agreement is a “money drain”, i.e you would be better off buying a car (most likely second-hand) and then saving/investing any monthly savings instead of leasing a brand new car…
Let’s face it, there are lots of financial reasons for or against leasing a car, all of which you can find on Google😅 so, in this post, I’m going to talk about my personal experience. Not just from a financial perspective, but from a life perspective too.
So, having just had a personal lease car, what do I think? What are the pros and cons based on my personal experience?
Pros:
✅ Before I started the personal lease agreement, I wanted to pass on my previous car to my sister for less-than-market value. Therefore, I couldn’t raise quite as much capital to purchase a different car outright. This meant a lease agreement was more financially viable at the time.
✅ Equally, I didn’t want to/couldn’t commit a big lump sum in purchasing a new car as I was saving for my first home, so most of my capital was tied up in a Lifetime ISA.
✅ Convenience was important for me - maintenance, tyres and road tax were all included in the lease agreement. And I liked the peace of mind knowing that if a tyre punctured, this would be covered for free… and this happened no fewer than 3 times during the lease!😲 also, the car didn’t need to have an MOT!
✅ I “had” (but didn’t “own”) a car that I loved the look of and liked how it felt while driving… and there was no way I could have afforded it new😅
Cons:
❌ Yes, the high monthly payments started to irk me… especially as I’m a huge advocate of trying to keep your monthly direct debits down as much as possible. Also, as a personal lease, it was all paid from post-tax income…
❌ Having a brand new car was not all it’s cracked up to be - the car had several electrical issues early on, one of which was particularly bad/annoying. Plus, the horn and the cruise control didn’t work for most of the lease🤣 (however, these things were all covered by the manufacturer’s warranty which is very valuable).
❌ I was, particularly towards the end of the lease, worried about hitting the car! I purchased an additional insurance policy for chips and scratches but, even so, the car got chipped a couple of days before the end of the lease leaving no time for it to be fixed… again, annoying as I might be charged for this!
Other thoughts:
❓ I went nowhere near the agreed annual mileage but, had I not had a 3-month period where I mostly worked from home while on an Academy programme, I might have and this would have resulted in further charges.
❓ I didn’t need to cancel the lease early but, if I had, this also would have resulted in further charges.
❓ All around customer service, from the Lease company and the company that arranged the lease, was excellent. But you don’t need any of that if you own your car!
Overall, am I pleased that I personally leased a car? Yes I am!
Would I do it again? No, unless I can’t afford to buy a car outright in the future or it’s a company lease car!🤣
