The test drive

Bom bom bah. Depending on traffic it can take around half-an-hour to get to Worcester add in a delay and I left around ten past nine to get at the garage for ten. Pulled up at about half-past nine, annoyed as I'd been told they didn't open until ten and I'd be cooling my heels for half-an-hour. Realised I'd forgotten my camera, damn!

Anyway no waiting, they were open and after a few minutes I was sitting in a Hyundai i10 Classic (lowest model) with over an hour to play around.

Adjusted the mirrors, checked the controls, put on my seatbelt, found the clutch point, moved slowly up to the edge of the forecourt so I could gently test the brakes and almost banged my head on the windscreen as my foot barely brushed the brake pedal. Okay it's a new car but damn those were hard brakes, you barely had to breath on them to come to a complete halt.

Off to Holt Heath a good test run through the outskirts of Worcester with the parked cars a long run up to Hallow and beyond up to Holt Heath. The suspension was a little stiffer and seemed to convey the smaller bumps more noticeably, but smoothed out the bigger ones well. Up to Holt Heath and autopilot kicked in as I made the first turn towards the A449 and right at the island before swearing and pulling into the farm shop to turn around (good turning circle) and heading back for the turn to Shrawley and Stourport. Up down and round the corners, I turned the wheel and the car followed and stayed on the road what more can you ask for?

Into the outskirts of Stourport and up to my garage. Got out and folded in the mirrors, edged with extreme slowness forward. I got in as far as I needed to and opened my door - yep I can get out of that. Edged the car back just as slowly and got waylaid by a neighbour who kindly tested the room in the back - plenty and comfortable. Okay kicked him out and backed down slowly down the drive and back to Worcester.

A fine drive until I got stuck behind someone doing barely 35mph in the 60 zone, good test following them up the hills in forth gear. Occasionally I could tell the car wanted to drop down a gear, but it handled things in forth fine; my Matiz would have needed to drop to third or even possibly second.

It also showed up that the i10 lacked the same kick at its bottom range compared to the Matiz, but made up for it at the higher end. I'd expected that with the engine and ratio differences and it was nothing of overt concern.

Got to Holt Heath still behind the tortoise and swore loudly I'd forgotten the damn camera again. Still trundling into Worcester I got back at 10:30 and we talked turkey.

"Do you want to pay cash or do finance?" I was asked
"Depends on the best deal you can do, okay let's look at finance"

The Hyundai set deal looked crap - lump sum of £1,250, £254 for the first month £99 a month for 35 month, with an optional final sum of £2,993. Sneakily shown as 6.6%APR, but assuming I pay both lump sums I'm only borrowing ~£2,800 and paying ~£3,700 which bumps it to ~21% APR.

"Forget that" I said "what can you do?"
"Well let's say you put a lump sum down and spread the rest"
"Okay make life easy assume £3k down and spread over five years"
"Okay so what figure would you be looking to expect a month?"
"Let's run the figures"
"Yeah, but what would see as reasonable?"
"Let's run the figures"
He vanishes for an age and comes back

Wow a much nastier finance package on offer. £7,095 minus £1,000 for my car (the lower end of my estimate) plus ~£1,000 for some optional insurances and with a £3k lump sum down ~£105 a month for five years. So all in all I'd be paying £2k more for the car at a APR of ~38%.

Heh the Hyundai deal is better except it doesn't seem to include the part-exchange and I'm not happy with having to ensure I've a lump sum at the end to keep the car. So let's look at my bank - £6k over three years means paying back ~£6,700, not bad. A loan from my credit card company over the same period ~£6,900, not so good. Both still better then the set deals.

There's the 0% APR credit cards but the grace period maximum is about 15 months, so if for some reason it's not been paid off I'd need to transfer it to another 0% APR credit card; assuming that a) I can get one and b) there are still any around.

So keep the money in my interest accounts to keep them above the current threshold band for a set period of interest and take out a loan from my bank.

Hmm Okay let's say I stick £9,000 and take out ~£2,200 each year to pay off the loan. Only removing money and never putting any back in what do I end up with after three years?

Year Start	Loan	Interest	Year End
£9,000.00	£6,756.12	£290.51	£7,046.63
£7,046.63	£4,802.75	£206.52	£5,009.27
£5,009.27	£2,765.39	£118.91	£2,884.30
		Difference	£6,115.70

On the other hand pulling the full £6k leaves £3k in the account at a lower interest rate

Year Start	Interest	Year End
£3,000.00	£121.50	£3,121.50
£3,121.50	£126.42	£3,247.92
£3,247.92	£131.54	£3,379.46
	Difference	-£379.46

So paying the lump sum leaves me with over £3k in the account at the end of 3 years whereas paying off the loan using it leaves me with less then £3k. On a £6k loan I'm not paying the full ~£6,700 only ~£6,100 saving £600, but paying the lump sum leaves me with ~£400 more in my pocket at the end of three years.

Okay assume £6k in the account add in £3k each year and pull out the loan I end up with an extra £3k at the end of three years. Assume I pay off the full loan leaving £3k in the account and not paying in another £3k the first year I end up with just under £7k over the same period.

So either way paying off the full amount in 'cash' leaves me with more money at the end of three years.

Well I'll see what deal I can get, but as several people have pointed out - at the moment Cash is King.