Buying a car for less than one PCP payment

With household budgets being squeezed in the grip of the COVID-19 crisis, Craig Cheetham discover how you can still travel in comfort and style for the price of a single month’s PCP payment.

We buy a £250 Ford Mondeo from the side of the road.

We live in uncertain times, of that there’s no mistake. But as Britain starts its shaky first steps out of the coronavirus crisis that has reshaped our way of life, many of us have taken a good hard look at the things that are truly important in life.

Among them is the consumerism that has led to so many of us buying a new car every two or three years, thanks to a combination of easy credit terms and purchase schemes designed to keep monthly payments down to a manageable level while still keeping us at the wheel of an all-singing, all-dancing new car.

But that bubble may well be about to burst as reduced household incomes and increased lending to businesses impacting the availability of credit to many people – so could now be the time to opt out of contract purchase altogether?

To find out, we took to the classifieds to find out what we could pick-up for

the price of just one month’s average PCP payment – currently £254, according to the number crunchers at motoringresearch.com.

After trawling the usual sites, which led to fewer cheap and cheerful options than normal due to the Uk-wide lockdown, I eventually spotted a 2003 Ford Mondeo 1.8 LX parked by the roadside while out at work (I’ve been doing a temporary job as a supermarket delivery driver). I called the number in the windscreen, asked a few questions and decided that the Metropolis Blue hatchback was worth a roll of the dice – at the agreed £250. I wasn’t going to put anyone at risk or break any social distancing rules by insisting on a proper poke around, instead settling for the owner’s word. He seemed a nice bloke, and as he was only round the corner from my workplace we agreed to meet at an appropriate distance in the supermarket car park, at which point he transferred the ownership into my name online using his phone, while I paid him in a similar manner.

Transaction completed, we gave each other a friendly nod across the car park and I was now the proud owner of UCZ 2804 – a 2003 Mondeo 1.8 LX Mistral that had just two previous owners. The first of these lived in Ballymena and had owned the car until 2019, meaning it came with a fairly comprehensive service history courtesy of an Irish Ford main dealer – not bad for a cheap old banger.

But would a £250 car – a whole £4 cheaper than one month’s average PCP repayment – turn out to be any good? Well, on the negative side it has done 160,000 miles, has a small crack in the windscreen and the clutch bite is a bit high, but that’s about it. It’s clearly a car that has been impeccably well looked after throughout its life, something that’s quite common of a vehicle that has come from long-term ownership.

And that love and care throughout its life means that, despite quite a high mileage, the Mondeo is still a perfectly pleasant car to drive. Its 125bhp hardly makes it a rocket ship, but it’s peppy enough for most people and drives every bit as well as the Mondeo Mk3 ever did. There was a reason it was a perennial fleet favourite and magazine group test winner, and that’s largely because it’s such a good car to drive.

The ride and handling are superb and UCZ 2804 doesn’t feel in the slightest bit tired despite the mileage under its belt – with no knocks or clonks from the steering or suspension, strong brakes and a positive gearchange. As a key worker, I’ve been using it daily since I picked it up and it’s a terrific commuter car – comfortable, easy to drive and blessed with the added benefits of functional air-conditioning and Ford’s brilliant Quickclear windscreen.

Indeed, I’ve even rigged it up with a Bluetooth hands-free phone and music set-up courtesy of a £10 widget that I bought off ebay, meaning I can livestream my favourite tunes through the Mondeo’s famously excellent Sony speakers – Ford made a big deal of these when the car was new.

In essence, then, apart from a warranty, a reception area with a posh coffee machine when I pop in for a service and a surfeit of distracting ‘infotainment’ options, my £250 Mondeo ticks all of the boxes any modern car could – right down to everything working perfectly. It’s a true bargain.

Depreciation

It’s not the only one out there, either, as the rampant consumerism of the past few years has hammered values of older cars down massively over the past decade or so, meaning that even 59/60-plate cars can now be picked up for under a grand, should you not be too fussed about brand or the ‘need’ for an SUV or people carrier. We were very tempted by a 2008 Honda Accord estate at £750 before we clapped eyes on the Mondeo. But £500 is £500, and while the Accord may well have been that bit newer and better equipped, the Ford was perfectly fit for purpose – its purpose being a 35-mile daily round trip to and from work.

A further benefit of a car like the Mondeo is its relative simplicity. Ford may well have hyped it up as hugely advanced 20 years ago, and aspects such as its ‘Intelligent Protection System’ are welcome all day long – the Mondeo Mk3 has a very respectable four-star EURONCAP rating. But under the bonnet, the 1.8-litre Duratec petrol engine is pretty simple to look after, the only really common fault being hot-start problems due to sticking EGR valves – currently not an issue on UCZ 2804, but one to look out for in the future, perhaps.

Other than that, I shall enjoy using my ‘boring’ Ford and maintain it myself, without sitting around worrying about how my fairly chunky loss of income in recent months is going to affect my ability to keep-up with my PCP repayments.

If you want to get out of a PCP, bargain buying makes every bit of sense right now – but don’t sit on your hands for too long. With current events making a mockery of years of advice to use public transport where possible, the cheap car market could well be about to see a bit of a boom. You heard it here first…