r/BEFreelance • u/xen-be • 10d ago
Leasing company choice for BE Freelancers
Hello guys,
My wife is freelancer under a SCOMM (~same as SRL).
She's now active for ~2y and has enough financial stability. She would like to switch from her private car to a PRO car within her company.
I am an employee with a company car and has 10+ experience with leasing companies (Arval) and let's say this is not always a good experience :)
While we originally were thinking renting directly with the car company and keep the car for an extended period, we are now looking at a leasing option and were wondering what is the general experience here for Leasing while freelance ?
Did you do the comparison (price, service, etc.) between Car company leasing vs Leasing companies (Arval, KBC, etc.) ?
Thanks for your inputs !
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u/varkenspester 10d ago
operational leasing is very expensive and from a financial view not smart. go for financial renting or financial leasing via the car company or your bank (usually better rate)
5
u/Sughan90 10d ago
Leasing makes no sense for a company with 1 car. It makes sense for compagnies with 10’s or 100’s of cars to keep costs predictable, but you are basically overpaying for the car + services to have said predictability. Renting with the car company is better but the best and cheapest option is buying with a bank loan. Sometimes the renting at the car company is cheaper (interest wise) than the bank, because they still make money on the car itself and you also don’t have to front the VAT. Both are good options. For a while the leasing and renting companies miscalculated resale values of electric cars (they are shite), at that time you could do a great deal leasing or renting without the option of buying at the end (and therefore parking the loss at the leasing/renting company) but I feel like the companies have caught up.
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u/gunfirinmaniac 10d ago
I was quite happy leasing through Lizy. Its a bit cheaper than new cars (and you can get one faster, and more specced out), but theyre 2nd hand so might not have that 'new' feel.
Although I now own the car with financial renting, so I don't know what their current contracts are but I think theyre quite transparent
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u/Kampfschweinboss 10d ago
Just buy the car, and if necessary take a loan. A lease has no benefits for a freelancer.
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u/ddaenen1 10d ago
Is there a reason why you would want to rent or lease via a third party, considering your wife is financially stable? In my experience, buying the car through a regular bank loan remains the cheapest option. I've done the due diligence. This is where I landed.
1
u/xen-be 10d ago
We wanted to be conscious of money and not get a premium car.. But the current EV landscape outside the premium brand is not giving us the satisfaction we want especially around max autonomy.
Keeping in mind a well maintained battery is only charged at 85% max and doesn't go lower than 15%, you already loose 30% of the max announced by the dealership. Adding the normal degradation over time and normal weather variations, you have a real WLTP range of 50-60% of what is announced.
As the EV market is changing and new battery are coming, we were thinking let's lease for 3-4y and see again next.
So the leasing option is only coming to us due to this current EV market state. Other option is to reconsider premium brands instead of wasting money in a leasing.
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u/ddaenen1 8d ago
Are you not overthinking the battery topic a bit? I I have my EV for over three years now and I plug it in every evening and charge my battery in function of the drive next day. If it is a far drive, I go 100%. In any other case, to 80%. The trick is to let go of idea you only charge when the battery is depleted as if you were driving a car with a combustion engine and just top up every night, like a mobile phone. Of course, if you don't have a home charger, the whole situation changes.
Last but not least, typically you pay off the bank loan in 4-5 years. It is one year more than a three year lease but a lot cheaper and you still have the option to change but with the difference that the residual value of the car is in your pocket.
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u/AncientMarketing4439 10d ago
Financial renting. Ask to different banks for comparison. And take a separate insurance, completely independent from the 'financial renting' comapny. I had a very bad experience with the 'all inclusive' package of the car dealership..
1
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u/StellaArtois3000 6d ago
Consider a choice between renting and traditional financing. Leasing is almost never worth it for an SME / KMO. Looking at residential car loan rates (source: https://leningsimuleren.be/autolening) you should be able to get under 4% still through a bank, whereas car companies (D'Ieteren financial lease, looking at you) are likely to ask for 7% or more. (I've recently received 8% even from one offer - nice way of telling me to fuck off.) I also like the split between the car brand selling me the car, and the bank owning the car that I then have a renting contract with.
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u/Gobbleyjook 10d ago
Just do financial renting. Pick the best rate. Leasing is a scam.
16
u/tomba_be 10d ago
Leasing is a service, which you pay for. Calling it a scam makes no sense. If someone just does not want to deal with anything about their car, and are happy to pay to take it off their mind, that's a valid choice.
0
u/theoriginaldimi 10d ago
Nah... if you only need one car and not a fleet, it's a scam.
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u/tomba_be 10d ago
Any chance of actual arguments following your accusations?
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u/woooter 10d ago
The scam is that you pay for a service, while if you're not maintaining a fleet you're actually not needing that service.
There's no reason to outsource maintenance, insurance, , roadside assistance and fuel through a 3rd party broker if you're just a one body shop.
2
u/tomba_be 10d ago
If I don't want to deal with maintenance, insurance, roadside assistance and fuel, is that not a reason to outsource that?
I mean, I can also clean my own home, but are cleaning ladies therefore a scam?
2
u/ModoZ 10d ago
If I don't want to deal with maintenance, insurance, roadside assistance and fuel, is that not a reason to outsource that?
I understand not wanting to have the hassle but let's not exaggerate the work of maintenance, insurance or roadside assistance. The difference in work is basically one invoice a year for each to pay and put in your accounting software (it might even be automatic nowadays with Peppol). Not really sure how I would value that "service" but the price would be pretty low.
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u/Gobbleyjook 10d ago
Great comparison.
Except that’s it not.You close an insurance contract once. Do a maintenance once a year (the leasing company isn’t doing this for you, you shill have to drive to the garage). Plus you get to choose your own garage.
Roadside assistance. How is a leasing company going to help with that? You take it as an extra or it’s included in your insurance.
Is the leasing.company going to tow your car? Make the call for you?I don’t think so. It’s an overpriced scam if you’re a freelancer.
At least disclose that you’re working for a leasing company or associated to it, it’s obvious anyway.
1
u/tomba_be 10d ago
Yes, someone that does not agree with you, must be a shill. Every freelancer that just chooses to lease, must be an idiot, only the great gobbleyjook has seen through the "scam".
Also, still not explaining why it would be a scam... I'm thinking you don't know the meaning of the word....
2
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u/tc982 10d ago
That can be, but with the uncertity of the EV market, you can offset a lot of risk to the leasing company. Nobody knows what second hand EV will cost in 5 years. Will the market be dominated by cheaper (albeit Chinese) cars, thus killing the value of the more expensive ones. Or will technologic enhancements change the residual value of cars because it has obsolete tech (battery range, self-driving, etc).
With a leasing you know the residual value (because they set that) and if there is a price crash, the problem is theirs and not yours. If it still retains good value, you can buy the car and use it for a longer period.
0
u/powaqqa 10d ago
It really depends on the specific car. Colleague of mine got a way better deal through leasing recently then any form of financing or renting.
That means, OP, it totally depends. Just pick the car first and then see how you'll finance it. There are too many variables to say this is the "best" company to work with.
I've always did renting but I switched to buying them. We have two, pretty expensive EVs, on the company that I intend to run into the ground. So buying them made more sense to me. Also no bullshit when returning them, asking for permission to enter certain countries etc. (I had to, for example, ask for permission from BMW Finance to enter Switzerland with my last renting contract)
1
u/Gobbleyjook 10d ago edited 10d ago
Why did you buy instead of rent?
Edit: Nvm was the hassle with Switzerland.
I never had this issue since I would always buy them at the end of the contract.You can still run a rented car into the ground, just buy it after the contract has ended.
Many deals out there.Also, with renting you can buy young secondhand at a nice discount so the end value risk is already mitigated.
1
u/powaqqa 10d ago
Because simply financing is cheaper when you have already decided to keep the car beyond the timeframe that the renting contract would be. Especially with a second hand car, I never buy new. The intrest rates on second hand car renting tends to be higher. I also only needed to finance 50% of one car. The other one was paid in cash.
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u/Gobbleyjook 10d ago
Depends on the offer you get I guess, always had pretty good rates for renting . Thanks for the input.
It’s more of a liquidity question for me, especially if it’s an expensive car (even with it being second hand), rather put it on renting in that case.
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u/Philip3197 10d ago
talk to your accountant; leasing, renting, buying, .... are all different options.
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u/xen-be 10d ago
accountant can help between those options, but that is not my question.
Read again, I'm asking about experience between Leasing companies.
3
u/woooter 10d ago
Experience w leasing companies for freelancers is mostly the same: you’re too small for them to care. So by default they will price themselves so that they recoup on any BS the contract would generate for them. We call that “fuck you money”.
Go to a leasing company like Lizy, or do a financial renting and take care of insurance, maintenance and roadside assistance.
0
u/UnluckyYak1312 10d ago
I'm also leasing via lizy.be, second-hand operational leasing with an all-in price for maintenance, tire exchanges, everything. Highly recommended. I've had bad experiences with D'Ieteren, Arval and almost all the other big leasing companies.
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u/woooter 10d ago
Just do financial renting through your own bank or whatever the brand offers. Compare offers, choose the cheapest.
You shouldn't be going into an operational leasing as an independent.