They’re at it again. Someone has asked for advice on car leasing, and one of the replies (answering the wrong question, anyway) has stated that someone on a franchise pays £1,000 a month, whereas if you buy your own car and go independent, you save £1,000 a month.
How many more bloody times? NO. YOU. DON’T!
However you obtain your car, you have an ongoing cost associated with it. Unless you’re driving a 15 year old banger that never goes wrong, needs no maintenance or servicing, never has anything wear out or get a nail in it, and doesn’t need insurance, you are probably paying at least £250 a month for it all told. If it’s less than about 8 years old, this overhead cost could easily be £400-£500.
It isn’t just about how much you are paying for it per month if it’s on hire purchase. Or how much you initially paid. You have to factor in depreciation and having to replace it periodically, any maintenance, insuring it (lots of complaints about insurance hikes lately), getting dual controls fitted/removed, repairs, and so on. It isn’t costing you “nothing”. It’s costing a lot more than nothing.
Even if there is someone out there who has a banger, and does all their own servicing and repairs, they still have to get hold of parts and consumables. The equipment they use to do the work has got to be paid for somehow. And so does the time it would take them to do it – how on earth can you be a full time ADI if you are also a part time mechanic?
There is absolutely no such thing as an instructor car that “costs nothing”. But there are a hell of a lot of ADIs who don’t understand this.
I’ve explained it before in the article Should I Become A Driving Instructor?