Audi Finance Problem. Help would be much appreciated

[theninster13]

hello there

 

We bought a car through Audi last year using a pcp financing deal. We part exchanged a car that was also under a finance deal. Audi claimed it was in negative equity, a fact that we denied but in any event they gave us a good enough deal so we went with it.

 

We want to hand the car back but we have been told that notwithstanding the fact that we paid approx £300 per month for a year we still owe them money, around £3,500 due to the depreciation in value of the car against the loan.

 

My issue is that i am sure we were advised that we could hand the car back at any time and there would be no problem, and that the days of negative equity in cars as we had with our former agreement are over. Our understanding was that we could hand the car back and walk away. There is nothing wrong with the car, we just don't want to be tied to the agreement any more and would rather buy a second car outright.

 

Is it worth taking our case to the FOS on the basis that we were misrepresented at the time we bought the car as to the way the financing worked? Has anyone else had a similar problem?

 

Many thanks

[marmaris30]

The basic problem with car finance is that cars usually depreciate faster than you pay off the principal on the loan (partly because of the effect of compound interest), and the resale value of the car is completely unrelated to outstanding finance on it. If you see out the term with these PCP schemes then there is usually a terminal payment to take full ownership of the car, but that should be roughly equal to the actual value and if at that point it is more then you can then choose to hand the car back with no liability.

 

So if you cancel your contract then you'll have to pay off outstanding finance less what they get for the car once sold. Unless your salesman was really stupid and said you could hand the car back at any time with no liability, and this was recorded in writing or on tape or whatever, you would struggle to show that you had been mis-sold the car on this scheme.

 

Do you still have all the original sale paperwork, which you both would have signed?