Buying VS Renting a Supercar
If you are ‘lucky’ enough to be in the financial position to be renting a supercar or buy a Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Aston Martin or another marque of high performance car, you will need to decide which is the best option for you. As with most things, there are for and against both options so let’s have a look at some of the reasons and as a result, you may be better able to decide the best way forward.
Renting – For:
- Depreciation – This is a big one. As you will never own the vehicle you are not going to worry if the value of the super car you are driving drops in value.
- Servicing/Mechanical Repairs – you aren’t going to be responsible for paying for the regular servicing of the vehicle or if it breaks down and needs a mechanical repair. The only thing that you may need to pay for are replacement tyres should one or more be punctured. All of our cars are still under manufacturer warranty which is a massive bonus.
- Poor Credit Rating – Unlike financing a car, hire companies generally don’t carry out credit checks on you so if you’re rating isn’t the best it could be, this usually isn’t an issue.
- Change the Car – If you decide say a couple of months into renting the Ferrari that you fancy driving around in say a Lamborghini, Aston Martin or McLaren then, subject to the terms of the rental agreement, you may be able to change it without any financial penalty enabling you to try out different super cars. Try our flex hire for instance.
- Potentially Less Expensive – When you take into account things like car loan repayments, servicing/ general maintenance, depreciation and repair costs that you would have if you bought the car then you may discover that the monthly rental cost is lower than the overall monthly cost involved in buying the vehicle opposed to renting a supercar.
- Selling the Car – This is something you will not have to worry about as you can just return it to the car rental company when no longer required. A lot of people forget about this when buying a supercar. More than likely, you will need to either sell to a dealer or part exchange where the value could be 30% less than the current market rate.
Renting – Against
- End of hire charges – If you have a dent or scratch on the bodywork or alloy wheels then, depending upon the size of it, you will be responsible for the cost of having it repaired and possibly losing your security deposit if the repairs are costly.
- Ownership – Obviously, you will never own the vehicle. So, as a limited number of supercars may actually go up in value due to them being so rare, you will not benefit financially if that were to happen.
Buying – For
- Value – There are certain rare super cars that may actually increase in value meaning that when you come to sell the vehicle you may get more for it than you paid for it. If you buy a car early enough there could even be a buyers premium which would offset any costs during your ownership like the Lamborghini Urus or Ferrari 488 when they were first released.
- Self-esteem – Lets be honest, most car lovers would want to own the likes of an Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini or McLaren and to do so must make them feel very good about themselves. There isn’t a better feeling than going into a car dealership and buying an expensive car with no finance to worry about.
- Buying outright – If you are in the fortunate position to be able to pay cash for the super car then you will not have to worry about monthly rental payments or finance repayments.
- Modifying – No, we’re not talking about silly bodykits and big spoilers but more changing little things like the colour of the alloys or tinting windows. When you own your car, you’re free to do what you want unlike when you rent a supercar, you would not be permitted to modify anything.
Buying – Against
- Maintenance – You will be responsible for having the car serviced and for having any mechanical repairs undertaken. You may initially have a period of time/miles where your warranty covers you for such things but at some point, that will no doubt come to an end and you will have to meet the maintenance costs unlike renting a supercar.
- Adverse credit score – if you have a bad credit rating then you may find it difficult to arrange finance towards buying the car or the finance lender may charge you a very high interest rate to cover their risk.
- Sale of super car – if you wish to change the vehicle for another one then you will be responsible for selling your existing vehicle or putting your car in part-exchange and may not achieve the sale price you would have hoped for. Selling a supercar privately not only has its risks but generally people are only willing to buy a supercar privately if the price is very competitive.
- Self Insure – This is an obvious one but insurance on supercars can be very expensive so that needs to be taken into account also. All of our cars come with comprehensive self drive hire insurance which is included in our supercar rental prices.
As you can see, there are good and bad points for both arguments but hopefully our comparisons will help any potential clients decide which is best for them whether that’s renting a supercar long term or buying one.
Any long term supercar hire will need a bespoke quote so please get in contact with us and we’ll be happy to go through the quote with you.