What this covers
Again, not one customer — the pattern across 39 completed car deals. The choice between hire purchase and PCP is the decision people find hardest, and seeing what others actually picked is more useful than a definition.
The split
Twenty-seven chose hire purchase; twelve chose PCP. Twenty-one of the thirty-nine agreements carry a final payment of some size. Thirty-six of the thirty-nine cars were used.
How they differ
Which suits whom
The honest test is what you intend to do at the end of the term. If you expect to keep the car and drive it into the ground, hire purchase is usually the cheaper answer overall. If you change car every three or four years and want the lowest monthly commitment meanwhile, PCP does that — provided you go in knowing the final payment exists and how you intend to deal with it.
A final payment is not a discount. It is money deferred, and it still has to be settled, refinanced, or covered by handing the car back.
Key outcome
Hire purchase remains the majority choice on used cars, and the deciding factor is almost never the monthly figure on its own — it is whether the buyer wants to own the car at the end or change it.
“The question I ask first is not what you want to pay each month. It is what you want to be holding in four years. Answer that and the product picks itself.”
— Conor, CW Asset Finance
Every application is assessed on its own merits and all finance is subject to status and lender approval. This is one client’s outcome and is not a guide to what any other business will be offered.
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