What are the pro and cons of getting a car with the mobility scheme any advice would be appreciated
Hello Gillian
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@Gillian_21 i don’t know much about it but my dad had a notability car for years & my brother in law now has one. The main pro for my dad was it gave him an independence he otherwise wouldn’t have had. He wasn’t able to use public transport. Any repairs were also taken care of under the scheme….,.,…think there were some that he had to pay for but can’t remember what. I guess if you become no longer eligible under the scheme then the car would have to go back & you would be car less but not sure how that bit works.
Hi Gillian,
As long as you qualify for Motability, I can’t imagine there are many cons.
If you have savings you may be better off financially buying a car. The interest on your savings will be a lot less than your Mobility Allowance. However you may not then have a rainy day fund. You may also be happier knowing there will be no unexpected costs if the car breaks down.
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Totally agree Janet. My husband gets full DLA for mobility so was able to get a mobility car if he wanted … he always had his own car, which I also drove, but decided to go for a mobility car instead, so sold our car … then got new car, all insurance etc paid for in place of our monthly DLA … not only do you then lose the disability payments, you also have to be extra careful driving the cars because at the end of the 3 years, they send out someone to examine the car before taking it back … seemed to us that what they really wanted was a brand-new, 3 year old car, with no scratches,no marks etc …he pointed out tiny little marks too ! We ended up using our savings to buy ourselves another car, second hand but much better, as we then got our DLA monthly payments back and could save and use them as we wished… we would never go back to having a mobility car again …
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My daughter is disabled and we have had 2 vehicles via the motability scheme. It does cost, in addition to your allowance, almost all decent cars have an up front payment. At the end of the lease you hand the car back, you have nothing to show for your payments.
The inspection of the vehicle at the end is nothing to be concerned about, they don’t expect the car to be pristine and we had a good condition bonus on both occasions.
The key I would think would be if you need adaptions to help you drive. Motability would seem to be more suitable. There are some serious delays on new cars.
Personally we went down the route of buying a wheelchair carrying car, two off eBay. That might sound very risky but many offer home demos and the cars are often ex mobility anyway.
If you can drive a non adapted car, I would suggest, if you can,private purchase. Same if you are looking for a car to carry a wheelchair. You could use your allowance to pay back a loan.
If you need adaptions or not confident buying second hand, I would suggest motability. It isn’t cheap though. For all that motability itself is a charity, the lease scheme is very much a money making machine. The wheelchair carrying car we were looking at would have cost 25k (allowance and up front payment) over 5 years on the scheme and we would have had nothing at the end of it. Meanwhile at the end of 5 years the scheme had a second hand low mileage car that might be worth 15k. Of late, someone is making a killing with second hand car prices being so high.