Hi Guys,

I might be teaching grannies to suck eggs, so apologies if this is old news...

I just spoke to Ford Credit about my current policy with them. In the past I got stuck "Transferring credit agreements" between cars, so when I bought my fiesta, and then upgraded to the focus, I had to transfer my credit over to them - a bigger bill as you could well expect.

After speaking to FC, I found out that you can in fact just hand the keys back at any point After you have paid 50% of your credit agreement! so if you owe 6000, and you have paid 3500, you are happy to write to them and cancel the agreement, and as long as the car is in excellent condition (your local dealer can tell you what needs doing to make sure it is!) then you can literally hand the keys back and bye bye remaining finance!

I didnt know this, and hopefully this information may save just one person out there from ending up with a bigger bill than they actually need!

Any scuffs or mechanical damage needs to be made right, and if they take the car and do the repairs themselves, they send you the bill and you pay it, or if you get the car sorted out yourself for much less, then you can save a lot more money! they just check the car and say "this needs this, that needs that" and you either give them the keys, or sort it yourself until they can say "OK, wheres the keys?!"

This mistake has probably cost me an extra £3000 in credit transfers, so I hope its useful to someone out there!

p.s. if this has already been covered, I apologise, I got so excited and thought I had to post it ;)

good info jee, it will defo help some off us out there. i know with other companies they say that you can take the car back after the halfway mark to refinance on another, so i would say this rule of the car having to be spink and span will be across the board.

another tip to people, taking finance, is to make sure they take GAP insurance...its a god send

i was in a very expensive finance with my peugeot 307 with a company called cygnet finance (49.9% apr over 4 years), long story short i wrote it off, i let the insurance pay up and let the Gap pay out. now im in no finance agreement with them and have gone to a far better and cheaper company (5.5% apr flat rate) with better car and overall more cheaper, again took gap out just incase. but anyways if i didnt take the gap out i would be still paying for the peugeot finance now and legally bound too! aswell as paying for my current.

good info jee, it will defo help some off us out there. i know with other companies they say that you can take the car back after the halfway mark to refinance on another, so i would say this rule of the car having to be spink and span will be across the board.

another tip to people, taking finance, is to make sure they take GAP insurance...its a god send

i was in a very expensive finance with my peugeot 307 with a company called cygnet finance (49.9% apr over 4 years), long story short i wrote it off, i let the insurance pay up and let the Gap pay out. now im in no finance agreement with them and have gone to a far better and cheaper company (5.5% apr flat rate) with better car and overall more cheaper, again took gap out just incase. but anyways if i didnt take the gap out i would be still paying for the peugeot finance now and legally bound too! aswell as paying for my current.

GAP may have been of benifit to You but surely You have to ask Yourself How many people would have beef foolish enough to have agreed to a Finance agreement of 49.9% ???? Thats just ridiculous !!

i was 17 years old at the time, so i couldnt legally gain finance in my name, so it had to be done in my dads...who to be honest hasnt got a perfect track record in his credit history. and at the time was the only company who will touch him.

Before you agree to hand I back be aware it goes on your credit file that you terminated a contract. Few years ago that was fine but some companys lending finance now don't look favourable on this anymore

hmmm, true! my plan is...

• Get to the 50% mark
  
• Apply for a loan for about £14,000 from my bank
  
• Pay outright for a new car
  
• pay the difference in repairs on my current car
  
• Return the car to Ford
  
• Pay off the bank loan
  

I have told myself that I will keep this car if I cant do the above, but its what I am looking at doing! If I can avoid finance again it will save money on high interest rates amongst other things!

Biggest benefit, the car is mine outright!