£ 11500 for a doblo, good deal, i think not. i have 3 other fiats and they are great
I thought about leasing, but worked out it was going to cost me double the price.
Bought a brand new Citroeon Belingo for £4628 on the road + vat, that was 4 years ago, the new berlingo have gone up a lot because of the Euro
idealrob
Good point - just checked my figures - also my error too in as the balloon was £1990 not £2500 and the rentals were 175, not 180 and so actually about £10750. The doblo was also the sx (with the side doors and a higher payload priced at £8500 cash IIRC. (whereas the base model was £7300 I think) Vat inclusive. Of course a blistering deal like you got at the end of 2005/start of 2006 may not be relevant to today's weak pound marketplace.
I did pay a premium (like you do when you use a loan) for leasing - which of course is not yet paid - and as the Doblo was voted van of the year in 2006 it was selling like hot cakes and as a facelift model with a higher payload there were few deals to be had. Two nearby Fiat dealers in Bristol and WsM were unable or unwilling to price match although I used one of them for the warranty servicing. One of them was actually able to offer me a base Scudo cheaper than the Doblo as they were coming up to the end of the line; but as it had no side doors and was more expensive to tax I declined.
But the main points are that every penny is tax deductible; and that the cost is spread over 4 years and that at the time raising several K cash was not an option.
Even more important is that the Berlingo was physically smaller in the back (2.8m cubed compared to 3.2m cubed) and the entry model only had a 600kg payload so although I could have saved a bit by taking up a budget deal I would have outgrown the van and feel forced to change it. (As you say, you have 3 Fiats which you describe as great vans - and I have not been disappointed either)
You did very well to get a brand new van for about £5.5K idealrob - I don't remember that sort of deal being available when I was looking in Oct 2006. In fact now the Citroen is listed at well over 10K.
Now that things are better financially I might replace with the latest Doblo which goes up to 1000kg payload in a year or two when all the new model hullabaloo had died down.