It will give you a new lease on life.

The year is 2020. We have streaming services at our fingertips, with the heyday of video rental stores now decades past. We’re even choosing razorblades, not magazines, on subscription. 

Our tastes have changed, and we’re subscribing to wine on tap instead of driving to the supermarket. Starved for new experiences, others have all but stopped going to the supermarket, letting strangers pick and pack their weekly grocery shop instead. 

While we can’t claim 2020 vision, we have a feeling that subscription is here to stay. It works for the little things, like food and booze, and is becoming a real thing among the big things too. Subscribing to a house is a little impractical, and anti-Australian Dream, but there’s a very practical reason you should at least consider subscribing to a car.

One of the Most Expensive Purchases You’ll Ever Make

After property, a car is the second-most expensive purchase that most people will ever make. But it’s actually worse than it sounds. Unlike property, which has historically gone up in value, cars usually depreciate.

RACQ crunched the numbers in 2018 and found that depreciation is in fact the biggest hidden cost when it comes to owning a vehicle. This can add $100 per week to the cost of ownership. The major Queensland motoring body considered 139 vehicles travelling 15,000km per year over five years to reach this conclusion. Depreciation even outranked fuel, tyres, servicing, insurance, registration and licence fees, and interest on a loan. And some of those are pretty nasty.

Buying, selling and simply maintaining cars can be stressful and expensive. Hiring a car the traditional way often isn’t any better, when you consider the money spent based on the time put in.

Leasing vs Subscribing – What’s the Difference?

Beep beep. We don’t mean to toot our own horn, but the subscription economy is here, and Carbar is the first port of call for a car subscription. 

There are several reasons why you should at least consider a car subscription rather than a lease or ownership.

With leasing, you get a new car every few years, avoiding the process and pain of buying and selling. However, leasing isn’t exactly the carefree ‘you get a car’ Oprah-esque experience that it claims to be. 

Sure, leasing a car often means lower monthly payments compared to financing. When leasing, relatively speaking, you pay for the deprecation of the car over the period rather than the whole vehicle cost. Come tax time, these depreciation and financing costs can be deducted.

But that’s basically it. The benefit of leasing, financing or buying a car ultimately reaches a point of no return. There has to be another way to maximise returns.

Subscribing to a New Lifestyle

Carbar presents a better way to get ‘maximum mileage’ out of a car. While recent changes in accounting standards mean that any car loan is considered a non-deductible capital expense, car subscriptions sit purely as an operating expense, so if using Carbar for Business, you can see an immediate benefit to your bottomline. Toot toot.

Beyond economics, lifestyle is a big consideration here. Everything now comes as a service. If we’re comfortable with software, lending, razor blades — even people as gig workers — as a service, why not cars too?

People don’t want to be tied down to jobs, places or things. On average, we’re staying in jobs for only a couple of years, signing property rental agreements for one year here and there, and yet we’re signing car leases for 2-5 years. We know that you know, the ‘forever home’ doesn’t really exist, and Carbar knows better than anyone that the ‘forever car’ doesn’t either.

Avoid the Unexpected & Reap the Benefits

We’re not fans of speeding, but we’ll zoom ahead to the details on this one. The terms and conditions matter, because they count for a lot. On these terms, a Carbar agreement simply adds up. 

With Carbar, you dodge ongoing and unexpected running costs, long-term debt repayments and balloon commitments. For a fixed weekly subscription, you can enjoy exclusive use of a car complete with insurance, registration, servicing and roadside assistance. Say goodbye to lock-in contracts. Carbar requires just two weeks notice to swap or cancel a subscription. That’s less than most jobs, and certainly less taxing than leasing.

So why buy when you can subscribe? When it comes to cars, subscription is the new ownership. It’s no-fuss, though not totally fancy-free. You can be as fancy as you want to be with Carbar. Models and makes from Mazda to Mercedes-Benz form part of the Carbar range. Carbar lets you try on different cars for size.

Learn more about car subscription, browse our range of vehicles or join for free, visit carbar.com.au today.

Let Carbar set your thinking in reverse

Carbar is proud to offer a free service for businesses, allowing them to save up to 20% on car subscription, swap or stop as they need and even trade in their current car for cash.

Simply register your business today and discover a new way to drive.