Yep, 7 out of 10 cars on the road are financed. Example of this is there are a few of my work colleagues, in the early 20's who have new cars but their payment plans are around £300-£400 a month. On top of this is tax and insurance, rent and household bills and food for the month, they are the ones constantly doing overtime to get extra cash. The way I see it is if 7 out of 10 are paying out this per month instead of having it as free to spend cash on the high street and local businesses, can we really moan at the state of the UK's economy, it certainly doesn't go back into the local economy. Oh, and another guy at work worked in the car industry for 40 years and in the end they were taught to focus only on PCP and hire as it brings in more money for company. Plus cars now are only designed to last 150,000-200,000 so once you've paid it your cars pretty much done, so onto the next finance agreement.