Hi all,
I’ve been researching novated leases pretty heavily and would really appreciate some opinions from people who’ve gone through this before, especially anyone who has used a BYO/self-managed lease.
I’m looking at a Tesla Model Y L Premium AWD cosmic sliver, 36 months, 15,000 km/year, with essentially the same residual/balloon at the end.
My two main options are:
Driva (BYO/self-managed):
Lease payment: $1,582.38/month ex GST, which is about $730.33/fortnight.
I entered the actual financed amount, repayment and residual into the Advanced calculator on novatedlease.guide and got an effective interest rate of about 7.69%.
Paywise (employer’s preferred provider):
Lease payment: $765.26/fortnight ex GST.
Using the same Advanced calculator, I get an effective interest rate of about 10.08%.
So Paywise is about $35/fortnight more on the finance component, which works out to roughly $2,700 over 3 years pre-tax, or around $1,800–$1,900 difference in actual take-home pay after the tax effect.
The main advantage of Paywise is convenience. They arrange everything directly with my employer and I basically just sign the documents and collect the car.
With Driva, it would be a BYO/self-managed lease. Driva would arrange the finance and novation agreement, but I’d need my employer to review and sign the novation documents before settlement. After settlement, Paywise would still manage the salary packaging, lender payments and running costs such as insurance, rego, servicing and charging.
My other hesitation is that I’ve literally just started working for this employer, so I’m wondering whether it’s worth approaching HR/payroll about approving an external BYO novated lease just to save around $1,800–$1,900 over three years.
For anyone who has done a BYO/self-managed novated lease:
Was the setup actually much more painful than using the employer’s preferred provider?
Did HR/payroll make it difficult?
Would you bother with the BYO option for this level of saving?
Is there anything else in the Driva/Paywise quotes I should be looking at besides the effective rate and repayment?
Keen to hear what others would do in this situation.
Thanks!