Lovely Chris!
And we'll see about letting you stay around!! Depends if you let the mods have a good blast out in your new car!
Yup I'd always plump for an ex-lease/company car over privately owned as you know 100% it will have wanted for nothing as it will not have been at the drivers expense!
Not wanting to burst your bubble mate, but I used to organise the lease car scheme at my last job and this is FAR from the thruth
The cars were very badly maintained and were always repaired (most had a knock or two in their time!) at the cheapest back street garages. This was using probably the biggest and best known leasing company in the UK as well. I'm not naming names, here so don't ask.
In addtion to this, my GTI is an ex lease car as well. It has 1 previous owener (the lease company) and the car was in a shocking state when I bought it. I AM willing to name names here... 'JCT600 contracts ltd'. The car did have a full service history but also a torn leather seat, very poorly resprayed panels, deeply scratched side window, deformed tyres, non-standard headlights plus loads of bits and bobs that were scratched or marked. It also broke down 2 days after I bought it too!
It's all sorted now as I haggled a lot off the asking price then fixed it at my expense, but I won't be buying another lease car again in a hurry.