Finance influencer Sharan Hegde reveals how he saved more than ₹90 lakh while buying a Range Rover

Finance influencer Sharan Hegde has revealed how “financial engineering” helped him save more than ₹90 lakh while buying a Range Rover. During his recent appearance on Ranveer Allahbadia’s podcast, Hegde explained the steps he took to bring down the cost of the luxury car. Sharan Hegde reveals how he saved big while buying a luxury car. (Instagram/@financewithsharan) “I’ll give you an example that actually happened in my life. I recently bought a Range Rover. This is the first luxury car I bought. If you go to the showroom, it costs around ₹1.5 crore,” he said. The first step: Buying second-handThe first and most important thing that Hegde did to bring down the cost was to purchase the Range Rover second-hand. (Also read: Sharan Hegde lays off 15% of employees, cites ‘makes in hiring, redundant expenses’) Speaking to Allahbadia, he explained that a car is a depreciating asset — meaning it loses its value over time. Hegde therefore decided to buy a second-hand car in good working condition. “I know that the car’s value will depreciate 50%, if not more, within the first three years,” he said. “So what’s the right way of looking at it? The right way is asking: can I get the same car, probably three years old, driven less than 30,000–40,000 kilometres?” “So I found one. I found a Range Rover that was driven 30,000 kilometres. A ₹1.5 crore car was being sold for ₹60 lakhs. All of a sudden, I saved ₹90 lakhs just deciding to go with a car that was three years old,” Hegde explained. More savings on car purchaseBuying a luxury car second-hand also had other advantages. Sharan Hegde explained that he did not have to pay road tax or buy a number plate. “I didn’t have to pay the road tax again either. That was already paid for, which would’ve been another ₹5–6 lakhs,” he said. Savings on EMIHegde, of course, did not buy the car paying the full amount in one go. Instead, he took a loan. Now, the loan for a second-hand car typically comes with a high interest rate. Hegde, however, managed to circumvent this taking a loan against his fixed deposits. “People will say second-hand car loan interest rates are high — probably 9–10%, sometimes even more. So what did I do? I had an FD ready… So I told the bank: here is a ₹50 lakh FD. Give me a loan against that FD, not a car loan. I got a loan against the FD,” the finance influencer and entrepreneur explained. doing this, he managed to get a loan with an interest rate of 8 to 8.5% — which Hegde explained is very difficult to get for a second-hand car. (Also read: Indian Redditor called out for using ‘daddy’s money’ to buy Range Rover, brutal takedown goes viral) Over and above these savings, he managed to save even more paying a part of the amount with his credit card, which gave him a cashback of over ₹2 lakh. “The remaining amount — I sold my exing car. I sold it for probably ₹12–15 lakhs. So my final cost of the car is not more than ₹35–40 lakhs,” he said. “On ₹35–40 lakhs, I have an 8–8.5% interest rate, which comes to about ₹20–30k per month. So from a ₹3–4 lakh monthly EMI, it’s come down to ₹20–30k monthly EMI,” he concluded.