macchiaz-o
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Jonathan
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- Nov 25, 2019
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- MY21 J1 Premium RWD SR
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- #1
I leased my first vehicle. I ended up purchasing it at the end of the lease. Since then, I've had just two other purchases (and no other leases). So my experience with this topic is VERY limited.
Some folks are enthusiastic about leasing, including my father who began leasing soon after he became a car salesperson decades ago. So he's had a lot of experience with leases for himself and his customers.
What I can't seem to extract from him, though, are the benefits of leasing. He'll point out the low likelihood of out of warranty costs, low-ish monthly costs, and having a new car with the latest safety features. But those are also characteristics of trading in for a brand new car every few years.
I've taken a stab at listing the benefits of a purchase over those of a lease, and vice versa. I'd love your feedback. I'm obviously looking at purchasing at this point, but I'm open to the idea that there are benefits to leasing to which I'm currently ignorant.
Purchasing instead of leasing:
Some folks are enthusiastic about leasing, including my father who began leasing soon after he became a car salesperson decades ago. So he's had a lot of experience with leases for himself and his customers.
What I can't seem to extract from him, though, are the benefits of leasing. He'll point out the low likelihood of out of warranty costs, low-ish monthly costs, and having a new car with the latest safety features. But those are also characteristics of trading in for a brand new car every few years.
I've taken a stab at listing the benefits of a purchase over those of a lease, and vice versa. I'd love your feedback. I'm obviously looking at purchasing at this point, but I'm open to the idea that there are benefits to leasing to which I'm currently ignorant.
Purchasing instead of leasing:
- no calendar pressure on when to replace vehicle; if I'm satisfied with the car after 2-3 years, I choose to continue to own it and at this point, I begin to see significant financial savings versus leasing since the vehicle continues to depreciate, but less rapidly.
- I can choose to sell the car to any number of buyers: privately, via retail (e.g. CarMax), or via dealer trade-in; or I can give the car to a family member or charity
- no need to predict or restrict my future mileage; if I'm way "under" mileage, no problem and no money wasted; if I'm way over, my per-mile rate for "excess" mileage is just actual costs without adding in finance/bank rates.
- I won't be surprised by lease-end fees or hassles from dealers about accepting the vehicle back
- when I decide to replace my car, I'll more easily resist dealership sales pressure since they'll know and I'll know that I'm not under a hard time constraint on purchase of my next car
- over the long term, money spent on out of warranty repairs is typically far less than money spent on lease or loan payments; this is true even on cars that have proven to need significant numbers of repairs like my Ford Fiesta.
- I can choose to buy used, for significantly more savings
- I can choose a more affordable auto insurance plan
- for a first-time car 'owner' (or when adding another vehicle to garage), "loan" payments on lease will be less than on purchase of equivalent new car, in exchange for pre-arrangement of returning the car back to the lender.
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