Auto lease question

better place to ask that gets much activity, please let me know. Thanks.

calculators (or two humans) that produce the same results from the same starting variables. Heck, even two salesman from the same dealership came up with two different figures. I think part of the problem is figuring what value gets taxed. Another (for me) is what the residual percentage is taken of (is it MSRP as I think, or is it sale price or something else?). Maybe I can crowdsource the right answer here. Thanks for any input. Here are the variables given to me by the dealership (with some extra questions embedded):

or $31,900 at a different nearby dealership. Should there really be such a large discrepancy between "sale price" for lease and for purchase? They claim the difference is due to different incentives for leasing Vs. buying, which sounds plausible)

fellow came up with $1,078 in this field but later claimed that this was the correct number - I cannot reconstruct how they got this number.)

the phone - it seems remarkably low ~1.27%)

how do you get it? Thanks so much.

I don't know the answers, but here are some possible sources of help

Retired wrote in news:L5mdnYs7M4s3lzzNnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

for 95% of the people a lease is a very bad idea, but good luck. KB

Yes, there is a reason the dealers push leasers so hard,.. and its not because it's to the benefit of the buyer/leaser

Balderdash.

I notice neither of you offered to explain why people should buy rather than lease a depreciating asset. -----

- gpsman

gpsman wrote in news:5e00d84e-64da-48c8-9cd2- snipped-for-privacy@d3g2000vbj.googlegroups.com:

show me one advantage. KB

I provided one, ^^right there^^.

You must know a lot about leasing you're keeping to yourself. -----

- gpsman

My advantage is that I have GPS in my kill file so I never see his posts unless someone quotes him.

That only lets you imagine no one knows you posted something stupid, which doesn't seem it would be much advantage unless you're stupid. -----

- gpsman

gpsman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@j10g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:

lets see, you pay almost as much but have NO residual value when your off lease. on most leases you have limited milage and if you go over there is a very steep overage charge. the lease co gets any tax advantage. usually the only time a lease is a ok idea is for a company because every penny is write off and the payments are known in advance and no used car to sell at lease end. all costs are known in advance. important for the budget. KB

Read much?

The point of a vehicle lease is _not_ investing in a depreciating asset, paying only for the value used, so any expectation of enjoying positive equity (what I assume you mean by "NO residual value") at lease end is just stupid.

That is not to say people do not speculate on vehicles increasing in value via lease, planning to sell it for more than payoff at some point during, or purchasing it at the end. -----

- gpsman

gpsman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@r6g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:

no the only advantage is given to the lessor not the leese, you pay for the deprecation but have nothing in the end. the only advantage is if you drive much less than the milage alowed, which most do not. many restrictions, not much advantage. what a great deal eh. And if you do read much, then you would have read what a poor deal leases are for the vast majority of people. KB

An uncle of mine has to look like he makes a lot of money. He doesn't actually make a lot of money, but he needs to get people to trust him with a lot of money. One way he does this is by making sure he has the latest model Mercedes every year.

For him, the lease is a tremendous benefit, because the vast majority of the depreciation is up front anyway. He spends far, far less than he would if he purchased a new car every year and traded it in.

Now, I don't like new cars. I don't like many of the changes that have been made in recent years, and so I keep driving the same BMW that I have been driving for 20 years. People hire me to keep old equipment running; they might not even trust me if I showed up in a new car. For me, a lease would be a total disaster.

There are also some tax advantages for leasing, especially if you own a corporation that can lease the car and then lease it back to you for personal use. For me, with 480,000 miles on the odometer, my personal property tax is only slightly more than the cost of the stamp to mail it in, but people with new cars often pay a lot here in Virginia.

--scott

Leasing can be a great value for those who have determined they're always going to have a car payment, for whatever reason, and/or who don't like making the same payment as on a new rig 4 and 5 years later for what is now not so slowly inching ever closer to being a ragged out piece of shit that doesn't need tires, brakes, struts, belts, a couple lug nuts, wiper blades, license plate inserts, detailed and buffed out before taking 1 blurry cellphone picture of it at night for a Craigslist ad titled "@@@!! WOLNT LAST !!@@@".

I digress. 10K miles at .25 is $2500, should be no big deal if your credit is good enough to qualify for a lease. -----

- gpsman