I know there is periodic discussion of buying a car vs leasing a car, so thought I would mention what happened at the end of our lease on a 2007 Nissan Murano. Our capitalized cost (same as a purchase price) was 33k and we were paying 420$ a month for 39 months, pretty typical lease probably. As it was coming time to return the car I decided to look at the paperwork for the first time in 38 motnhs. I noticed the puchase option was 17k, same as the residual value after 39 months. Seemed like a reasonable value for the car and it didnt occur to me to do anything albout it. I got bored at work like I am now and decided to check out the blue book and NADA value and the car (perfect condition, low miles) has a dealer retail of 25k (which I know is a BS price). So I bought the car for 17 and sold it privately for 21 and made/recovered 4k at the end of my lease that I had not even considered when entering into the lease. Im not going to try and convince anyone to lease a car, but this ended up being a good experience. In the end I paid something like 12500 to lease the car for 39 months.
The same thing happened with my 2004 Acura TL. It was worth about $5,000 more than it would cost to purchase at the end of the lease so I just bought it.
Did you have to make a down payment? Did you pay TT and L? Do you pay TT and L on the entire price of the vehicle or just the part you are going to use? What was your mileage limit for each year?
I guess the downside to that leasing option might be if the car got damaged and lost value during that 39 months. In that case if you could not seel for a profit then you would be left turning the car back over to the dealer with possible charges due to condition or rebuying the car and end up paying more for it then if you would have purchased initially. I am not sure though how many people these days are just looking at holding onto a car for 4 years and then trading in for a new one. If that is the case then leasing may be your best option most cases. Others want to hold on to that vehicle for 8+ years and they longer they hold onto it the better a deal they made for themselves. Interesting discussion.
I do not think leasing is ever a "good" deal unless you are doing it through a business. There are instances with certain cars where the residual value is such that purchasing (and then selling) the car can make sense at the end of the lease. fwiw I leased mine through my business and then personally bought it at the end of the lease I am driving it until my eldest graduates from college.
orangecat The tax question is interesting. I paid tag and title when I initially leased the car. When I made the lease I have to say I didnt know a whole lot about what I was doing, I just didnt accept their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd offers. When I look at the sales tax line in the lease contract it says N/A. I was puzzled by this so I did some reading and in general it apears the monthly lease payment is supposed to be taxed (3.25% in my area). I would assume this was part of the monthly lease payment, but there is no breakdown of what the monthly payment is for. When I called Nissan to buy the car I payed the purchase option price, no mention of taxes. I thought I might have to pay the 3.25% tax at that time on the 17,000$ but it never came up. I never went to the tag office after receiving the title in the mail (just passed it on to who I sold it to), perhaps that is where I was required to pay taxes on teh 17000. That may come back to bite me somehow, but its only 550$ You certainly cant lease if your driving a ton of miles, Our limit was 12000 miles, so 37000 for the 39 month lease, we only used 32000 miles. We also had a fairly significant scratch on one of the bumpers, Nissan was going to charge us 200$ for it. Other than that the car was perfect.
Things that you would pay whether you bought or leased cancel each other out in either option so they don't matter. For example, registration and insurance. You need to do it either way. Getting free oil changes on a lease is a benefit. Putting the $4K into the lessor's bank account is like having too much drawn from your paycheck by the IRS. They get to make money off your money at your expense so you need to subtract the time value of money. I'm glad it worked out for you.
