leasing rarely can work out for a buyer. We have a quickly depreciating asset. Buy with cash and avoid any kind of financing whether it be leasing or a loan, neither of those is a good plan.
)...
I agree.. I think the situation matters.I had to make this decision recently as to whether to buy out (what was my 1st ever) lease but a number of factors came in to play that made it (for me) a straight forward decision....
The payout on the lease on my truck was approx $40k at the end of the lease, and mine was in immaculate condition. Oil changed every 5000 miles, regular services at the local dealer, hand washed it's entire life etc... The guy coming to do the end of lease inspection told me the dealer was going to love a truck in such pristine condition ( obviously no wear and tear charges).... yet when I handed it in, during the process I found out that ford was just going to send it straight to auction "as they want full retail".... in effect I didn't need to have looked after it as well as I did.... (but that's the way I roll so it's not going to change
I looked at trading it, but the dealers were trying to stiff me $4k in the swing, and on top of a mileage/usage penalty of another $4k ( I elected 12k miles and used 18K miles) I could not justify trading it so it became a choice of handing it back and starting again on buy only or another lease.
I'm a builder and could have paid the lease out and owned the truck, but I don't agree with tying up that much capital in a depreciating asset as I could make that $40k work so much better.... and financing the buyout of a 3 year old truck and paying interest all over again on the same asset isn't something I wanted to do either.
Once I found Granger and their pricing was real and they are who they say they are through this forum, buying it at a more than fair price without the games dealers play made it a no brainer. Not only do I get a lower starting point in my cost of ownership, it's now brand new although pretty much identical to what I handed back, has enough little extras that I'm happy.
I financed my new one, it took all of 10 minutes to get approval and deal is done minimum of fuss while I no longer have to keep worrying about how much my annual mileage is and whether any mods can or can't be done....
When it gets to a mileage that I think is enough then I will either trade it or sell it privately or keep it but now that date is in my hands, not the lease terms.
So for me.... it's a buy new....
Don't get me wrong.. this is usually what I do. In fact, my current truck is my first 3 year lease.. I've done 2 year leases for every other lease so far.
