End of Lease Strategies?

[DaveinOlyWA]

Cwerdna and I agree on most things, but here we diverge a *little*. It appears that dealers give better lease deals with a down payment, so I suggest that people put down only as much as they wish to risk losing, in return for a better deal. That may be $0, it may be $1k or even $2k. I put down $2k (plus tax!) and it's really payed off for me. I do agree that $5k is too much, unless GM reimburses you that if the car is totaled and you lease another Volt...

I would say on a two year lease, you can make bank if you decide to extend since monthly payments will not change. 3 year? well, nowadays as I understand it, most leases are requiring some down payment. Now for returning lessees, it might be different...

But now there is competition. I have decided I need to start shopping Both LEAFs and Souls. I will miss the extended range models on both so looking to see who is giving the best deal. Right now; Soul's have larger down payments, smaller monthly but no NCTC which I would use a lot... so we shall see...

 

[jjj240]

Cwerdna and I agree on most things, but here we diverge a *little*. It appears that dealers give better lease deals with a down payment, so I suggest that people put down only as much as they wish to risk losing, in return for a better deal. That may be $0, it may be $1k or even $2k. I put down $2k (plus tax!) and it's really payed off for me. I do agree that $5k is too much, unless GM reimburses you that if the car is totaled and you lease another Volt...

I would say on a two year lease, you can make bank if you decide to extend since monthly payments will not change. 3 year? well, nowadays as I understand it, most leases are requiring some down payment. Now for returning lessees, it might be different...

But now there is competition. I have decided I need to start shopping Both LEAFs and Souls. I will miss the extended range models on both so looking to see who is giving the best deal. Right now; Soul's have larger down payments, smaller monthly but no NCTC which I would use a lot... so we shall see...

I've seen similar program for Kia Soul. (https://www.kiachargeup.com/)
Aren't they free? maybe not...?

 

[jjj240]

^^^^^ An awfully high $ amount to put down on a lease.
If it ends up totaled those $ are gone.

Yes. On leases, put $0 down. It is not worth the risk.

I will say the i3 is quite fast in terms of acceleration and it's at least RWD. I do give credit to BMW w/taking the risk to go with CFRP and creating a light car. But, for me, I frankly do not have the time nor patience of a new hobby. It's already inconvenient to take cars in for regular maintenance, let alone constant repairs. If I wanted to buy junk, I'd save my $ and pick a random American car, since many have not so good reliability records.

It depends on your insurance company/your coverage. Most of them won't, but few of them will pay you the difference back if the car value is higher than your pay-off to the leasing company.

 

[myth]

You have to balance the risk that your leased vehicle will be totaled against the risk that you will want to extend the lease. Which one is more likely? During a 12-month extension, that low down payment may cost you thousands of dollars.

- Mark

 

[jjj240]

You have to balance the risk that your leased vehicle will be totaled against the risk that you will want to extend the lease. Which one is more likely? During a 12-month extension, that low down payment may cost you thousands of dollars.

- Mark

One can always buy a GAP coverage from your insurance. For BMW, GAP insurance is included in the lease contract/payment. RISK MITIGATED.

 

[GoingForLeaf]

^^^^^ An awfully high $ amount to put down on a lease.
If it ends up totaled those $ are gone.

Yes. On leases, put $0 down. It is not worth the risk.

I will say the i3 is quite fast in terms of acceleration and it's at least RWD. I do give credit to BMW w/taking the risk to go with CFRP and creating a light car. But, for me, I frankly do not have the time nor patience of a new hobby. It's already inconvenient to take cars in for regular maintenance, let alone constant repairs. If I wanted to buy junk, I'd save my $ and pick a random American car, since many have not so good reliability records.

Thanks for the responses.

We are going to return our Leaf SL , as green stickers again available for Chevy Volt.

Here is the one quote for 2017 Volt LT+comfort package+leather - 0$ drive off, 240$+tax (approximately 261$) per month for 35 months. 10Kmiles per year.

Unless we get better deals from other Chevy dealers, we are leaning towards this offer.

 

[houseinthewoods]

I called Nissan Finance to get the lease buyout offer for this month. I was told by the rep that Nissan Finance no longer offers those incentives anymore. I would have to contact the dealer to get any incentives for the lease buy out. Any one else can confirm that this is the case? Mine is a 2013 Leaf with lease ending in December.

 

[Cubanx]

I called Nissan Finance to get the lease buyout offer for this month. I was told by the rep that Nissan Finance no longer offers those incentives anymore. I would have to contact the dealer to get any incentives for the lease buy out. Any one else can confirm that this is the case? Mine is a 2013 Leaf with lease ending in December.

There's generally a week grace period after the end of the month till the next months deals are loaded into NMAC's systems. During this period they show no deals. I think last month its wasn't until late day on September 6th that the new buyout deals loaded.

 

[gmikol]

Good tip...I may wait 'til this time next week and give them a call and see what they have to say.

 

[Hunter1969]

I called today and they said that the discount program has stopped, and all end of lease buyout negotiations have to be done at the dealership. No more monthly changes to the discounts.

I am going in tonight to see how much they want for me to buy out my 2015 SV. I do not have high hopes.

 

[valbobal]

Wanted to give others our buyout result to help you guys negotiate. That way, even if Nissan no longer offers the rebate, you have a point of reference for negotiations.

We had a 2013 Leaf S w/ DC charger for $2,500 down and $256/mo for 36 months, 15k miles/year. The negotiated residual value at the time of contract was $12,179.

We took advantage of the $4,500 rebate in September before it ran out. I called several dealerships in my city and the out-the-door prices varied by several hundred dollars. Only 3 called me back and gave a quote over the phone, nothing in writing. Best was $8,500 out the door, all taxes, fees and tag included. They tried tacking on fees "required by law" (they were not, my husband is a lawyer and they were unable to produce any evidence of such law), and tried getting us to sign the credit application 7 times, saying it was not a credit application. Ummm, it says "credit application" as the title!! I'm so glad we had our financing preapproved at our credit union beforehand.

Don't let them fool you. Stick to the price. Don't let them scare you into signing anything you don't understand or agree to. They tried yelling, being nice, making us wait, etc. My husband took out his laptop to start working and suddenly our paperwork appeared, like magic! They knew we were not going to sit idly for hours and gave our time wasted. Be ready with snacks and things to do.

At the very end, they still tried to play dumb and increase the sales price by $4500 on the actual final sales contract, "forgetting" to include the rebate, after having us sign and agree unofficially to the $8,500 price on 2 different occasions.

It took 2.5 hours, but we did walk out owing $8,500.

To see other leafs for sale, go to Carvana.com and such. Check inventory often. This past week they had a 2014 Leaf S with 7k miles for $11k. Caravana gives you 7 days to test out your car and you can return it without issue if you don't like it. Much better buying experience than dealing with the stealerships! If you know your alternatives, you won't get stuck with a bad deal! Other popular car buying sites include beepi.com, caraguru.com, autotrader.com.

Good luck!!

 

[Hunter1969]

I called today and they said that the discount program has stopped, and all end of lease buyout negotiations have to be done at the dealership. No more monthly changes to the discounts.

I am going in tonight to see how much they want for me to buy out my 2015 SV. I do not have high hopes.

The dealer gave me a price of $13,200 and it worked out to $14,100 out the door after sales tax and tag. Last month Nissan offered me $3000 off of my $17,000 lease buyout. So in the end I came out better off, for the most part I came out ahead by the amount that my taxes worked out to be.

 

[kkb]

Thanks for the information. Do I have to go to the dealer where I leased the Leaf or and can I go to any Nissan dealer?

 

[normanbell37]

Hello fellow LEAF drivers. I am coming to the end of my lease for a 2013 SL. It was a 2-year lease, I extended it 6 months, but now it's time to decide: should I turn it in or buy it? The balance amount listed on the Nissan Finance website is 17K, which I wouldn't consider paying since I'm seeing used 2013s in the 8-12k range.

Right now I'm leaning toward turning my current LEAF in and then going to a local dealer that several have referenced for used LEAFs to buy another one at a lower price. But does anyone here have any thoughts on 1) the turning your leased LEAF in experience (i.e. I know there's a $400 return charge, but do they try to get any other fees out of you? 2) negotiating with a dealer you'releasing from to get the buy-out amount down and 3) buying a used LEAF? Thanks!

 

[LeftieBiker]

If you have a low lease payment, wait another week and then ask NMAC if they'll do a lease extension. If they say "no" wait another month, and ask again. If the payment is high, turn it in. If you buy or lease another Nissan they waive the return fee and up to $500 in damage. If you want the extension, try telling them you want a 2017 Leaf.

 

[Hunter1969]

Thanks for the information. Do I have to go to the dealer where I leased the Leaf or and can I go to any Nissan dealer?

The suggestion from the Nissan lease line was for me to shop around to the local dealerships to get the best price.

 

[mcbane]

Here's my experience, post NMAC ending their official incentive deal.
We have a 2013 Leaf S + QC. 3 year lease. My buyout was 12K. I had been following the incentives for at several months, back when it peaked at 7k, then down to 3k, then at 4.5k. I was a bit shocked that NMAC ended the deal. When i talked to the dealer, they didn't mention anything about the incentives ending and asked if I had a code. I did and gave it to them and they essentially honored it. I know they didn't even bother checking the code though, because I noticed they copied the code down wrong from what I told them.

Bottom line, this is a good thing for the consumer because now you can shop around and pit dealer against dealer. In the end, i essentially got the incentive amount off of my buyout along with waiving some of their fees. I felt like we probably could have negotiated down some more actually if we had time, i'm pretty sure we could have gotten a better deal. Don't be afraid to negotiate. Nissan doesn't want these cars back!

 

[LeftieBiker]

My position had been that if I could buy my car for a great price, I would. Now that we have QC available locally, though (and apparently the opportunity to use No Charge to Charge for free power), I definitely going for a Leaf with QC. I'd consider a 2016 SV with Premium, but just haven't found any good deals on them, so it will likely be a 2017.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Well I, like most was offered a good deal to purchase last Summer on my 2013 S with charge (3 year lease end Dec 22) which was not quite as good as the $7500 some here are quoting but still pretty good with buyout of $5803 from residual of $12,173. What I should have done is taken the deal and then resold it when the longer range LEAFs arrived.

But now its looking like the 2017 will have something compelling since now they are doing HUGE promos and remaining 2016's which end on Dec 15th (although the normal disclaimer that prices are subject to change at any time still applies. )

But no matter. Extending my lease would be an expensive proposition at this point. I pretty much planned on not being able to since I would have to get tabs ($280) tires ($600ish) etc. So all things being equal... well actually forget that. things are not equal. Not even close.

It simply would be a lot better to get another LEAF. I get return fees waived, $500 forgiveness on LEAF lease return, probably a small loyalty incentive (was $1000 last time) along with the huge cuts on 2016 close outs and a 30 kwh battery.

Sure would much rather get the 40 kwh battery (which I still think will be in a few months) but would it be worth paying what?? $3000 more? $4000 more??

I think not

 

[collinobremski]

What kind of promos are you seeing on 2016's?