Lease takeover question

[cwerdna]

Indeed.... that's why I wanted to contact the "seller" about to confirm that's what he actually wants and to let him know my situation

Be sure to mention that your choices for now are to either take the bus or be a marshmallow at a campfire.

As an aside, I can see why swapalease would keep people like you at arm's length away from their sellers. You are just an annoyance and a waste of the seller's time until you have money for purchase.

LOL. The bus is literally almost useless in my area. Looking at what happened after some major changes, there is a bus that comes by once an hour but stops running by around 7 pm. And, it doesn't run on weekends at all.

Haha and ouch. I have more than enough money for the purchase (or whatever) and could buy any new Leaf or Tesla with cash (well, check), no loan needed.

There's no point in me taking over someone's lease when I haven't even gotten any numbers or timeframe from GM about my Bolt. I can imagine that GM's not in a huge hurry and creation friction or throttling the process can help stem the bleeding. After all, from what we can see, the US-made battery Bolts (mine) aren't high fire risk. The ones to be really worried about are the '19 Bolts w/Korean made batteries. Those have had the most fires, by far.

I'd rather be without a car for a few days or even weeks, renting one when needed or using Uber/Lyft than prematurely jumping into what seems like a crap deal.

My current possibilities are buying/leasing a Kona EV, trying to buy a used Leaf Plus as a temp car (if available at non-absurd prices), leasing a Leaf Plus or as someone suggested, trying to take over a lease of one.

I'm just seeking clarification from this dude about his ad and whether he's really asking for $3500 down. Other ads if they list it don't only put it in the text like his. And, some offer an incentive: person taking over lease is paid, not the other way around. And, I'd like to understand if he's willing to say if he' s gotten much interest, esp. given that Swapalease has this paywall.

 

[SageBrush]

There's no point in me taking over someone's lease when I haven't even gotten any numbers or timeframe from GM about my Bolt.

Which is why you should be restrained by swapalease from contacting the seller. My only issue with Swapalease is that they do not split the club fee with the sellers who have to waste their time fielding useless contacts.

 

[cwerdna]

There's no point in me taking over someone's lease when I haven't even gotten any numbers or timeframe from GM about my Bolt.

Which is why you should be restrained by swapalease from contacting the seller. My only issue with Swapalease is that they do not split the club fee with the sellers who have to waste their time fielding useless contacts.

Great. Thanks a lot. :roll: It's called weighing all my options and having info up front. Maybe this dude is about to close on a deal tomorrow for all I know.

The extra friction goes both ways. It reduces the amount of time wasted, maybe ($40 isn't a huge barrier) but also filters out potential people.

 

[SageBrush]

($40 isn't a huge barrier)

It's kept you away

 

[cwerdna]

It has, for now. There is a whopping 1 Leaf for lease transfer in CA there, which so far is a crap deal due to the supposed $3500 down. The rest are out of state, some on the other side of the country and some aren't Pluses while some aren't lease transfers.

If there were a lot more choices, I might be more inclined to spend that $40 sooner/now.

FWIW, I decided to check a few other EVs, but not that I'd want this but https://www.swapalease.com/lease/details/2021-Volkswagen-ID4.aspx?salid=1560051 is offering a $2000 incentive.

 

[SageBrush]

If there were a lot more choices, I might be more inclined to spend that $40 sooner/now.

LOL !

Just admit what we both know: until you have cash from GM, you are happy to waste other people's time but you are not going to pay to do so. Which is exactly why that club fee is a good thing.

 

[cwerdna]

Sigh... It's called planning ahead. I have only 1 car, my Bolt. There is no other car here. I am certainly not going to wait until the car is gone to start looking given this goofy new and used car market since I have no other car. I could be w/o any car for weeks, possibly resorting to something I really don't want and too high a cost.

It is not a waste of time if I end up taking over that Leaf lease. Hopefully that person realizes that what they're asking is absurd.

As I said, if https://www.swapalease.com/ had lots of Leafs available for lease swaps, esp. in California, I'd be more inclined to pay now but there are 0 others in CA and 2 of the 5 aren't even lease takeovers. One is in NY and another is in FL.

https://www.leasetrader.com/search-results?makelist=Nissan turns up 0 Leafs. https://quitalease.com/ who I'd never heard of until I found it via a Google search also has 0.

Lease takeover is one of several options I'm considering if I get a decent Bolt buyback offer.

 

[Flyct]

Sigh... It's called planning ahead. I have only 1 car, my Bolt. There is no other car here. I am certainly not going to wait until the car is gone to start looking given this goofy new and used car market since I have no other car. I could be w/o any car for weeks, possibly resorting to something I really don't want and too high a cost.

It is not a waste of time if I end up taking over that Leaf lease. Hopefully that person realizes that what they're asking is absurd.

As I said, if https://www.swapalease.com/ had lots of Leafs available for lease swaps, esp. in California, I'd be more inclined to pay now but there are 0 others in CA and 2 of the 5 aren't even lease takeovers. One is in NY and another is in FL.

https://www.leasetrader.com/search-results?makelist=Nissan turns up 0 Leafs. https://quitalease.com/ who I'd never heard of until I found it via a Google search also has 0.

Lease takeover is one of several options I'm considering if I get a decent Bolt buyback offer.

Question for you. Would you consider keeping the bolt if GM offers to replace the battery pack with one without issues?

A GM source told me that GM and LG were planning on offering new battery packs. In fact he told me to go buy a used bolt now at depressed prices so when packs are available I would get one.

Edit: I just looked at bolts for sale. In this crazy market it doesn’t look like prices are depressed.

 

[cwerdna]

Question for you. Would you consider keeping the bolt if GM offers to replace the battery pack with one without issues?

A GM source told me that GM and LG were planning on offering new battery packs. In fact he told me to go buy a used bolt now at depressed prices so when packs are available I would get one.

Edit: I just looked at bolts for sale. In this crazy market it doesn’t look like prices are depressed.

They already are offering that. Folks with '17 to '19 Bolts, including mine received this letter: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2021/RMISC-21V560-4200.pdf. There's another page which I can't find an exact copy of right this moment. It's similar to https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2021/RIONL-21V560-2228.pdf but probably w/o mentioning Ochang, Korea since my batteries didn't come from them.

The problem is timing/when. There was stuff like https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/gm-%E2%80%98not-confident%E2%80%99-lg-chem-will-build-defect-free-bolt-batteries.40324/. Finally, battery production resumed https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2021/sep/0920-bolt.html.

But, they have at least 57K in the US '17 to '19 Bolts (see numbers at https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2021/RCLRPT-21V560-5475.PDF) which will all need to have all modules replaced (or the pack replaced). There are more outside the US (see https://gmauthority.com/blog/gm/chevrolet/bolt-ev/chevrolet-bolt-ev-sales-numbers/ which doesn't include Opel Ampera-E). For '20 to '22, they said they planned to replace only the defective modules if they can come up with a validated process to identify those to speed up the process. Then, they also need to produce modules for new Bolt EV and EUV.

IIRC, the total number of '17 to '22 Bolt EV and EUV + Ampera-E (all recalled) worldwide is on the order of ~140K.

They've alluded to needing to prioritize and from https://electrek.co/2021/07/28/everything-we-know-about-the-chevy-bolt-ev-fires/, the '19 Bolts with Korean made batteries (not mine, mine are US) seem to be the riskiest and most dangerous. Nobody really knows how long they will be waiting (how many months or years) but it seems from a safety POV, I won't be at the front of the line and am not sure if they'd bump me further to the front.

Can reply more later tonight. Gotta run.

 

[alozzy]

In a perfect world, you "rent" an EV by taking over a lease that has less than a year of payments remaining.

I'm sure you would prefer to takeover a lease on an EV, but as you only need a car for a few months until your Bolt is back on the road, why not instead takeover an ICE lease that someone desperately needs to get out of?

Or, just buy an old Honda or Toyota, drive it for a few months, and sell it for pretty much what you paid for it.

 

[LeftieBiker]

My understanding is that his preference is to lease another EV and not keep the Bolt, but that he sees no available EVs right now that he wants. Thus the lease takeover would be a stop-gap until he can lease something he really wants and can get. Correct me if I'm mistaken, Cwerdna.

 

[cwerdna]

In a perfect world, you "rent" an EV by taking over a lease that has less than a year of payments remaining.

I'm sure you would prefer to takeover a lease on an EV, but as you only need a car for a few months until your Bolt is back on the road, why not instead takeover an ICE lease that someone desperately needs to get out of?

Or, just buy an old Honda or Toyota, drive it for a few months, and sell it for pretty much what you paid for it.

Actually, I don't care if the temp EV even has 2.x years remaining. As for "only need a car for a few months until your Bolt is back on the road", that's not the issue. It's on the road now and usable. I drove it to work today. The issue is I have no idea when I'll receive replacement modules. Nobody does, AFAIK.

Look how many Bolts were sold each year at https://gmauthority.com/blog/gm/chevrolet/bolt-ev/chevrolet-bolt-ev-sales-numbers/, which doesn't include Ampera-E in Europe. ALL '17 to '19 Bolts are having ALL their modules replaced. From my rough math, that's somewhere past 86K vehicles. If you add in the '20 to '22 Bolts which may need new modules if they can figure how how to identify which ones are defective, that's on the order of another 50K vehicles.

I've seen figures of how long GM's reimbursement rates are for dealers to either replace modules or an entire pack. From earlier recall instructions at https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2020/RCSB-20V701-3618.pdf, it's 4.3 hours to replace a whole pack and 7.3 hours to replace just row 4. If GM's making them replace all the rows but not the entire pack (so that the other hardware can be reused, which GM has alluded to more than once), it's probably going to take over 7.3 hours. Imagine how many each dealer could do a day...

I could be waiting 1+ years due to battery production rate, logistics and dealer throughput. Some recalls have taken a LONG time (e.g. Takata airbags w/some people waiting years).

Meanwhile, the car is somewhat hobbled to having basically 60% of battery usable as a precaution (keeping it between 30 to 90%) and we're being advised to park it outside (there is some ambiguity to how you interpret https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-recall). 0.6 * 238 miles = 142.8 miles. And, now w/current software, it seems DC FC tapering starts at just a bit over 50% SoC and you shouldn't as a precaution run it too low --> can't take full advantage of full speed DC FCing that normally happens from 0% to ~50ish%.

Almost all of the Bolts have caught on fire while parked and some well after charging had completed (e.g. https://electrek.co/2021/07/28/everything-we-know-about-the-chevy-bolt-ev-fires/#h-aug-16-2021-LA).

So, for now, I'm parking it outside at night to reduce wear and tear on the car from being out in the sun all day but it is still out there for a few hours until I wake up. But, then I'm taking a potential fire risk by having it indoors in the day, when I'm awake. Having it out at night increases risk of vandalism, break ins and rodent damage.

(50 feet was thrown around in https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/gm-advising-some-bolt-ev-owners-to-park-50-feet-away-from-other-cars.html and in the press but it seems like GM has walked that back a bit...)

Of course, this is all pointless if GM is right about 99% of Bolts not having these defects and I'm in that 99%.

And, there have been numerous reports of parking facilities and even a FANG company banning Bolts from parking there.

Yes, taking over an ICE lease is a possibility but I'd rather not. As for "Or, just buy an old Honda or Toyota, drive it for a few months, and sell it for pretty much what you paid for it.", selling cars is a pain in the butt. Private parties can't command dealer prices. If it's too old, it could be a reliability and $ headache. For a few months is kinda silly. What would I do after that?

I'm looking for an interim or permanent EV as a replacement. For interim, I'd be looking to see what's available new or used in the EV space 1.x to 3 years later.

My understanding is that his preference is to lease another EV and not keep the Bolt,

Yes, open to leasing a new EV or taking over an EV lease as a temp EV if GM gives me a good buyback offer. It's possible I might get almost all my $ back because of low mileage (under 18K miles) and their calculations AFAIK do NOT factor in the $7500 Federal tax credit I received. They seem to calculate it based upon the purchase price and usage for CA (out of 120K miles)

but that he sees no available EVs right now that he wants. Thus the lease takeover would be a stop-gap until he can lease something he really wants and can get. Correct me if I'm mistaken, Cwerdna.

Yes on the stopgap. And, it would be to see what EVs are available when that lease ends. Presumably in 1.x to 3 years, there will be even more EV choices, more of them w/faster DC FCing, etc. Some of the current new ones might be available for cheap on the used market. And, maybe this crazy chip, supply chain problem and car shortage will have subsided.

If I buy a Kona EV, presuming it doesn't turn out to be a piece of crap or I run into a buyback situation again, I'd keep it longer than 3 years.

 

[cwerdna]

The '19 Leaf I see at https://www.swapalease.com/lease/details/2019-Nissan-LEAF.aspx?salid=1547553 is a bit goofy in that it looks like he wants me to pay him $3500 down in order to take over the lease. To me, that's a bit unusual or unorthodox. It should be 0 or the other way around (which some people do). After all, if nobody takes over his lease, he's liable for the rest of the payments or terminate it early or to do whatever he needs to do to buy it out early... I'd be more inclined to take it if I didn't have to also pay $3500.

Of course, I can't ask unless I have a buyer membership, now $39.95. I wonder if it'll go lower or get umm... extended/offered again.

Things are premature on my side. Haven't gotten any numbers from GM yet.

Ok, I posted the above at end of Sept 2021 and the car is still there. So, it doesn't seem he's got a taker.

Kona inventory per Hyundai's inventory checker seems to have wild variation. Maybe they "drop" cars in batches. I posted https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/bolt-replacement.40706/page-8#post-665004 the other night and things have gotten better. Only problem is that the only 2 in transit to a dealer "near me" are to a dealer a 144 mile drive away. More are going to So Cal, so I guess I could fly down there and drive one back up.

Still waiting for numbers from GM. Replacing my Bolt has become more imperative as my work banned them as of almost 3 weeks ago.

 

[RonSwanson]

The '19 Leaf I see at https://www.swapalease.com/lease/details/2019-Nissan-LEAF.aspx?salid=1547553 is a bit goofy in that it looks like he wants me to pay him $3500 down in order to take over the lease. To me, that's a bit unusual or unorthodox. It should be 0 or the other way around (which some people do). After all, if nobody takes over his lease, he's liable for the rest of the payments or terminate it early or to do whatever he needs to do to buy it out early... I'd be more inclined to take it if I didn't have to also pay $3500.

Of course, I can't ask unless I have a buyer membership, now $39.95. I wonder if it'll go lower or get umm... extended/offered again.

Things are premature on my side. Haven't gotten any numbers from GM yet.

Ok, I posted the above at end of Sept 2021 and the car is still there. So, it doesn't seem he's got a taker.

Kona inventory per Hyundai's inventory checker seems to have wild variation. Maybe they "drop" cars in batches. I posted https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/bolt-replacement.40706/page-8#post-665004 the other night and things have gotten better. Only problem is that the only 2 in transit to a dealer "near me" are to a dealer a 144 mile drive away. More are going to So Cal, so I guess I could fly down there and drive one back up.

Still waiting for numbers from GM. Replacing my Bolt has become more imperative as my work banned them as of almost 3 weeks ago.

How is your buyback going?

I completed a buy back on my 2017 Bolt recently (after months of back and forth) and just leased a 2022 LeaF SV w/ tech package a couple months back. It's a 2 year 10k/year lease only so I did as short as I could, and I think I got a decent deal.

I will most likely be looking to transfer my lease in-3-6 months or so. I have a Model 3 on order and this lease is just getting me by until my Model 3 arrives. Let me know if you have any interest. I did a 1 pay deal so when I transfer I'll just be looking at a one time payment to takeover the lease. I know it's not ideal me being in LA but I'm sure we could figure something out.

 

[cwerdna]

How is your buyback going?

I completed a buy back on my 2017 Bolt recently (after months of back and forth) and just leased a 2022 LeaF SV w/ tech package a couple months back. It's a 2 year 10k/year lease only so I did as short as I could, and I think I got a decent deal.

I will most likely be looking to transfer my lease in-3-6 months or so. I have a Model 3 on order and this lease is just getting me by until my Model 3 arrives. Let me know if you have any interest. I did a 1 pay deal so when I transfer I'll just be looking at a one time payment to takeover the lease. I know it's not ideal me being in LA but I'm sure we could figure something out.

There's still been no movement on my buyback.

There's been some concerning posts going on recently: https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/claiming-buyback-abuse-gm-switches-to-blue-book.41354/ from a 1 post person w/unclear circumstances followed by https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/no-more-buy-backs-i-was-told-today.41402/. The latter guy is a legit user.

Actually, your leased Leaf might interest me. I'm assuming you'd want me to pay you a pro-rated amount of the 1 pay lease you did by time remaining and I'm guessing I'd be being NMAC the disposition fee at car turn in. Yeah, being in LA isn't the end of world. I could fly down and starting from a full charge, it looks like I should be able to make up to my city via highway 99. However, I sure hope I'm not waiting another 3 months from now for the buyback to be complete. I don't have another car.

 

[RonSwanson]

There's still been no movement on my buyback.

There's been some concerning posts going on recently: https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/claiming-buyback-abuse-gm-switches-to-blue-book.41354/ from a 1 post person w/unclear circumstances followed by https://www.chevybolt.org/threads/no-more-buy-backs-i-was-told-today.41402/. The latter guy is a legit user.

Actually, your leased Leaf might interest me. I'm assuming you'd want me to pay you a pro-rated amount of the 1 pay lease you did by time remaining and I'm guessing I'd be being NMAC the disposition fee at car turn in. Yeah, being in LA isn't the end of world. I could fly down and starting from a full charge, it looks like I should be able to make up to my city via highway 99. However, I sure hope I'm not waiting another 3 months from now for the buyback to be complete. I don't have another car.

That would be a very Chevy move to stop buybacks. They should be trying to get back as many as they can rather than trying to get all these battery swaps done while annoyed customers wait.

I'm not sure if you noticed but my 2022 Leaf SV is not a Plus unfortunately. Not sure if this is a deal breaker or not. My plan would be to find someone to take over the lease and negotiate a cash price, and the new owner would have to pay the turn in fee so we would consider that when negotiating I'd be upfront about what I paid. I'm not trying to gain or screw anyone over here.

Here's a pic of the car.

https://imgur.com/Q7ceQ0e

 

[cwerdna]

No worries. SV non-Plus is fine.

Totally understand the NMAC disposition fee, as well. I had to pay that when I turned in my 1st Leaf that was leased for 2 years.

 

[RonSwanson]

No worries. SV non-Plus is fine.

Totally understand the NMAC disposition fee, as well. I had to pay that when I turned in my 1st Leaf that was leased for 2 years.

Feel free to reach out to me via pm and we can chat and/or exchange emails / phone etc. Take care.

 

[LeftieBiker]

I really hope that this works out well for both of you.

 

[SageBrush]

Here and there I read snippets of people talking about an easing of the chip shortage but my experience selling my Tesla is the opposite. About 6 weeks ago Vroom offered me $39k. They were unable to complete the purchase so I canceled them about a week ago. This week multiple places offered me $41,3 - $42,8k for the car.