Has anybody here ever leased a car?

The $450 could be covered by security deposit.

suffice to say when leasing you really need to make an accurate mileage estimate.

 

Have someone turn the miles back.

 

I'm a big fan of leasing. I like having a new car every 3 years and I hate driving a car that's not in warranty.

I'm also a big driver. My current lease offers 15,000 miles and I drive everywhere. The difference in price between 12,000 and 15,000 was insignificant, and I have 9 years of history on mileage.

Also, chances are if you are close to hitting your mileage and you're only a few months away on your lease expiring, the dealer can work you into another vehicle really easily.

 

When you lease a car you are essential paying for the depreciation of vehicle for time of your lease. The residual is the buyout or estimated value of car at end of lease.

The smaller the spread between sticker and residual means it is a car that holds its value better or company has artificially raised the residual to make the monthly lease rate smaller. If you are not going to buy car at end a higher residual is desirable. Residuals are calculated as a percentage of sticker - you want to find vehicles that are over 50 % - for example a car with $30,000 sticker and residual of 50 % would mean buy out is $15,000. You lease rate is calculated on difference between the two. If company really wants to move the car they might raise residual to 60 % which means buy out would increase to $18,000 but the lease calculation would be based on $12,000 - giving you a much lower monthly rate.

 

Buying used is not the best deal right now. Newspaper articles left and right about how the cash for clunkers program has made the vehicle prices go up because so many cars were destroyed.

 

I think in this case outofplace would be looking for a 3-4 year-old car, of which there are plenty, not a clunker. But yeah, that program really did take a lot of perfectly serviceable cars off the road.

 

True. Used car prices are sky high. So unless you have a trade (or a used car to sell at high prices), it might be worth investigating new-car deals.

 

False. In General Motors' case, the rebates change the first Tuesday of every month.

There are still rebates, they just may be different now.

 

I realize that, but as ACE pointed out, all the cars from the clunkers to the one-year old vehicles are up in price right now. The demand is high despite the increased price and the deals on new vehicles.