We have 2 years left on our 2007 Toyota RAV4 lease. We have been interested in switching to a minivan to accommodate our growing family. We thought we’d finish out the lease (there is $7300 worth of payments left,) but yesterday we got a letter from our dealer about buying back our leased vehicle. “Buy-back Bonanza!” makes pronouncements of a new vehicle for similar payments with no money down (our credit would qualify.)
Ok, so I wasn’t born yesterday and don’t expect to get something for nothing. I’m curious if anyone has insight to how these programs work. My first thought is they will take our remaining payments and spread them out on the new vehicle, extending the loan/lease enough to make the monthly payments similar. Is that basically how it works?
No one? I’ll try one bump and then venture out into the abyss of the dealership unarmed…
Each dealer is different, but there are plenty of tricks that allow them to keep your existing payment while financing not only the price of the new vehicle but some or all of your remaining lease payments…for example, you buy a new car, but your loan is 7 years instead of the more typical 4 or 5.
The only way to find out for sure, unfortunately, is to contact the dealer, and they are probably going to insist you come in so they can high-pressure you into taking their great deal.
Yeah, that’s what I figured. Thanks.
As a former owner of a minivan, ugh. Of course, I had a caravan (2005, blew the engine). Going from a Toyota to an American minivan I wouldn’t recommend. The Honda Odyssey is probably going to be your best bet for a minivan, quality-wise.
Everything plastic on my 2005 broke. The little knobby things that hold the backs on the seats, that hold the casing for the seats, the wind foil thingy on the front, the brackets that the seats fit in to. Bear in mind, mine had mostly highway miles on flat land, I took the rear seat out twice. Basically I used it as a sedan with fixed seats. Also, tons of electrical issues, weird stuff, not to mention the design of the A/C drain was designed so that it just leaked onto the floorboard. Oh, and it ate tires like mad. Had to replace the rotors at 30k miles and tires for it could not be had for less than $110. Not so bad if they last more than 6 months. As much as I enjoyed the room and the ride itself, what a crap car.
I’m not hard on cars. I do regular oil changes and to give you an idea, I had a 1978 Volvo I put over 250,000 miles on and rarely had anything go wrong with it and never had to replace brake pads OR rotors. That car was estimated to have 200,000 miles on it when I bought it. Heck, my first car was a Peugeot and I drove it longer than the Caravan lived.
The Hondas have a great resale value for a reason.
Thanks for the information, Auntbeast. We are almost definitely going with the Toyota or the Honda. Since we have a Toyota now, this “Buy-Back” offer caught my attention and I’m really just wondering if anyone has experience with a program like this. I think it’s too good to be true, but I’ll go see what they have to say.
Full disclosure, we had a Toyota Tundra. Still haven’t found a vehicle that tops that one. Twas’ brillig. After that truck, I’d own any Toyota. Good luck. 