# Help me not look like an idiot WRT my leased car **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 20, 2019, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947 "2019-08-20T17:13:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2019, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947/21 "2019-08-21T04:11:46Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > … > > Buying a car made my payments X, leasing the car made my payments X-$200 a month. I took less payments. It’s why I’m leasing a car in the first place… Look at the math when you consider X vs X-200. I know the immediate cash flow might be an issue, but let’s pretend you could manage the difference. Assuming a 3 year lease, you’d spend 7200 extra buying versus leasing. And you have a car worth Z dollars. If Z \> 7200, buying is a better deal. Actually, if you need to make a down payment when you lease the next car, that reduces the differental - if your down payment is, say, 2400 dollars, then Z just needs to be \> 4800 (7200 - 2400). ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2019, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947/22 "2019-08-21T10:18:03Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Do NOT turn it in early. You’re still on the hook for the remainder of the existing lease; the new dealer will simply roll that into the cost of the new car. Whether that means a larger monthly cost, a larger down payment, or a larger residual payment at the end, I don’t know. > > Which means that 4 years from now (or however long the new lease term is), you’ll STILL BE PAYING FOR THE OLD ONE. I can’t say for a fact that these statements are untrue, because I haven’t seen the lease agreement or the offer in question, but neither have you. The odds are that the dealer has already signed up the OP on a mediocre deal on the existing lease, and will happily waive the last few months of payment in order to sign him up to another lease that is mediocre (read: more profitable for them). ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947/23 "2019-08-21T14:28:10Z")
> [@heracles](#): > > (i may be stating the obvious: ) > the dealer is contacting you because they’d like you to contract a new lease with them before your current one expires; getting you in their showroom before you go shopping somewhere else is a good first step. In many cases the company allows the dealer to shorten your current lease by \<=n months without penalty if you lease with them again; they know that the toyota/fiat/roll-royce/lada dealers can’t offer you that. bingo ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2019, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947/24 "2019-08-21T15:43:36Z")
I’m definitely going to check out the leasehackr website ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2019, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947/25 "2019-08-21T16:34:14Z")
Since you are with GM you might consider springing for a Costco membership if you don’t already have one. For the last few years the Costco Auto program has run a holiday promo with GM where you can get up to $750 back. This usually stacks with other promos and you might be eligible for a pull-ahead incentive by Nov/Dec. You have to be a Costco member before Oct. 1, though. More info here: > **[2018 GM Costco Auto Program Holiday Sales Event](https://forum.leasehackr.com/t/2018-gm-costco-auto-program-holiday-sales-event/69096)** > > In order to keep @chevysalesgirl’s topic uncluttered so she can continue to share amazing deals, I figured it was best to have a separate topic about this year’s version of the sales event. Model year 2019 vehicles - Costco members who purchase... ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947/26 "2019-08-23T02:37:25Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I can’t say for a fact that these statements are untrue, because I haven’t seen the lease agreement or the offer in question, but neither have you. > > The odds are that the dealer has already signed up the OP on a mediocre deal on the existing lease, and will happily waive the last few months of payment in order to sign him up to another lease that is mediocre (read: more profitable for them). True - I haven’t seen the OP’s lease paperwork - and I’ve never leased a car. I’m going by my anecdotal experience of the in-laws leasing a car while their previous one was still under lease, and my assumption that the dealership will screw the OP any way it can. (btw, the in-laws went with a different dealship, I think, that may make a difference). Definitely pay VERY close attention to the paperwork. My in-laws - who we always thought of as intelligent - insisted that the cost to keep that first leased car (i.e. to purchase at the end of the lease) was an amount that was higher than the current retail price of a brand-new car of the same model. E.g. they’d paid 14,400 over 4 years of the lease (+ a 3,000 down payment), and supposedly they could opt to keep the car after 4 years if they bought it for 22,000. They could have bought a new one for 21,000. They never showed us the paperwork - but I have to imagine that the 22,000 was something like the total they’d have paid including the payments - i.e. the residual was 8K or so - but I don’t know for sure. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947/27 "2019-08-23T15:16:27Z")
We had a thread about that and the consensus was your in-laws were dumb. There couldn’t possibly be a lease where the buyback cost was higher than the price of a new car. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947/28 "2019-08-28T01:39:04Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > We had a thread about that and the consensus was your in-laws were dumb. There couldn’t possibly be a lease where the buyback cost was higher than the price of a new car. Yup (and your sig is perfect for the topic, LOL). They never showed anyone the paperwork so we never had a chance to cry BULLSHIT (or worse: YOU WERE SCAMMED). I wouldn’t entirely put it past the dealer to have rooked them that badly - it’s an area with a LOT of elderly people who are ripe for the picking :(. Selective memory, too - they claimed that was the first car they ever leased, when I know for a fact they had one in the late 80s / early 90s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-not-look-like-an-idiot-wrt-my-leased-car/838947.md?page=1)