Someone I work with suggested the same thing, but I can’t wrap my brain around how it works with the milage I put on.
If someone can explain it to me, I would appreciate that as sort of a secondary piece to this.
I assume there’s a way to build expected mileage into the leasing contract, by paying more up front. Of course, if you exceed that, the cost is steep, and if you go way under that, you’ve paid for miles you never drove.
Assuming you are either being reimbursed for mileage (if you’re an employee), or deducting the mileage (if you’re self-employed), I would imagine that goes a long way toward offsetting your driving costs regardless of what you wind up doing.
My knee-jerk reaction to leasing is that it is rarely a good idea, financially - except for some specific uses (eg a car used for business). Definitely do your homework before even considering leasing. My in-laws leased a car, some years back, when their old one died. My sister-in-law made the point that who knows if they’ll even NEED a car in 4 years. They basically drove that a few miles here and there around home, and turned it in with FAR less than the 10,000 miles a year that was built into the lease. The dealership made out like a bandit on that one (almost literally - the “I wanna keep it anyway” price at at the end of the lease was basically HIGHER than the thing retailed for, brand new).
I recently sold a 2012 kia optima hybrid with 162k miles on it for 6 grand. It had body damage but a clean interior. I did put new tires on before selling, and replaced the hybrid battery with one from a salvaged 60k mile car.
Assuming no major issues with yours it is worth way more than 2500 right now. Take it to a mechanic and ride it out for a few months.
I guess I need to also look into how to do a private sale. Looks like the auto selling places are hitting me harder than I expected too.
Between the Toyota dealership saying they didn’t want it at all, and Carvana only offering the 2500 I was pretty convinced there was no real value in the car. Good to know.
Because of inflation, this is a bad time to buy a car. Interest rates are high and, even if you could afford to pay for the whole thing without financing, a lot of dealerships are upping the sticker price by as much as $5,000 per new car. If you can possibly wait, I’d do so if I were you.
Oh, I must compliment you. I had a 2016 Elantra and, after only 5 years and 72,000 miles, the engine was toast. I sold it as is for $2,500 and bought a Honda H-RV. For you to drive yours more than twice that is amazing.
Thanks! It’s not been without its challenges. The transmission went at about 125k miles, and I had to decide if I wanted to emergency buy a new car or replace it. Decided it was cheaper to keep it but only just.
Friends of ours replaced the engine in a 12 year old Toyota - at the cost of 4 or 5 thousand dollars - because aside from that, the car was in OK shape, and they reasoned that there’s no way they’d get as reliable a replacement vehicle for that same amount of money. IIRC, they got several years more use out of the car; the replacement engine actually failed, but the repair shop warranted their work so they did not have to pay for the second replacement.
If there are specific things that are likely to go wrong with your car, consider their cost, versus the cost of financing the interim car and/or the potential depreciation of the same. With our Civic, at nearly 22 years old, and a 2400 dollar exhaust system repair bill (required to pass inspection), and the high chance of other stuff going wrong, the math was fairly easy. We wound up donating it to the school district’s auto shop program - and actually later found out what happened with it: an acquaintance who is an independent car dealer contacted us when he bought it from them, and saw our name on the title history. It had other work done on it (brakes, I think), so that’s at least one other repair we weaseled out of.
As far as selling the car privately: I forget how we advertised ours; it was NOT via Craigslist, but some other car-specific site. We wound up doing a CarFax history report, noted two errors on that (one accident not on the report, another one on the report that was NOT our car), and provided it to the buyer. Make sure you know what your state’s rules are regarding license place transfers; in ours, the plates stay with the owner. I let the buyer take the plates, but met up with him the next day to get them back.
AND, make sure you have a signed purchase agreement, so you can prove you sold it in case anything happens down the line and the police think you still own it. Same thing if you wind up donating it somewhere - the horror stories are true (friends of ours were contacted regarding some parking tickets and towing fees “their” car had incurred).
I recommend this as well, as I got a call from the State Police about “my car” about 3 weeks after I sold it. I had the record showing I returned my plates to the MVC, and cancelled my insurance, but did not have a “bill of sale”. It turned out fine, but having the bill of sale would have been better.
In the states I’ve lived in and sold a car, there’s always been a DMV form called ‘Release of Liability’ or something like that. In the two situations I’ve been in where the police wanted to talk about bad things that happened after I sold my vehicles, the release of liability has been all they wanted to see.
Oh yeah, and also consider how badly you’d be inconvenienced if the car did fail suddenly - like in the middle of nowhere, or whatever. Our previous car purchase (before the one in late 2020) was in 2006 - when our minivan failed somewhat spectacularly. In Canada. Luckily, CAA got it started again and we got home, but 2 months of ongoing “let’s try to fix this other thing” service visits led to me telling my husband that we NEEDED a replacement.
Somewhat bizarrely: when the car failed, it was in a large restaurant parking lot. We were parked near the back. I saw a CAA truck pull in, and dashed toward it - only to find it had actually been called for ANOTHER car… another US-based Dodge Caravan. We were lucky: the other car could not be resurrected. No clue what its owners wound up doing. Had ours been unrevivable, I guess we’d have had to have it towed, then either flown home or rented another car - either of which would have required a return trip the following week to retrieve ours.
The “keep the beater for too long because it’s cheaper than buying” is the story of my life. I’ve had Toyotas and Hondas and Subarus that have lasted too long (I’m sick of them but they just keep puttering along). So that’s my practical advice. But…
Now, talking about the used Subota (did I just make up a portmanteau? Naah, bet it’s been done before)…
How much is it worth to you to have a sports car this spring and summer? (Here in the frozen tundra, we do our “driving for fun” from now through November. So I think in terms of Sports Car Season)
I’ll bet if you just bought the used BRZ, traded in your Elantra (or sold it on Craigslist for more), and enjoyed having a summer of downshifting and cornering and actually accelerating.… you wouldn’t buy the Toyota when it came in.