^ Swaplease was mentioned earlier, and I tried to use the site but it's not working properly for me.

Have you had experience listing your car, and if so, how long did it take for someone to take over your lease?

I'm skeptical about it because it... what's the % for successful lease transfers?

 

Forgot to ask for your tax rate on cars. Do you know? If not where do you live?

 

Without seeing the numbers, I can't make an informed comment on your situation, but I would guess that the fees were simply burried in your new lease.

If not, good for you.

 

Is anyone familiar with SWAPALEASE and their plan to refinance your lease, and then sell that new lease to possible buyers. This way I would not be liable and completely finished with the lease...

is that a smart move or is there some sorta catch I'm missing?

 

I'm not 100% on the tax rate, but I purchased the car at Infiniti of Kirkland (Washington state).

 

What fess are you referring too?

 

Thanks to all those that gave input on my situation... I narrowed down my choices to the following:

a) Ride out the lease, keep it under the designated mileage, and return it at the end of the term.

b) Take up www.SwapaLease.com on their offer to re-finance then put my car up for "sale". (one time fee of $399.99 till my car gets taken) This way, I'm not held liable when the lease is transfered and I am through with all this mess.

c) Wait till August, that would be 12 payments and I am eligible for lease termination.

Few more questions, if you guys don't mind... I called Infiniti Financial Services, and they said early termination does not effect my credit score, true? Also, can anyone give me an estimate on what the termination fee might be? I know it's all car specific, but my car is in prestine condition and has 8,400 miles on it.

Thanks again to all that helped!

 

Easiest way to bury fees is to give you a less desirable money factor or residual on the new vehicle. Or they can hit you with "ad fees" or "prep fees" or "vin etching fees" or "lojack fees".

As daMayor said in another thread, you can't change the laws of mathematics or (contract law for that matter). When you take on a lease with a finance company, you are under contract to remit X additional dollars for the excess miles you drove (to the financier). If the dealer assumes your lease to give you an early termination, he becomes responsible for those fees.

The fees don't magically disappear. So either he eats $2500 or passes the $2500 onto you in hidden fees. Even if he eats it, that is $2500 you did not get off the MSRP of the car (and obviously could have if you had entered the negotiation from a less disadvantaged position).

It is there. Whether you choose to acknowledge it, is another matter.

 

Nope sorry but you're wrong on your assessment. Banks or financing companies knows how the game is played dealers do this kind of things all the time. Now if your upside down on a deal then it wouldn't matter if you lease or finance the car. The condition of the car will always dictate on what kind of appraisal your car will get at the time of trade not on how it's finance. Sure they might tag the early termination fees or what not but that is up to the dealer. Dealers are obligated to tell you how the deal is structured. EVERYTHING is stipulated on the contract which you sign when you get a new car from them. So read carefully before signing. Remember you can always walk out as long as the car never left the dealer. Once you drive the car out of the lot then that's another story.

In this case we are talking about exessive mileage. Once the dealer pays off the balance of the loan the bank who gave you the lease will not care about miles anymore. As far as they (the bank) is concerned the car belongs to the dealer they won't care about exess miles at this point. The dealer has the option to wholesale the car (which they usually do) or sell it on their lot. This is the reason why I said that the condition of the car is what determines the value at the time of trade. Wholesellers are the ones that give dealers the prices for the trade. Depending on the condition and demand for the car these factors will affect your trade. I can tell you right now that Civics have better resale value than the G and that's a fact. The market for the G is so soft that even Inifiniti are lowballing trades right now. The demand for more fuel efficient cars like Civic's, Corolla's, etc... is so high that dealers will give you a better price on your trade for these kind of cars.

Banks will only charge you over mileage when you surrender the car at the end of the lease. This is great as long as you're within mileage but very stupid if you're over. Another way out of this is to buy the car at the end of the lease. You can negotiate (although not to much) on the final buy it now price from the bank. For example residual is 10k, offer the bank 9k they will usually give it to you. You can either finance the car again or just pay it off out right. Again this is all up to you. Another tip surrender the car 2 months before the end of the lease the bank will usually pay the last 2 months of the lease.

Lease is not for everyone so you have to know the game to play the game. I learned a lot since my first lease and now I just play the leasing game. I like changing my cars every 3 - 4 years this is the reason I lease my cars. The last car I bought was my 99 Accord and I still have the car to this day. It has been paioff since 2004.

Here is another tip for you guys never get a lease a car for more than 4 years. The 3-4 year leases are ideal with 12k miles limit per year. Never finance a car for more than 5 years. Some dealers right now will give you creative financing by giving you 6-7 years financing. This is as bad as todays negative amortization in home loans don't fall for it.

 

That is the worst thing you can do, the "early termination" fee would be the difference of then market value of the car, usually is the wholesale price, which is bit below the lowest trade-in value and the amount you still owe, plus set fee of $395 or so (which should stated in your contract). You would be better off try to sell it on your own than do that, you can at least get trade-in value.

For my understanding that Washington's sales tax rate is 6.5% and use the numbers you provided, it looks like you got and residual of 58%, to get to your monthly payment? they would have to charge you quite abit of M/F(interest rate) of around 8%, unless you had upside down trade-in's.

 

Its no different than to sell a "financed" car, call up your lease company, ask what is the payoff amount and put a "for sell" sign on the car or with number of car selling service companies, like autotrader, or find an local consignment lot, which they could sell it for you, pretty close to retail value, but they usually charges 5~6% fees.

 

You are correct in saying that if the dealer buys out the lease, the miles don't matter.
What I take issue with is that the buyout amount is almost always greater than what the car could be acquired (or sold for) on the open market. Not always true, but most of the time it is.

So if a dealer buys out my lease for $18,000 knowing full well the most they can get for it is $16,600, that shortfall has to go somewhere, and is typically financed in with your new lease.

I know I was unclear earlier, but did not think it mattered to spell out both likely outcomes, as the point I was hoping to convey is that there is almost always a shortfall that has to be made up somewhere.

If dealer passes it straight to the person, he eats it. If the dealer absorbs it, my contention is that is money you could have gotten off the MSRP.

If the car is actually worth more than the buyout amount then you should try to sell it on your own, but that is another story

Not trying to pick a fight, just want people looking to this forum for advice to understand that there are no free lunches. The numbers always balance out.

 

Of course it does it either goes on your next loan or maybe if there is a rebate going on It could be a wash depending on the upside down. In most cases a higher down payment to cover the upside down at the time of trade in.

What I was referring to earlier was the just the over mileage. You argued that someone has to get tagged with over mileage at the time of trade. Which is not always the case. You really need to spell it out simply because not a lot of people are educated in leasing. To this day I still come across people who are so afraid of leasing because of all the misinformation that is being fed into them. They simply don't beleive it or just don't get it out right. Which is really sad.

I see people putting tons of money on cars and financing it for 5 years only to see them trade or sell the car after 3-4 years. My neighbor is a good example on this he just got a new Lexus put 20k on the damn truck. Now this guy has money and maybe he car afford to waste his money like that, but majority of people just don't have that kind of cash to throw around. A good alternative is leasing, but people are detered simply because they think they are restricted on mileage.

I use to have a Chinese co worker before he was so proud that he bought his brand new car in cash (Nissan Altima)forgot for how much. He only got liability insurance for it and 3 weeks later he totals the car. Tell me where is justice then in a matter of 3 weeks the guy losses 20k of his hard earned money on a car. Telling you it's not worth purchasing a car to own anymore.

Anyway, I know what you're saying this is also the reason why I said that leasing is not for everyone. Some people just don't listen or don't want to deal with it. I hope that people can learn about leasing from all this reading.

 

Agreed.

 

my g is a lease vehicle ... i got it to $36263 with $1000 down and $565/month ... buy out at end is under $20k ... i'm thinking about buying it out and either flipping it or keeping it ... i'm leasing the g cause of situations where we are thinking about purchasing a home ... i don't know if leasing for me is a bad idea or good idea ... but i think i got a decent deal out of it ... still lovin' the g though ...