When buying a leased car, the residual is the only figure that any dealer will look at. So shopping may not yeild the desires results.

Usually a car can only be CPO'd when the dealer has title to the car. If you lease the car and want to flip it to a purchase, CPO is usually out.

My two cents is that when you buy a car that you previously leased, the car is near the end of its warranty which begs the question, is it worth having a car out of warranty? Many will say yes, that they have had little or no issues with the car. I posed the question as food for thought.

 

You are not wrong. Those are the numbers I came up with as well. The price on the car, before anything else was included, was $35,888. It is a Sport model, Premium, No Nav. I do not know what it would of cost to buy the car outright at that starting point because I knew I could not afford it. I went with the lease at that time because that was what I could afford for the car I truly wanted.

Although I know I will pay more for the car after these 8 years than I would of otherwise, I am very picky about what I drive (I am a self proclaimed car snob), and I have no regrets. It is simply a great car!

 

One other thing to consider - if you are able to write off the cost of the car for tax purposes (i.e. self employed, etc) one philosophy is to lease it for the first 2 or 3 years and get a full write-off. Then buy it at the end of the lease and, b/c it's a late model vehicle, you can probably get a full write-off for the remaining 5 years (or whatever loan term you are using). Check with your accountant but there are some ways to make this type of situation beneficial if you plan on keeping the car.

I prefer to lease and have the option of buying out at the end if I want to. I've never done it but I might with the G. I really like the car a lot and don't see anything begging me to upgrade at this point. I still have quite a few months left on my lease but I've got low mileage and the car's in great shape so we'll see.

In the meantime, if you have a LOT of equity (like the OP) you could still work something out with the dealership to buy it, pay to get it CPO'd so you have the extra warranty (or just buy an extended warranty) and then make sure that it's transferable to the next purchaser. That might get you some extra points when you go to sell it. Not guaranteed but worth looking into. Many dealers won't do CPO unless they make a profit on it and usually they have to buy the car at lease end and then CPO it and I'm not sure they are allowed to sell it back to the original lessee. Not sure about Infiniti but this is one of those things that might not work. There is always the extended warranty though.

By the way - extended warrantiy profit margins are HUGE!!! I've seen examples as high as 100%+ so if you can negotiate a much lower price for the extended warranty so that it won't cost as much then it becomes all that much more attractive. I've been able to get 40%+ discounts with various manufacturers (haven't tried with Infiniti yet though).

I would think that a dealer would be happy to make a few hundred dollars for something they never planned to sell if given the option (at the right dealership). I believe a search on this board will result in a good contact for this type of transaction.

Good luck!

Jay

 

Dig & Chairman make some excellent points about write-offs and CPO warranty. I am seriously thinking about buying my G35X - 22.7K on the clock, leases over in July -residual is about $20.7K. My Dealer just sent a flyer offering a CPO same vehicle with 49K miles for $27K !. That's a lot of equity to me.... Now the other thing that many writing to this site haven't considered, is the required Cap Cost or Downpayments made at lease inception. I did not make any Cap Costs payments to reduce monthly payments, since if the car is totalled (God Forbid) early on, you LOSE that money. Insurance companies will cover the total owed on the lease - GAP insurance at least in NY- but not your cap costs. So, the comparison here is to consider - if you elect not to buy a low mileage car that you are HAPPY with (I am) at the end of your lease term - you lease a new one, even without Cap Cost downpayment, upfront, the lease payments will be way UP (recent quote from my dealer - at least $100/mo for a new 2009, certainly more for a 2010 in July), pay for another 39 months and do it all over again. I know that's the problem with leasing, especially if you are unable to write off or take deductions for tax purposes. Compared with purchasing the G in April 2007 when I leased it, the car was MSRP at $35K, plus TTL, would have been $37.9K. Put down or trade in (I did not have a Trade ) $10K, finance $27.9 @3.9% for 36 months, payments would have been - $800 a month !!vs. my $440 per month (I made a tremendous deal in 4/07 - COSTCO referral saved me hundreds of dollars over the 39months & I got 16.5k miles per year), take the $20.7 buyout add $1,300 extended warranty plus taxes of $1,600, finance the buy at $22k [pay taxes out of pocket] @3.9% [from Infiniti, if that's true] for 36 months - $575+/- per month, BUT 3 years from now _ YOU OWN the CAR - worth $18K...... Sorry for rambling, but this analysis needs a matrix to demonstrate. Under these cricumstances, it looks like a no-brainer to me.
Oh Yeah, to get really financial on you guys, you could calculate 2 other things: finance car at buyout with Home Equity Loan and deduct the interest as expense on taxes making the effective interest rate less; and apply a 3% interest rate of return to the initial downpayment of $3k or so, that I did not put out in 4/07 - about $100 as an opportunity cost in my pocket.