My GF has a lease on a VW and it doesn't expire till 09. She wants a new car, but I'm not sure how Leases work in regards to Trading it in if she wants to buy a new car (Lexus, Acura).


TIA

 

Depends on the lease. You will get some responses from people much more knowledgeable than I and it can be done but you should get the lease papers out and read them first.

 

My friend had to pay a lease termination fee and then work out a price for the trade and the dealer basically bought it from the company who my friend leased through. And like a loan, if he was upside down on the lease he'd of have to make up the difference, but he wasn't and came out about even.

 

Yep, waiting on my GF to produce them. Just thought I should ask those that have more insight on the matter for their opinion.

Thanks for that. I'll have to make sure my GF isn't upside down on her lease. Do you recall how much your friend had to pay to terminate his lease? I guess I have to check and see if Acura or Lexus wants her 05 VW enough to buy out her lease.

 

just for more ideas, you can also try to see if someone is willing to take over the lease. google lease trades, you get bunch of sites

also you can try to sell the car. for all lease (even in the middle), there is a buyout price, which is the price you pay if you want to buy out the car now. if she can sell the car for a price that's close to the buyout (or better yet, more), then the car can go to the new owner, the buyout price goes to the lease company, and you pocket the balance (or pay if you are upside down on the lease). a lot of times this is to your favor if your mileage is quite a bit under the lease term

 

^^^ Yup, swapalease.com

 

Dead-on, my parents had the same experience, although the car they wanted was a trifle more pricey, so getting out of the lease was a bit more of a chore. I personally never saw the appeal behind leases, but that's me.

 

If you get the dealer to "buy out" your lease, you are just going to get screwed by them wrapping it up into your new car price/lease payment. Find a 3rd party to take over the lease or buy it outright.

 

I want to say it was about $150. Im not too sure about that and it should be in her contract - or she could find out by calling the lease company.

Negotiate the price of the car first, as you would if you had no trade, then discuss it and you wont get screwed like that

As some mentioned, you might try to have someone assume the lease, that might be the easiesr for you or even buy it outright.

 

Unfortunately short of getting someone else to take over the lease (as mentioned check out swaplease.com), getting out of a lease can be very very painful.

Normally your contract says - pay the remaining payments and you are done! Well crap, why not keep the car then?

The other way is to buy out your car from the lease early - unfortunately the way leases are setup (often with little or no money down), you end up being seriously upside down until the very end (and even then it can be a couple of grand).

I tried to get out of my GS430 lease twice - both times the $ figure was in the $10K range. The same thing would have happened if I had bought the car of course, but I would not have felt the sting of writing a $10K check - simply the sting of massive depreciation in a Luxury car.

In the end, as mentioned, your only real solution is to get someone else to take over the lease and that will depend on the leasing company -some don't allow that.

 

I've traded in leases early, it's no big deal really. Similar to a finance the lease has a payoff, the monthly payments plus the residual payoff and maybe a lease termination. Just call the leasing company and they can get you the lease payoff. Whether it's worth it or not is whole other story.

 

Thank you all for your input. Thanks for linking the website also, never knew that existed.