I'm on my 3rd Lexus lease, bought the first one after the lease but my 2008 GS350, I decided to return. Overall shape of the car was very good, I replaced the balding tires to brand new but ghetto, no name, made in China tires but the correct size and rating. The only things that I thought they could ding me for was the usual scrapes on the bottom of the front bumper and small scratches to the front and rear bumper. One door ding above the gas cap.

So Lexus is pretty forgiving, I didn't get charged at all for any wear and tear but then again the car was in excellent shape, I thought.

So I lease my cars using the MSD deposits, so they had about $7000 of my money as a deposit. I find out when leasing my new car that you can't use the old deposit on the new car since they are considered separate transactions. So I patiently wait for my account to close and get my deposit back. This all goes through Lexus Financial not the dealer. So I call LFS, 2 weeks later, my account isn't closed yet, keep waiting for the deposit. It takes them a full month before they can send me my refund. So then they claim they sent me a check for the refund and it keeps not coming. Maybe lost in the mail, so they resend the check, didn't get it. I find it very surprising that only that check gets stolen/lost but not other mail. So finally I have to get pissed off at them and they agree to overnight me the check. So it took almost 2 months to get my deposit back. I should of charged them a late fee.

So now today I get ticket in the mail and you guessed it, they sold my old leased car and never bothered to change the registration to the new owners name. I guess you can't trust a dealer that says they will fill out a transfer of liability for you, which I did sign for when returning the car. So I went to DMV today and the car is still registered to me even though when I called the dealership, they said they sold the car a month ago.

I guess it may be time to file a police report to report my stolen car. Hey, the car still belongs to me.. haha.. just kiddding but this is way too much hassle.

I also bought a HS, so still waiting on the recall. My car buying experience has not been good lately.

 

wow, what a hassle. that's terrible that lexus financial lied to you twice about mailing a check.

glad it's FINALLY getting straightened out though.

 

sounds like independent cases. on my previous lease i got my check in full amount after 3 weeks. and that was with scratches on the bumpers. i never received anything afterward neither, including registration. seems like that's dealership problem (they have the choice to either sell it or auction off the car).

if you think lexus lease return is painful, you should try bmw

 

You kidding me? All the people I know that went thru BMW lease return had a really easy process, mine included.

I know at least 20 people who have done BMW lease returns. BMW has a lot of experience in lease returns considering their high volume.

 

lol well i don't know close to 20 people on bmw lease return, but the few i know, the adjuster got pretty picky on all the scratches and tires and what not.

 

My sister returned her 328xi and the adjuster gave it a clean writeup. But BMW never sent the check. Then when she called they said they are keeping it because of the scratches, but the adjuster that came out approved the return without any penalties.

 

The BMW folks are probably a lot more familiar with handling lease paperwork than the Lexus people... haha I'm mostly kidding of course!

 

Might be just the adjuster then? I think it's YMMV on the dealer. BMW sends you a tool ahead of time to tell you what to look for. The tool measures scratch length, window cracks, etc. that are acceptable and that are not acceptable.

That's what I was joking about too.

 

hehe, can i request your adjuster?

 

I would be very careful in future dealings with this dealer. We had a number of stories like this in Michigan over the past few years, including both new and used car dealers. The new car dealers had their franchises yanked and all of them went out of business or were bought out. A number of owners and managers went to jail.

 

That's why I don't lease cars. All the BS that I have to go through.

Just pay cash to avoid the problems like this.

(just kidding, kinda)

 

Seriously?

We had zero issues with the return of our RX. The tool Lexus uses....a standard credit card....anything smaller doesn't matter....scratch, dent, ding, paint, etc.

We knew we weren't getting our deposit back as we over-miled ours, but we didn't face any additional silly charges.

 

Interesting story, how can the car still be registered to you, every leased car we have had we cancelled the registration

The ES350 we returned was cake, it looked like new, but the guy also said this is only a preliminary thing to make the owner feel better about the potential outcome cause the car eventually will be fully inspected before the lease return paperwork is approved.

But then again all the lease returns ahead of us look in need of bodywork, and most had bald tires, so it made ours look ten times better

 

For comparison (another premium brand), Mercedes lease returns have been easy and predictable in my experience.

 

Fred Van Rooyan Lease Return Manager, Sterling BMW - Newport Beach.