Extra Lease Miles
 

I'm about to lease a 2014 RX. The deal I negotiated is for 12K miles/yr on a 27 mo lease. The contract has not yet been signed but I will tomorrow AM. I'm thinking that I need more miles. Will they do 13,500/yr? If so, how much? How much more for 15,000?

Miles in a Lease...
 

Hi Daryll,
Is your leasing agent working today? I would give him/her a call with these very questions. I've never leased a car, but I think lease length, miles, residual, all vary and could be quoted easily.
Ray A.

I always lease and always get 15K miles on a three year term.

Not sure how much more it costs and don't really care.

I have never gone over the mileage and usually it is exact.

John

I do both. Lease and buy.
I go for the 10,000 miles ALWAYS.
6 months before your lease is up, you'll get an invitation to turn it early and drive a newer one.
So if you do 15,000 miles, you're wasting money for all those prepaid miles.

Lexus has been comsistent with these invitations.
Sometimes, it's the dealership who wants to buy your leased vehicle right away.

The earliest invite I got was 13 months for my 2011 RX350.
I turned it down.

Now THAT was good info. I've already negotiated for 12K miles, I can used the leased car as a "swing" car...controlling the mileage as needed or not. But I won't go for more than 12K based on this. Yes, my kid's recent Corolla lease was like that...they offered an early out. If I do go over, it won't be by too much. So I'll negotiate my way out of the miles, or buy the car, or, if truly stuck, suck it up and pay. But that will probably be unlikely. Thanks for that info.

Only a fool would believe you can turn a car in six months early for a new car and walk away unscathed.

We're not in TEXAS.
We're in California, where 1/3 of the US Population resides.
Imagine how many drivers buying/ leasing cars.

I've done it twice already.
Same monthly payments. Zero down. Paid for dmv fees and some paperwork.

Here in CA, dealers make more money with the CPO and used cars vs a New one.
The dealer is buying your car at a very good price ( payoff quote)
With very low miles on it, they can easily earn 4,000-5,000.

I've been a fool then with my 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2008, and 2010 RX's. I hope to be a fool with my 2012. In addition my lease payment now is less for my 2012 than my 1999. In every case I put no money down and rolled the 8% sales tax into the lease.

I am not a finance guy (ask my wife!), but leasing actually seems pretty simple to me. Or, maybe I'm just naive. When you lease, you are paying for the depreciation of the car, and more miles equals more depreciation every time, regardless of the financing. The more miles you put on it, the more you pay in the end.

As others have said, leasing companies will often forgive “excessive” mileage as an incentive to buy (and finance) a new car, but logic and common sense tells me that you pay the price for that somewhere else. It strikes me the same way that “no down payment” and “we’ll make the first and last payment for you” does. It’s marketing, and you typically pay for those “freebies” somewhere else. Maybe you see it in the form of reduced trade value, or reduced discounts on the new car, but it’s most often there somewhere.

In the end, what it REALLY costs you depends on your negotiating skills and how badly they want to put you in a new car, and that’s the same no matter how you finance the car. Personally, I have never had to write a check for a mileage charge, but I am confident that I paid somewhere else

I just bought a new RX350 for (approx.) $42k.

The exact same dealer has at least (3) 2-year old RX's listed on their website as CPO, with approx. 20K miles on them and their asking price is MORE than I paid for the new one! So either they are really going to discount those or they are looking from some suckers.

We did check into leasing at a different Dealer, but after the (3) year lease, we would still need to get a loan and if it took another (5) years of payments, we would be paying for this car for (8) years and it would have paid about $5k MORE for the car.

I am sure there are advantages to leasing for some people, wanting a new car every few years or if you have your own business and it is a write-off, but if you are an average :"joe" and planning to keep the car (10) years or more, then I think buying is the way to go.

Yeah, I know I did not address the down payment differences...

my 2cents

Congratulations on the great price for your RX! You are right in general buying is cheaper in general. Using your car for business certainly makes leasing more attractive as the book keeping is much easier when you use the actual expense method. The repair expense is obviously less. Might only have to pay for two oil changes. The big one is how much can you earn on the $20,000+ you have to put down to have a comparable lease payment when you buy.

Think your statement is a little too generic with regards to the CPO models unless you add in what features your Rx has at $42k out the door. Rx does hold it's value very well and a 2 year old RX with a luxury package is going to more expensive than a new base model Rx. 20k miles is miniscule with a clean vehicle history and 1 owner who turned in lease early (which coincides with some of the earlier conversations in this thread).

Buy new with no options at 42k or buy 2 year old CPO luxury package at 45k? Doesn't mean there are suckers in waiting at all. Could be very savvy buyers.

Leasing SHOULD cost more. You rent for three years with no risk and then buy the same vehicle with no penalty. That's basically lay-a-way if there was no penatly involved. Main advantage of leasing to drive a car that is out of your price range to buy. Otherwise, unless it is for a business write off, then you are spending and end up with nothing at contract end and should expect nothing different. Leasing to own is the worst route to travel.

^ we'll said.
And i agree with every point.
WHICH is why leasing is not for everyone.

As I've said, I used to BUY only and never even entertained Leasing.
I have put down $15,000-30,000 as down payment to decrease the monthly.

But with leasing, I don't have to put out anything.
And I can use the down payment and invest it for something else.
And when the lease ends, if I purchase the car. I figured losing $5,000-6000 vs purchasing it outright.

I know it doesn't make sense to a lot of people,
But it does works for me

I almost never lease. In this case, leasing made sense. First of all our old car was 8 years old so the residual value of it was small. Only lost a small sales tax credit at issue. Second, we're not sure we want the RX forever. Third the lease was so attractive that even if I buy at the end, the total cost will be only slightly more than if we had bought now. I consider that cost to be the cost of the "put" option. Generally I won't lease but it made sense for us here this time.