What is the process for extending a lease? Do you have to negotiate with the dealer? Or do you keep paying the same payment?

 

In general a lease cannot be extended unless such a possibility is written into the original contract.
Because it affects depreciation, residual value etc a new lease must be drawn. This is what I've heard as I don't lease.
Better check with your lease holder, not your dealer.

 

My lease is with Lexus (Toyota financial). I know I can extend. Just wondering what the process is with Lexus.

 

I'd give Toyota financial a call, they are the best source of the process to follow.

 

Why not just buy it? Won't the principal pretty much be paid off if you extend another three years and already paid three years previously?

 

I'd call the dealer you leased it from - Toyota is just the bank. There may be things about the car that needs to be documented in order to extend.

 

No Toyota/Lexus is the lien holder, the dealer is completely out of this picture except for service. Call Toyota/Lexus financing.

 

Why would you want to do this?

 

Most lease extensions are only for 6 months to a year. So no, you will not pay off the principal.

Exactly. Call the dealer. I know in the past Lexus has offered 6month extensions where you just continue the same exact payment.

 

From what I’ve read on Toyotanation TFS let’s you extend for three months a maximum of twice for a total of 6 months. What the poster didn’t know was if the buyout price would go down by making an additional 6 months of lease payments, or if they’d stick to the original quote. I’m assuming LFS follows the same rules.

During peak COVID a ton of people were extending leases so they wouldn’t have to go to the dealer, or try to do pre lease return work to the vehicles.

Anyway now I’m interested, please let me know what LFS tells you.

 

YES YOU CAN extend a lease and there are plenty of reasons to. One of those is if you're waiting for the next year's model to arrive. Another reason would be because you're on assignment or deployed outside the area and can't deal with lease end work at the moment. Which happens to be my case, btw. For the responder who said "you can't extend a lease, but I don't know, as I don't lease": YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE GIVEN ANY FEEDBACK. We all hate useless responses, so please don't add to it.
Back to the lease negotiation: I've been offered to keep the same payment and the same lease-end terms as long as I plan to get another Lexus at the end of that extension. Which I do. Since this will be my ELEVENTH Lexus on lease. So again, YES YOU CAN extend a lease. And both at the dealer level or at the Finance level, they can help you. Especially as there's a shortage of Lexus vehicles at the dealerships currently, in late 2023.

 

I extended my lease for 12 months. The residual went down by almost exactly the total of my extended lease payments. The only difference was that in Illinois I had to add the sales tax on the total extended payments. At the end I bought it. Paid the residual plus sales tax which in total was about $8,000 below market value. Handled the whole thing directly with Toyota finance.