wallaceb

I am at the end of my 2016 IS300 lease. I leased 36 mo./15k per year. The car is almost 5000 miles under the 45k mile allowance and has new tires and is in great shape. I even had a clear Xpel protection film put on the bumper, half hood, and mirrors. It's in spotless shape.

However, the residual is $28920 which is about 3k more than what it's worth. I'd like to purchase it, but I would be upside down on a loan for probably a year as the car continues to lose value. A Lexus dealer in town said they could "under the table" buy the car from me then "sell" it to me for around $27500 or make it a CPO with extended warranty for what the residual is. They told me a 48 month lease with excellent credit would still fetch an interest rate of between 4-5%. My local credit union quoted me 3.7%. So to buy this car at their price for 48 months I'm over $600/mo. and after four years I have a seven year old car with no warranty and probably 80-90k miles.

Or (of course) they want to lease me a 2019 IS300 with identical options that my 2016 has for the same price I paid for this lease--$450 per month with $1000 down and 36 months/15k per year.

My issue is the 2019 IS hasn't changed since 2016 besides the larger nav screen, lane keep assist, adaptive cruise, and brights auto adjust. It's the exact same car.

I would also really like Apple Carplay, and I would assume the 2020 IS will have it along with GEN 10 infotainment.

What do you all recommend? Should I look at a different model?

I don't know what to do. Lexus does offer the option of extending a lease up to 6 months.

Thanks in advance!

pizzafan

I don't know how they can buy the car at anything less than residual.

Buying your car at those numbers is a dumb decision.
It's worth about 19-22k retail, not 26k

If you care about saving money, you could swap the new tires for old tires before returning.

2019 currently has a 5200 lease rebate. You should be able to also get a decent discount off msrp on top of that.

wallaceb

Yeah, they were going to lease it at around 38k.

EXE46

If you want Apple carplay, your options are new: NX , UX or RC300 from a price perspective. Since Lexus won't credit you for the 5K miles, there's no need to turn in early. As for your current car, i would not buy it. The 3IS is a dinosaur compared to the competition, heck i noticed the reviewers aren't even comparing it to the new G20, which is a reflection of how irrelevant the 3IS has now become in its class.

As such the 4IS is long overdue, if you could lease something else and wait for the 4IS and finance initially you're probably better off. Leasing and then buying something like the IS is a poor financial move, unlike say the RX350 which has great resale value. This is because the residual value on the IS is no where near the market value.