Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
But he has the OPTION to buy it. If his option to buy price is similar to what the total cost of financing is, then he's better off, since he can decide whether it's worth buying at that point or not.
If the car was worth 15k for some reason, he could do the buyout at 12 and be 3k ahead. If it was only worth 9k, he could give it back, and go buy a used one for 9k if he still wanted a similar vehicle.
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One other thing because I know I was originally dismissive of your point. It's true you can have the option to buy for less than the value of the vehicle. I lease a Tacoma through my work right now and I'm expecting the buy-out price to be lower than the value of the truck, in which case we will either buy it and keep it, or buy and sell it.
It can also happen the other way - before the Tacoma, our Ranger was off-lease in 2008 and the buy-out price was
more than the value, so obviously we gave it back and weren't out anything.
What's strange about a pro-lease argument to me is the point you raise as being such a benefit is ultimately to buy used at the end of the term. So it seems like we agree on that point - buying a 2-4 year old car makes the most sense out of any of the options.
After this lease is up I don't think we're going to lease a truck again. I'd rather buy something used, forgo the tax write-off a lease provides, and I think we'll be ahead of the game.