[mr3cho]

Originally Posted by Franchise

1) in a lease, just as in leasing an apartment, what you've done is contractually bound yourself to make a stream of payments. The lessor, in this case the dealer, is entitled the entire stream of payments, you've promised him $450/month for 36 months, and he's not going to let you simply walk away from your obligation. "Here take the car back" isn't going to work. He is going to extract at least the present value of his future profits from you if you break the lease. However, if you own, you can pay the bank off without penalty at any time. Ownership does bring the risk of being "upside down," but if you can't put down 25% of the value of the car at closing, you probably shouldn't be buying it.

2) I'll give you this, but consider the rather pricey RFTs; if you've leased, you'll need to purchase at least one set of RFTs to put on the car when you turn it in unless you yank them as soon as you get the car and store them for three years.

3) Yeah, you should know how much you drive if you're going to lease, and this is obviously something you can negotiate with your dealer; but things happen and circumstances change (the office moves from around the block to the other side of town; family stuff means driving across the state a few times more than you'd planned, etc). I'm not saying these are common enough to present a real problem to many (if any), but personally, the idea that one day I'll have to not drive my car because i'm too close to my mileage turns my stomach a little.

yea ...there is a higher cost to leasing. and theres a chance that a car could have a couple recalls , develop a bad rep, and its value drop more than 60% in 3 yrs, in which case i'd gladly give it back.

yea circumstances change. i mean , i might kick the bucket before my lease term is up. dont get me wrong..who in their right mind bets on the fact that they're gonna kick the bucket? point is i think its best to keep as much liquid cash around that u can.

[mr3cho]

my current car, I've had for the past 7 yrs. bought it 2yrs used,so its 9yrs old now. its a sports car and while it was nice at the time...its not so nice now. and when i calc the cost plus finance plus maintenance, even though its paid off, it costed me ~$250/mo <- kinda pricey, esp. if u see my car. its not worth much now if i sell it. so i wont be getting much back.

i can see how i might keep a secondary car around for over 10 yrs maybe something like a truck or suv. this is where you get the most value from ownership. but i dont think i want to keep a "hot", "luxury" sports car around that long cuz its not so hot in 10 yrs. '97 3-series are cool, but how do they compare to the '07s? how do you think a 2007 will look next to the 2017s? this is just my opinion.

[Manny212]

Originally Posted by mr3cho

my current car, I've had for the past 7 yrs. bought it 2yrs used,so its 9yrs old now. its a sports car and while it was nice at the time...its not so nice now. and when i calc the cost plus finance plus maintenance, even though its paid off, it costed me ~$250/mo <- kinda pricey, esp. if u see my car. its not worth much now if i sell it. so i wont be getting much back.

i can see how i might keep a secondary car around for over 10 yrs maybe something like a truck or suv. this is where you get the most value from ownership. but i dont think i want to keep a "hot", "luxury" sports car around that long cuz its not so hot in 10 yrs. '97 3-series are cool, but how do they compare to the '07s? how do you think a 2007 will look next to the 2017s? this is just my opinion.

I find it relavent to the times we live in...For example, I'm 20 now and the E46 3 series came out when i started to get really into cars. I still see the E46 3 series being hot for many years to come. I grew up loving the car and it just seems like its going to be a great car for another decade or so. I don't know if you guys understand what i'm saying or not but the older you get the longer cars stay "hot". I can see myself keeping the 335 for a good 7 years or so.