re: Pros and Cons of Leasing v Buying a Vehicle

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Do you have to pay for oil changes and the like with a lease?

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I take my car in Saturday for its first 6 months. I think total out of pocket by the end of the lease (36 months) is a little under 400, but the whole car is under warranty the entire time.

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Infiniti is leasing well. My company was paying for me to lease a car and I was trying to get the nicest car I could within the budget. I found that it was cheaper to lease a $59k MSRP Infiniti QX60 than a $42k MSRP Honda Pilot.

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Although it doesn’t help the OP, as he isn’t in the market for this vehicle segment, this is exactly what I’m talking about.

The blanket statement “never lease” is absolutely foolish.

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Not only do I want them to be safe in case of accident, I don’t want anything that is more likely to have us on the side of the road

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read: I'm determine to lease a new car whether it makes good financial sense or not

Nope, that’s a common fallacy. The primary tax advantage of leasing a car is that the IRS allows you to deduct your lease payments, typically in full. If you also use the car for personal reasons, you must prorate your lease payments based on the percentage driven for business reasons. For example, if you pay $500 per month to lease a vehicle that you use for personal reasons 50 percent of the time, your deduction is limited to $250 per month. However, if you never drive the car for personal reasons, you can deduct the entire lease payment.

Tax breaks if you are self employed, independent contractor, or something similar.

Don’t think it’s possible as a w2 employee.

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Still haven’t pulled the trigger yet. What sort of pressure are dealerships/sales reps under to move inventory at the end of the month, end of January specifically? If I wind up buying, I will financing through my credit union again, not the dealership.

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It’s always a ymmv thing, but you need 2 things: a. to catch a dealership at the right time when they need to push a unit and they’re willing to drop their pants and b. a favorable lease program

I believe most of the Japanese manufacturers end their fiscal year in March, so that’s when you’ll get their best deals. Most of the others in December, which is why people always say shop in December.

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mostly for the dealership

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Maybe, but they are a business, so I’m assuming all of the transactions with them is financially beneficial for them. The goal is to mitigate their benefits as much as possible. But he was a former worker at a dealersheap, and a pretty sharp dude. And he leased both vehicles we got when we were neighbors.

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How do you think leasing helps reach these goals?

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I’m not sure it does or does it the best for my situation. Not sure how consistent lease payments reflect on a credit score relative to a loan. I do think. A lower note and lower down payment would allow me to save more per month and be able to put that extra money somewhere to someday become a down payment on a house. But it wouldn’t be an asset, so that may work against me.

Someone in this thread said you should think of a vehicle as a monthly expense, not an investment. Because the universal thought is that they’re not great financial investments, unless you’re buying an old beat up classic with the intent of fixing it up and selling it. And I was listening to Grant Cardone—not sure what the MT guys think of him—but he recommends leasing just about everything. He only buys what he intends to sell, houses included. But he’s obviously in a different situation than I am.

From what I got from my insurance company from my last car and what I’ll have from my tax refunds, I’ll probably have somewhere around 10k. Gun to my head, if I had to buy something today, I’d probably put about 3-4k of that down on a Toyota or Honda that will in the 12-15k range that I could drive another 7-8 years, and finance the difference for 60 months(just in case), but set up my payments to have it paid off in 36.

That would help my credit, but not my debt to income ratio. So I’m not fricking sure. Maybe I should get that 10k 4-Runner with 150,000 miles down the street, put half down, and try to pay it off in a year. I don’t know.

Maybe I should sit down with a lender and get a long-term plan together, a realistic timeline on where I need my credit score, debt, income, down payment savings, etc...to get a house. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are good people who will give good advice, but I am always skeptical of their biases toward their own product/services if they see me as a potential customer/client. That’s the beauty of this place, getting advice from people who have different insights, but nothing to personally gain(from me). And I thank you all for it.

Op you are talking about buying a house in 2-3 years right? You need to consider that even if you lease now and that makes sense for 2-3 years, you will then have to lease or buy again in 2-3 years. For your financial situation, this makes almost 0 sense.

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I don't think anyone suggested this.

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You were specifically referring to his friend’s anecdotal comment that there are pros to leasing.

My reply was a retort to that, and not specific to OP unique situation.