re: Guide to Selling your Leased Car at the End of your Lease

I feel like I've had good luck with leases - don't have a leased vehicle now, have two cars purchased used and one as a dealer demo. With the leases, they have been expensive cars with high residuals, no money down and "deals" - good money factor, whatever, but some incentivized deal. I would not have (didn't say could not have) bought those cars outright, at least new. With some of them maintenance was included as standard from that car company, and with one, I negotiated routine maintenance package into the deal - Mercedes is one company that will sell routine maintenance up front for x number of years, and this is in play in negotiating. I never paid a penny on those cars other than money spent keeping clean and gas, and never had to pay anything on the back end.

I believe there are good leases to be had, but the buyer definitely need to know more about what the deal than what the monthly payment is, and I say NEVER, NEVER put $$ down for a lease. If you have to put $$ down to get to the payment you want, you're probably getting out of makes sense range. Also know if you are a "monthly use tax" state like LA is going in.