jgcec

After several months of looking I have decided to lease a 2011. Any opinions on if it is better to buy or lease. I am in outside sales and can deduct most of it.

Any accessories are must haves on a new car?

How much better is the Mark Levenson sound system than the regular or premium one? In what way does it sound better?

garsarno

Came off a lease last year and bought the car. Bad financial move. If you must, finance for 4 - 5 years only. I have the 2007 Ultra version with the ML sound system and navigation. I would recommend this combination for you. Your Lexus dealer can search for the Ultra versions in your area or on the boat. He located one on the boat, put his request in, and in about 4-5 weeks we had the vehicle. Living in CA, it will a much simpler request, I'm sure. I'm also in outside sales and drive a 2007 Impala SS. Like the power and exhaust noise and it is a great car for traveling and working. Also, if you are going to keep and put miles on fast, for sure buy it and opt for the Lexus Platinum Extended Warranty. Shop for this online and use the competitive pricing either to leverage your local dealer to match the price or buy it online with credit card.

jgcec

why was it bad to lease then buy?
Is it because you pay the tax twice?

I am currently putting 20k miles a year. So I was going to go with 15k mile lease and then pay 20 cents a mile for the additional miles.

my local Lexus dealer did find a ML version in the color I wanted, at a dock in LA.

what website offers the extended warantee plan?

garsarno

When you count the 36 payments @ $576 per month plus the $2,500 we put down = $23,236 paid out. We financed the residual, which was around $24,000. By the time the car is paid, we will have paid out $23,236 + $29,952 = $53,188 for a seven year old car that had a MSRP of $44,000. Learn from my stupidity - pay cash or finance it for 4-5 years max.

garsarno

Perfect for the dock located car. Regarding the extended warranty, you can buy it up until the factory warranty expires. Search this website / plenty of info on the best deal for the extended Lexus warranty.

997c2

I agree that if you have the ability to pay the payments, buy but don't lease. I have leased 5 vehicles over the last 15 years, primarily to keep my monthly payment as low as possible, drive a "new" car and have a factory warranty. Those are really NOT the right reasons to lease, in my opinion. I am an undisciplined saver/spender and will likely have a car payment until I can't pay for one any longer (read: stupid). If you can legitimately write off your car payments, leasing can make sense, but if it's YOUR car, you will lose. The loss can be compounded tremendously if you happen to lease a car that has a falsely inflated residual (my experience with an early Boxster) and then try to sell the car. I took a massive bath. Cash buy is always best if you can do it, from all angles. Good luck.

wmkim

You don't pay tax twice on a lease, when they calculate Net Cap Cost and the depreciation for the lease term, it's all without tax...tax is included only in the monthly lease payments... (Cap Cost - Residual) = Depreciation. Depreciation / (Lease term) = Monthly Deprec * (1+TaxRate). Add to that (Cap Cost + Residual) * Money Factor for the interest portion of the payment

That said, for 20K mi/yr, you're looking at $1,000 per year additional you'll owe out of pocket on top of all the payments, maintenance, etc. Not sure how much you're planning to deduct for your sales job, but that just seems like a lot to pay to return the car w/ nothing at the end.

You can easily estimate what your lease payments would be by getting the Net Cap Cost, Residual, and Money Factor from the dealer (that will also tell you if you're getting a decent deal on the lease or not) and then compare against what the total cost would be to finance also...compare the two (net of trade/salvage value on the purchase scenario) and see which makes sense for you...

overclock

Thanks garsano for sharing your experience. I've always heard what a great deal leasing is but failed to see the benefit. Now I know there isn't one.

EJC

The mistake was purchasing the car at the end of the lease and putting cash into the lease. When I lease, I do both depending on the situation, I usually look for 4 yrs to coincide with the (Lexus) warranty and only the fees no cap-cost reduction. At the term, I usually turn the car in and and take out another.

If the numbers didn't look good you should have turned the car in and taken out a new one. You should have been able to do that for the same monthly.

garsarno

It was a costly experience that will not be repeated.