waldis

the lease on my 2001 RX300 will be over in this september. this will be the first time i return a vehicle back to the dealer/bank. therefore, i would like to see if there are any tips that you guys can offer me and maybe a list of things that i should do to avoid a high vehicle return fee.

as of now, i also have a few questions:

first, i think the car now belongs to the bank and they will send someone to my house and inspect the car. therefore, will it do myself any good if i make a deal with the dealer (or perhaps even their toyota dealership) and say if i purchase a car from them, how effective will this be on lowering my return fee?

second, when the inspector from the bank comes to my house to inspect the car, when he/she sees something that needs to be fixed, will they give me some time to fix that problem prior to me bringing it into the dealership?

any thoughts, comments and tips will be great. thanks!

NeverSatisfied

From what I remember, if you re-lease a car from the same dealership, the fee is waived. As far as repairs after inspection, they'll charge you a ballpark fee to fix (it all depends on the dealership and inspector). Way back in '98 my mom turned in a leased '95 Civic, which had normal wear & tear (a few dings, scratches), but the car was still in "fair" condition. It passed inspection w/ no $. Not too sure if they paid a fee for turning in, as my dad bought her a '98 ES.

Back in '01 my friend turned in his '96 Maxima, which I'd say was in poor to low-fair condition on the outside, he ended up paying somewhere between $400-$700 to turn the car back in. That fee may have included a termination payment, as he picked up a '02 Accord.

Re-lease the '04; I think you'll love it! I love mine!

HarrierAWD

You may want to bring the car to the dealership *before* the lease expires. Ask them to look over the car to see if there's any "abnormal wear and tear" that they'd charge for. Then make a judgment call to either get it fixed or let them charge you.

Usually the dealership would be more forgiven if you plan on leasing another Lexus from them. I'd advise against leasing due to today's low interest rate and the RX's high resale value.

I just checked the resale value of my 32k-mile 2002 RX300 on edmunds.com. (No, I'm not selling my baby, no solicitation please.) The dealer trade-in value is 79% of my RX300's original purchase price. I'm very impressed, especially when a popular new model (RX330) usually bring down the old model's resale value considerably.