[EricK]

How many of you guys leased and how many financed your cars?
I remember talking to the local BMW dealer and he told me much greater than 50% of all sales were leases.

How long do you guys plan to keep your IS300? Are you just going to keep it till it dies (like TEG) or are you just going to wait until your lease runs out and trade it in on something else (whether Lexus Product or Not)....?
Eric....

 

[Martin]

Well.. I decided to lease and buy the car out @ the end.. I don't wanna put all this money into a car that I’m not going to keep. The way I see it. My payments stay low through out my whole time of having the car. (450$ now and probably 450 on the buy out or an additional 5 years) Also if I don't want the car after the 3-year lease I’ll have to buy it out and just sell it anyway. I’ve put 2,600 mile's on the car and I had it 1 1/4 month's and I only work 17 mile's away. I just like to drive allot. Besides if I wanna put an intake or an exhaust system on my car I wont have to worry about taking it off or getting fined because I’m going to buy it out.


Martin

Black/Ivory IS300

 

[EricK]

For those of you that purchased, did any of you do that "Premere Purchase" (as Audi calls it) "Owner's Choice" (BMW's term) in which you have a balloon payment and you're simply paying the depreciation of the vehicle.... In my opinion I don't think it's worth buying a car that way which has a very high resale value. The advantage is that you have low monthly payments, but at the end you realize how much you still owe on the car (because it hasn't depreciated much). For example, if are choosing between a $60,000 Jaguar and a $90,000 Mercedes Benz S-class, your monthly payments (in the type of purchasing I described) on both cars will be similar to each other... The reason being that the Jaguar depreciates like a Stone to the bottom of the ocean, contrary to the S-class.... I'm assuming the IS300 will be like the other Lexus models and have a high resale value, so you're likely to run into in a similar problem with this type of financing.... I hope that made sense..
Eric...

 

[ISisBEST]

I fianced my car. Payments are 620 month for 5 years. I plan on keeping it till it dies, although in 3-4 years I plan on uying a new car and making the IS my second car.

 

[paulwu]

financed. $340/month. Including a 20K down payment.

 

[Agent Smith]

Leased 36 mo/ @ a little under $400 - by trading in my wife's Jetta...residual - $23K..so the lease rate is in the 9% range..ouch

After the 3 years buy it on Home Eq line when we update the palace and write off any interest...

May not be the most cost effective way but I can live with the payments

Smith Out

 

[vvtipwr]

anyone here know if you promise to buy the car at the end of the lease, (signing a contract or something), will that warrant you in adding modifications to your car like exhaust, air intake, springs, during the duration of your lease?....

.or if you're going to buy it at the end of the lease, the dealer might not find out about your mods, or do they check at end of lease even if you agreed to buy the car?

 

[Agent Smith]

Doesn't matter what you during the lease as long as your planning to buy it...you could run 50K miles per year and not pay a penalty if you are buying it outright.

Mod away

 

[ISFAN]

Originally posted by Martin:
Well.. I decided to lease and buy the car out @ the end.. I don't wanna put all this money into a car that I’m not going to keep. The way I see it. My payments stay low through out my whole time of having the car. (450$ now and probably 450 on the buy out or an additional 5 years) Also if I don't want the car after the 3-year lease I’ll have to buy it out and just sell it anyway. I’ve put 2,600 mile's on the car and I had it 1 1/4 month's and I only work 17 mile's away. I just like to drive allot. Besides if I wanna put an intake or an exhaust system on my car I wont have to worry about taking it off or getting fined because I’m going to buy it out.


Martin

Black/Ivory IS300

Why would you have to buy out the lease? I thought all leases were closed end, you walk away. Isn't it illegal to have open end leases anymore?

 

[ISFAN]

I have leased mine. The only way I will buy the car at the end of the lease is if the car is worth more then the residual. That is how a lease works. The residual which in my case is 22,000 is the amount I can buy the car for at the end of the lease. So, in 3 years if the IS300 is worth 25,000 or so, which I doubt, I would buy it and turn around and sell it out right and make a few K.

Other than that I walk away and get another new car.