I've done the lease thing and I did it wrong. But I learned. To all those that put it down, it makes sense if you look at it as, you will always have a car payment but you will always have maintenance covered. Every car I have had ends up with a monthly payment, even when it is paid off. The thing I did wrong when I leased, was I stopped leasing. I bought the car at the end of the lease and ended up paying way too much for it. Again, it was dumb and I learned. You Live, you Learn.
People can justify a lease when they are scared of maintenance (generally overestimating the cost of maintenance for most cars) or want to continuously have a new german/luxury car that depreciates like a rock and is expensive to maintain. It honestly does make sense to lease a BMW/Mercedes/Audi because they are a nightmare out of warranty and lose half their value in the first 3-4 years. But a Subaru or Toyota (especially a 4runner where you usually sell above kbb/nada) are reliable and have good resale so I just don't get leasing except for the lower monthly payment.
We are leasing for a few reasons. My wife likes to drive new vehicles and it makes more sense for her to lease right now instead of buy and trade in. We are also new to Subaru so having basically a long term rental was more comfortable for me instead of buying. And as much as people get all worked up over other people's financial decisions, it is a perk that the monthly payment is less.
i'm sure the incentives and reimbursements that you get as an employee make it an extremely lucrative proposition for you to lease, something that definitely doesn't apply to the general public.
FWIW, I am a party who highly benefited from the leasing program. I bought my FXT from a salesman at St. Cloud Subaru who had leased it for 1 year, and I was able to buy the vehicle that I desired at a lower cost because it came used with low mileage. I knew that it was dealer maintained frequently so I felt extra confidence in buying used with that knowledge and a full record of everything done since the day of delivery from the dealership. Also after seeing/experiencing the depreciation of any new vehicle, this was about best case scenario in my mind.
Buying out a lease is usually a good option because the dealership was paying for maintenance most/all of the time. Especially if you get it CPO with a warranty. Except when you get a car from someone who didn't give a **** about it and beat the hell out of it because it was just a lease.
I wish that were true. Demo vehicles and killer deals aren't an incentive in the industry like they used to be. At least not at Morries. My purchase price at the dealership is generally $500-600 less than invoice pricing. Mike
To the OP, congrats on your purchase. I can only SMH and palm my face at all the anti-Subaru advice you received. I have financed two vehicles since I purchased and moved into my house 6 years ago. I made a bit of money when I traded one for the other, like a free lease even better. Equity, shmequity, I have made my mind up a long time ago that I will always have a car payment. It just so happens that since I have gone the way of WRX I have never seen myself upside down financially on these vehicles, even now I was offered more than I owe by an Audi dealer for my STI while killing time helping my nephew buy his first car, granted have no idea if the same residual value occurs with other models but when I first moved to MN I was told Subarus are investments. Another thing I have never seen is a drop of oil on my garage floor in the six years I have had an EJ25 engine parked in it. @Nhibbs shaddup in advance...
That's because all the oil gets burned up and sent out the tailpipe! Also you can't tell me what to do, you're not even my real dad!