Quote:
Originally Posted by ard
A lease is a rental.
You do NOT want to buy a car that ard has rented.
(Lessees are simply using -maybe abusing- a car for 3 years, then turn it in and move on... no way to know what kind of care was taken, other than the very minimal BMW specified.)
That is why I would never buy a lease.
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You could safely buy a vehicle that JCL has rented. Well, most of the time.
I think of a lease as a rental that only had one renter. To me, there is a big difference between a three year lease, and a daily rental that was rented out of an airport. I wouldn't worry about buying an ex-lease vehicle, and did once, many years ago. It was a Toyota pickup, and there were 50 of them just off lease, so I got to walk down the rows and pick the cleanest one.
I tend to buy cars and use them for three years or so, and then sell them. I don't lease, since there are no tax advantages here, and since I don't need to finance my vehicles. My point is that every vehicle I sold had been driven for several years by someone that knew he was going to dump it at the end of 36 months. I don't see why that is any different than a vehicle that the lease company held the title to instead of me. I try to take good care of my vehicles, but it is because of respect for the machinery, more than because I own them.
Something we agree on is that an inspection and review of service records will tend to show all this. I think there are ex-lease vehicles that are worth purchasing, and privately owned vehicles that aren't. If you eliminate half the potential vehicles to purchase, ie all the ex-lease ones, you reduce your chances of finding a good one. Just my $0.02
04-29-2011, 01:32 PM
Hybrid Mode
