No lease specials anymore.

[Blueshound]

Depends on the dealer and the deal. Sometimes dealers offer better deals on lease than purchases. Sounds like you're just going to dealers that offer better deals on purchases than leases. They're not all the same. Some states only charge you sales tax on the portion of the lease that you actually use so you don't get hit with the full sales tax on a purchase. If you buy a car and sell it in 3-5 years, you won't get any of the sales tax back unless you trade it in on another car and the state lets you get back the sales tax. And the other way the manufacturer subsidizes the lease is that they set an artificially high residual value so that at the end of the lease, the purchase price is higher than market value. That means you paid less for the lease than they originally though. So the lease can end up being cheaper than a purchase. But it all depends, can't make blanket statements and you always have to run the numbers to see if it's good or not. Leasehackr.com has a good calculator.

But with a lease, you never get free of monthly payments, right? You just stay in debt forever, lease after lease, year after year? No thank you.

 

[Wolf359]

But with a lease, you never get free of monthly payments, right? You just stay in debt forever, lease after lease, year after year? No thank you.

Actually you're not in debt, you're just borrowing something at a fixed rate. Basically renting instead of owning. But unlike a house where you need a place to live, you might end up in the situation where you don't need a car so there's no need to own one if you don't really need it beyond the rental period. A lease is basically a fixed rental at a fixed price for a fixed term. As mentioned earlier, it can be cheaper depending on the terms of the lease. In general, leases with low residual values are bad deals and leases with high residual values are better deals. You basically need to run the numbers and not make assumptions which are not valid.

I actually know someone who is retired on a pension and he just leases a new car every 3 years. No reason for him not to do that, he has plenty of money and his pension will continue til he's dead and he has no other use for the extra money due to the higher cost of the lease. He'd probably save a little money if he owned the same car for 10-15 years but he just prefers to be driving something new every 3 years, it's not like he's got another lifetime of cars ahead of him. In his situation, it makes sense for him to enjoy the fruits of his labor while he can.

 

[Andrew1972]

Carmakers, finance companies (lease) and dealerships all know people will easily pay full price for vehicles now. They will sell or lease as such and keep inventory low to maintain the higher margin sales vs building up trying excess inventory they need to sell off with incentives or lower margins.

It won’t change even after pandemic is over for a while.

 

[dlundblad]

Not if it's constantly in for repairs needing extremely expensive parts... cough(audi)

This is a common misconception here on BITOG.

FCP Euro has European car parts reasonably priced. Many of them are Genuine or OE and of the same quality of Genuine. I’d go so far as to say it’s easier and cheaper to get quality parts for them vs my Jeep or truck. Working on them isn’t a big deal either, although the suspension on my A4 can be frustrating at times.

If you don’t know how to work on things and/ or have to take your car in for every little repair, I can see any older car, regardless of brand, seeming expensive to own.

 

[CKN]

But with a lease, you never get free of monthly payments, right? You just stay in debt forever, lease after lease, year after year? No thank you.

Yes-but you always drive a new car....and not a beater.