Early Leases Ending Soon...
 

So I know some of you guys leased the car when it was released as i did, and were coming up on the 36 month mark. Even if you have a year left you might have an idea, but what are you guys doing with your 86? What is your residual?

My lease ends in June and with my current circumstances I feel like it would be best to keep the car. I will be able to buy it for about 17k (hopefully they offer it to me for less?) and I still really like the car. The only real upgrades in my eyes would be at least double the price, and im trying to buy a house so bigger payments is not something i want. I still REALLY want a Lexus IS 350 F Sport though.

Looking at all of the FRS for sale around me, i think that 17k is a decent price for a car with >36000 miles and some body work done to it.

I still have 15 months but mine is so modded I'll just buy it outright. No true regret. If I had financed it I would have already traded in and lost my ass for a new WRX...so there's that. I'll probably leave it exactly as-is besides maybe an axleback until the lease is up and then the same day I buy it out I'll order a turbo kit in celebration. Either way, this car will be basically worthless in a few years so I might as well keep it forever.

You can mod the car if your leasing it ? I never knew that. That's why I didn't lease. I just bought the car as financing so it can be mine and can mod it.

My car is modded as well which is another small factor the makes keeping it sound good as I wouldnt have to return it back to stock. Nothing big, but still saves some hastle.

Of course you can. Just remove the mods at lease end or buy the car out.

As long as the car comes back the way you received it (fully stock OEM) then you're ok. The dealership won't compensate you for the mods and they won't want the headache of servicing parts the manufacturer didn't produce when they try to sell it.

The service manager said I could. He said people come in with different wheels all the time on their leases. As long as it is in good condition and 99% stock on turn in they typically don't care 1 way or the other

Out of curiosity, what were they charging down and per month on leases for this?

I put $2k down and wheel/tire insurance base automatic for $324/mo 12k miless a year for 3 years. They gave us $7k to clear our financing for a car worth about $4800 on trade so I thought it was fair.

My car is on lease but I'm slowly modding it.

It doesn't matter what you do to the car if you plan to keep it afterwards on the lease.

My buyout is 12grand CDN so I will just buyout the car at the end of the lease.

This is intriguing. Just so I'm understanding this correctly... If I plan on buying out my lease, I can put a exhaust, intake, new wheels, tints on it? What about when I take it in for the 12,500 + 25,000 mile service appointments??

1) Yup!

2) Mods won't have any effect on your free services.

Those of you who have the option of buying it for 17k, here's some perspective.

A 2013 FR-S with about 13,000 miles was traded in a few weeks ago. The dealership gave the owner $17k for trade-in, and is now being sold for $21k.

So yes, a <36k miles FR-S for $17k residual is pretty good. The buying price was predicted on predicted market value, so it's right on spot, maybe even better.

I'm planning on leasing mine & buying it. I can put a good down payment to get my payments below 300/month for a base model. But I'm more interested in a limited-production model.

The service department doesn't care if your car is leased, financed or owned outright. Same services same terms.

The dealer ended my lease early so they could out me in a 1.0

I was a first day release owner

How early? Like a month or two early? Last time I brought the frs in for service, a salesman mentioned that if I go for another scion/Toyota they could get me out of my lease early but didn't elaborate exactly how early

I believe it depends on the value of your car if you turn it in early. If the market dictates that your car is worth more than the residual ... You come out ahead and can use that to turn the car in early.

That's just their way of getting you as a return customer. It's the crunching numbers game. If they notice that you are well under the allowed mileage, you have a lot of lease equity. Basically that equity will cover the early termination fee, if there is one applicable. The rest would be used for a down payment, and if you have a lot of equity (low miles) on the lease turn-in you can end up with some low monthly payments.

The most important factor is how much mileage you have under what was agreed upon. This was the case when I ended a Scion xD lease after 1 year and only put 6000 miles out of the 12,000.

I could've put around $12K down and financed my car but I decided to lease as well. My residual will be around the $17K mark once my term is up in 2 years. I'm averaging only 6,000 miles annually so my car will have less than 20K miles once the term is up. Still deciding what to do...might be in the mood for a sedan hehe.

On the flip side .... if you don't use the allotted mileage (say 10K,12K per year) and you turn it in .... you probably paid too much up front for the lease. The leases are based on mileage. A 10K lease is less than a 12K lease. Although if you are under-mileaged and want to continue leasing/financing a toyota/subie car .... then you have some room for bargaining.

i cant believe anyone that has any interest of modding their brz/frs down the road would ever lease one of these cars in the first place...

Your best bet is to get a used one at that point. Admittedly, I probably should've done that myself, but I wanted something new :p

Leasing is good some instances
 

Leased mine. Mine was one of the earliest to arrive in Canada just after the first 86 in the states were sold. Ordered it way before test driving it. Decided to lease as it was a guarantee that I could simply hand the car back after 4 years no questions asked if it was a lemon. My intent was to keep it for as long as humanly possible and as you can see from my mods to date, I am very happy with the car and will be buying it out on its fourth birthday. The final phase of my OFT 300 build (supercharger) will be the gift on that day. June 6, 2016.
:cheers:

I bought new and started modding the next day. But just like you, i wanted something new. I just dont understand leasing with cars like this

My FRS residual was $19.9k. I tried throwing it on the market for a few months at only 13k miles and $21k...not even a nibble. Its an ok deal if you want to buy it out, but since I wanted to get out I'm really glad I leased it.

Well, I have interest in modding and leased mine. Sure, in the long run i lose money, but it's just easier to make smaller payments compared too if i bought it.

It does limit our options - all of my mods are the kind I can reverse on my own in the span of a weekend...

That said, the limited mileage sucks. Especially if a lot of that mileage will be spent sitting in traffic - this car is wasted on gridlocked city streets.

Also, my residual is about 18k CAD for a car with 60,000km on it (I'm expecting to be overmileage anyways though)

Uhh...you aren't using up your mileage "...sitting in trafic...gridlocked".

If you commute on a daily basis to/from work, 40 km gridlocked is still 40 km....
Except it's 40km of less-than-enjoyable driving, that could've been spent on a twisty road elsewhere.

You said sitting in traffic. You gain 0 miles/km just sitting there.

And if you're complaining about spending 40km in gridlock, why continue to do it? Find another (more fun) route around it even if means putting more mileage into it. Apparently, you value fun more than anything.

:thumbsup:

Not all cities are blessed with good roads within easy reach - I'm lucky in that I do have one alternate route which is off the beaten path and saves me from the gridlock on the way home - the problem is, it isn't as good an option for the drive in (due to varied traffic conditions).
And this thread is related to leased cars - Mileage does happen to be a big economic part of the decision-making, so that it isn't always feasible to drive the 1-2hrs to find fun roads (though I try to make do with off ramps and on ramps).

I'm not sure where the confusion comes from - the point isn't that you lose or gain mileage, but that the mileage you spend in traffic isn't the best use of this car. If you don't think being in traffic (slow or gridlocked) is a waste of this car's potential, I don't know what to tell you.