Early lease termination penalties

[Gt86_nick]

So I have about a year and a half left on my lease and don't drive it enough to justify spending $300 a month for it (I have a work truck) I was wondering if anybody else has ended their lease early and knows what the penalties are or knows off the top of their head what they are or where I can find them. Thanks!


Ps: also please move if this is in the wrong section

[Kryptik319]

A lot of that will depend on the contract you signed. While some others may be able to give you a ballpark on what it cost them your best bet would be to call the dealer and ask for the person who does finance and talk it over with them.

[dphee79]

You don't have to pay any penalties. Depends on your payoff amount you might even have some equity. If you had a good downpayment and have low mileage, likely you will come out with some money. Find your payoff amount from your statement and get a rough value of your car from kbb.com. If you want other car you can trade your car. If you want to just sell it, Carmax makes it easy for you. i came out with $4k from Sienna that I leased after two years of lease.

[V_86]

I don't know about a year and a half. But I know with my last car, Toyota asked if I wanted to turn the car in 6 months early.

[btoast]

To add to what the others have said, what you can do (or at least what is logical to do) depends on what is owed. You have a contract that you will pay X amount for the use of the vehicle for Y period of time. So you have several options here:

1) Calculate your remaining monthly payments and pay it off then turn in the car. This is moronic as you are wasting money, but you will have fulfilled your portion of the contract contract. Remember the only part of the contract that is your responsibility to so pay a set amount of dollars, they do not care if you pay that early.

2) Find out what the current buy out price is of your vehicle and buy the car then trade it in or sell the car. All leases will have a vehicle purchase price that is calculated monthly based on how many months you have paid into your lease and the stated residual value of the vehicle at the end of your lease (this will be indicated in your lease paperwork). If this number is not too high, you can just purchase the car outright then sell it to recoup your money. If you do not have the funds or want to get financing to do so, you can just trade the car in and the dealer will take care of this for you.

I had an Acura TSX lease about 3 years ago and I was unhappy with the vehicle (just a quick purchase with regrets, nothing really wrong with the car just not my thing). I was about 13 months into my lease when I wanted out. Out of curiosity I took it to Car Max and they offered me $26,000 for the car (I only drive about 6k miles a year). Turns out my buy out figure at the time was $26,2xx. So I gave Car Max the car and washed my hands of it. Did I loose money, yes. In a sense I did. I paid on the car for just over a year and put down $1500 to get into the lease, but I was free of the car and I did not have to put much effort into getting rid of it.

3) Sign up for a service where people buy out leases. Leasetrader.com seems to be the most popular. I have no experience with this, but essentially someone can take over your lease so long as they have good enough credit. Basically, from what I gather, you and the perspective lease takeover person contact the auto finance company and request the transfer at which point the take over person will be subject to the same credit check and information check you were when you leased the car. If they qualify they take the car over.

[Vroomin86]

I am a finance manager for Scion/Toyota and I can confirm that everything that has been posted here is correct. It's all about what your payoff is VS. what the current value of the car is. Unless you got a ridiculously low Residual/big down payment/extremely low miles, then you will most likely be upside down and will have to come up with the difference if you want to get out early. GL

[NoChance]

There are several websites where you can list your lease for somebody to take it over or trade.

[allanjeffreyy]

You can also find someone to take over lease your car