[A4] Prospective A4 Buyer

[Rocky Mullin]

At 4:48 AM +0000 7/7/06, docwyte at comcast.net wrote:
>
>Rocky makes some good points about leasing.  It works for him, but I 
>think he's the exception to the rule.  When you're leasing a car, 
>you're just renting it.  In general, you're upside down in a lease 
>and at lease end, you turn it in and have no equity and lose your 
>down payment.

	i believe that is a misinformed perspective.  you lose so 
much value when you drive a car for three years that leasing makes 
total sense - you're simply paying for the part of the car that you 
use.  you have no equity
because you've not wasted your money on equity that is lost as you own the
car - thousands of it when you simply drive off the lot.  the notion of
equity in a vehicle borders on asinine, but the car makers want us to believe
in it because they want to sell cars.  a $35k car that is only worth $10k
in 6 years is a poor definition of equity.

	i have a $40k car.  the day after i bought it it was worth $35k maybe.
at the end of the lease it'll be worth $25k, maybe.  i will have paid under
$12k, including my $3k down.  how is that upside down?   of course, it's
important to understand leases and get a good deal on one, and don't get
suckered into buying it out.

	not only that, but i can choose to drop another $4k and drive it
another year, while it depreciates another $2k to $4k.  i'm still not
upside down.

	i'm driving a forty thousand dollar car for twelve thousand dollars.
and i get to get an awesome new car in two years and start over again.  no
hassle selling it, never paying a cent for service or repairs, always a chance
to drive the newest freshest thing.  last thing i want hanging onto my ass
is a car that is worth less than i still owe on it in four or five years
when there are cars on the road just as good (likely better) that get better
MPG, run on diesel, is a hybrid.  i plan to laugh at all the suckers who
owe $30k on their SUV when gas is $6/gallon and you can't give away those
pieces of shit.  the auto industry is going to change along with the world.

>Take me as a counter point, I drive at least 20k miles a year on my 
>daily driver.  That doesn't include the miles I put on my track car, 
>on our beater Jeep or on my wife's car.  I live 4.5 miles from work. 
>I don't really leave the state (colorado), yet I pack the mileage 
>on.  A lease just won't work for me, besides the fact that I can't 
>seem to keep my cars stock.

	mileage is the one reason IMO to decide against a lease.  a mod
freak like yourself can even deal with a lease, if they're willing to do
nonpermanent mods and if they have a sympathetic dealer.  mine's merely
chipped.  i mod my bikes.  i'd definitely like to be able to afford another
URQ to play with,

>My answer is to choose cars carefully and buy "deals".  I owned my 
>S4 avant for about 1.5 years.  I played with it, had fun and sold it 
>for a net ownership cost of less than $300 a month.  That's cheaper 
>than leasing and I could mod the car and drive it as much as I 
>wanted with no worries.  I'm about to pick up an UrS4 that I could 
>part out for more than I'm paying for it.

	reminds me of the old maserati biturbo.  the five thousand dollar
car with the ten thousand dollar engine :)

>The key is to try to minimalize being upside down in the car, which 
>is difficult since they're a depreciating asset.  When you lease, 
>you're immediately upside down...

	see, that's just not true for the shrewd leaser and the right car.
mini coopers are a perfect example.  they retain their value, so you can
negotiate a high residual, which lowers payments drastically.  every thousand
bucks you put onto that residual value is a great drop in your monthly
payment.   subaru for instance has terrible lease programs

-- 
  Rocky Mullin 

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  http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=britt_23_2