Hope this is the right place for a general, open-ended question such as this…
Quick background on me: I lease a 2018 Stinger GT (Sunset Yellow) for about 10k miles a year and I drive approximately 23k to 25k a year based on my current driving habits for work. Moving out of my house closer to work is not an option for me at the moment. My Stinger is currently being re-painted based on a type of recall the manufacturer put out for faulty paint.
For the question: I had originally leased the Stinger because the lease cash being offered was much greater than discounts on financing (I didn’t have liquid cash to buy the vehicle or even do a one pay scenario on the lease) and planned to keep the vehicle if I liked it enough or sell it before the end of the lease. I still plan on doing those two things since I do really like the car, but I also though maybe I should get a commuter vehicle to keep mileage down? I will have about $5k dollars cash to work with.
a) Should I hold on to the 5k and roll that into a mutual fund to make interest during the time of the lease to try to mitigate the negative equity from additional mileage?
b) Use the money to buy a used beater-commuter car? This is complicated for me as my HOA only enables each household to have 2 cars and my household is already at the 2 car limit. I would be parking the commuter car out of sight of my home.
c) Allow Kia to buy back my Stinger completely, wash my hands of it, and lease/finance something else with 0 money down?
What would the hackrs do if they were in my position? What would Jesus do? What would Vin Diesel do?
If you’re simply planning to return it at the end of the lease, the repaint wouldn’t bother me, but I would be looking to Kia for some compensation for the trouble. I would not want to own that car after the lease because even with documentation, the car has been repainted and that’ll be a value hit.
I like the two car solution in some way though am not a proponent of the beater commuter car - you’ll probably not be happy with that and you should be if you’re having to basically live in it.
Option A definitely. If you invested that $5k in aapl 3 months ago, that will be worth $6.5k now. If you bought AMD 3 months ago, you could have $10k right now. Dont ever invest in depeciating assets.
Well, it would be easier to back into this from the outset, but since you already have one lease in the mix, it complicates matters.
A cheap beater will work, but will you be happy driving that car 12K-15K miles per year? Also dealing with 2 cars, especially when one is used, is a pain in the ass. Parking, Maint, reselling.
Personally, I would just buy a Honda civic and call it day. Not worth it to lease. You are going to be on the hook for another 8K-10K in mileage fees at the end.
If I did lease something, it would be with the plan to buy it out and drive it into the ground at lease end.
But you’ve got $5k so spend on a beater? I’m sure you could get something reliable and cheap for that but I wouldnt personally want to spend so much time, miles and risk in it.
If you don’t want to spend more on a monthly for whatever reason, pick up a cheap one-pay lease.
