I have a pending lease deal:
12K miles @ $256/mo $9216 over 36months
15K miles @ 279/mo $10,004 over 36months
If I take the 12K miles and pay .25cents mile charge it would be $750. I may not actually drive up to 15K miles (maybe in the 14K range).
Should I do the 12K and pay some penalty or 15K deal and maybe come out ahead in the end?
Depends on the city you live in. If there’s a lot of open rural driving then the 15k may be your best bet. Also, if it’s your only car, then you’re probably best going with 15k since you don’t have another option if you need to go somewhere.
Personally, I opted for 15k on my lease since the cost was pretty marginal (like yours) and realized about 6 months in that I probably didn’t need it.
Yeah, 15K is safer…my other option is to pre-pay mileage but was told GM leases do not offer that option.
My previous Ford lease was for 13,500 miles/year, which was perfect.
If you’re flexible with your driving and have another vehicle, you probably don’t need the 15k as much as you think you do. But at least 15k gives you peace of mind for $800.
12K easy.
Worst case scenario you might pay $750 vs paying $788 upfront.
How is this even a debate?
Edit: I misread the $750. It’s $1500 maybe vs $788 for sure. I’d still go for the 12K. This way you can control your cost. And your lease may end early or you may do a pull ahead.
The $750 mileage charge you calculated is only for 3k miles (1 year). If you drive 15k/year for the whole term, the total overage charge would be $2250. Take the 15k/year term now since it’s only costing you $828 total.
I was calculating the $750 as the mileage charge over the life of the lease (36 months) if I went with a 12K mile lease and went over by 3000 miles x .25cents/mi.
In the end I’d save about $97 IF i drove 15K miles. If I drive less then I’d save more (unless I’m totally missing something).
So you mean if you drive 13k/year, thus 3k total miles over? Doesn’t seem worth the headache to save $78 dollars total.
You made the same mistake I made.
Option 1: You pay an additional $788 upfront
Option 2: You save $788, but you could potentially pay 9000 miles X 0.25 = $2250 if you drive 3K more miles a year each of the 3 years.
2250-788 = 1462
So your choice is pay $788 upfront to potentially save $1462.
There is a lot of economic theory on what you should do. But it comes down to how risk averse are you? If you’re really risk averse go with 15K. If you have a high risk tolerance go with 12K.