You get over 50% returns in 3 years with your Vanguard account? MSDs is usually a no-brainer. You are parking $3825 (9 x $425) to save $1925.
@lagvette your money is much better parked at Lexus than Vanguard. Your payment savings per month are going to be prob in excess of $50/mo but lets say conservatively $40/mo (could be less, I didn’t do the calculation just shooting from the hip).
$40x35 (remaining payments) = $1400 savings on parking $4275 with Lexus (at that’s on the conservative side, i bet it’s more).
Doubt you get better return at Vanguard. The risks/benefits of MSDs have been talked about a lot on this forum, i suggest you do a search to get a better understanding as it is not without risk.
I agree with @MIKETOOLZ if the savings are indeed $10/mo then don’t put MSDs.
The argument(s)
about MSD are credible to me, But leaving $4275 in Lexus hands to be “deducted” as they determine for a "wear&tear"
that really isn’t quantified is a bad bet. Just finished a 2 hour inspection on returning CLS 550 by 4autovin, a company Merecedes hired to perfom lease turn in appraisals. My wife’s car was kept perfect by me, 6000 under mileage, and yet
A 1/2 surface slice on a tire was deducted $279. The inspector told me my car was the cleanest, nicest vehicle he EVER
inspected! Yet, through appeals process that took weeks, I paid $179 to replace the Pirelli. He told me his average wear and tear is running $2500-3000. MB has no security deposit from me, I don’t want to envision what Lexus will find when my $4275 is due to be refunded!
@lagvette
the notion that a car company is more likely to “deduct” wear & tear charges if they are holding a security deposit is based on nothing but speculation. The 3rd party guy Mercedes hired has no idea that you put down MSDs. His job is straight forward, mark down wear & tear items per Mercedes’ guidelines, that’s it.
If they didn’t hold your MSDs and said you owe them for certain damage, what are you going to do? Not pay and have the bill go to collection and ruin your credit? You have to pay one way or the other. That’s also the reason why there’s a pre-inspection a month before lease turn in…so you have time to address the issues.
Now I can’t speak for Mercedes because i don’t have experience with them, I can tell you from my experience that BMW is very lenient with wear items, so is Honda and I didn’t have any issues turning in a Lexus late 2016 that wasn’t babied at all…in fact it had some pretty good signs of use from having dogs and they did have my MSDs. The only issue i had with Lexus was that they thought I didn’t return both keys and they tried to bill me for the second key but i had paperwork showing that I turned in both keys and they took it off right away.
If you had a bad experience with MB that sucks but I want to stop the spread of the idea that a car you get dinged for more because you have MSDs in their hand. It’s not true.
On a side note, as a general rule, third party banks like US Bank etc are known for trying to hit you hard on the lease return, typically captive lenders are more lenient.
3 Likes
Jon, If the money factor is .0008 then the corresponding interest rate would be 1.92% so I am having a hard time figuring how how that equates to $61.00/mo interest on approx 15K finance. What am I missing here?
Read up on how to calculate the monthly payments. The rent charge is (cap cost + RV) * MF, so in this case, it’s (45825 + 30905) * .0008 = $61.38/month.
The following thread about MF is also very informative:
Speculation, maybe, 64 years of life, and now the manufacturers are hiring outside vendors to do the lease turn in
Why? So the manufacturers don’t fight with the “client” over wear and tear fees… "I can’t help you says MB, you have to speak with the inspection company."Company Rep told me MB inspects when vehicle is returned, if they did not notate an issue, MB deducts from their fees. MB gets paid no matter what! Been leasing
Co car since 85,
300ZX, every 3 years for wife, the game gets harder and harder. BMW was worst! Wife hit garbage can scratch 7 inches.
Repaired at leasing dealer, $1900 bucks, at end of lease filed Accident report on CARFAX,cost me 2 grand when I traded it in due to “accident”! In my humble opinion, Dealers don’t like to write checks to customers, they want U to write the check! That’s
How they make money. Thanks for your Thoughts!
@lagvette
you will find it very hard to find someone on this forum to say BMW is the worst for lease returns. I’m not 64 but I’ve done my fair share of leasing spanning decades.
BMW won’t nickel and dime you, i’m not very careful with my cars and never had an issue. If you do hit something and cause a 7 in scratch that’s a different story. That clearly exceeds “normal” wear & tear. A $1900 repair bill speaks for the fact that it wasn’t minor, regardless how you feel about it. I also don’t understand why it cost you $2k, at the end of the lease. You simply turn the car in, doesn’t matter what’s on the carfax, that’s the whole point of leasing, the car isn’t your problem, it’s their problem. The leasing company takes the residual hit at the end. I had an accident on my last BMW, took it to Carmax to see if i had any equity (i do that with every lease, sometimes you get lucky), they came back with a payoff that was $10k under what I thought i’d get. They told me straight up “if you car was in an accident, don’t bother trying to see if there is equity, they won’t offer much for the car”. So what did i do? Return the car to BMW …not my problem…car is worth $10k less than if it didn’t have an accident and it’s BMW’s problem. I leased another BMW so the cost to me was zero, had i gotten into another brand it would have cost me the dispo fee of $350 which I would have had to pay anyway so zero downside. Thats why i don’t understand how you ended up with a $2k hit.
Also the reason why they hire third party companies to do lease end inspections isn’t for fear of fighting with the customer, the car industry isn’t exactly shy to fight with the customer. It’s simply more cost effective to farm this out.
Also, BMW in my region does the lease end inspection on site at the dealership by a dealership employee so it’s not even a third party. I realize that’s not everywhere but at least in my area it is.
By far the easiest and most lenient lease end return I’ve ever had was with Honda. They just give you $1500 allowance which even covers the tires. Any damage/wear up to $1500 is covered. That’s more than fair.
1 Like
Yep, BMW lease return for me was easy on two X5’s. The guy at the dealer walked around the car once, and we walked inside and in 10 minutes or so, I was done. Third party inspections look like they would be tougher because they don’t want the vehicle manufacturers to ding them, so they might over compensate. That may be something to consider then when leasing MB, paying more at lease end.
I had a sport trim Mercedes C300 and I scraped the bottom of the front bumper on a 7/11 driveway that was poorly sloped. You could see the huge white scratches on the mid bottom of the bumper where it was scratched (my definition is gouged but that is not acceptable by MB lease return standards) by the rocks in the pavement.
Exactly like this (not mine but extremely similar):
The Ray Catena Lexus dealer who accepted my lease return promised me they would touch it up with touchup paint. After I read your post I immediately went on the mercedes financial page and looked at my lease return papers. No charge. If you look at the lease return policies you’ll know what is acceptable or not. The dealer said it was no biggie because the damage was not longer then the short side of the credit card so it’s ok anyways, but he would touch it up just in case.
So your bad experience is from yourself dude.
Mercedes Lease Return Policies:
https://www.mbfs.com/mbfsr/en/faqs/faqLeaseFirstClassFinish.do#what
@lagvette - That’s a great discount. What part of the country are you located? Can you give me the name of the dealership? Good luck with your purchase!
Thanks Jon, I was only calculating interest on the adj CC -RV, so I stand corrected and appreciate the info.
Did you end up getting the RX? If so, what was the final deal?
@chrispbacon
that’s interesting that they figured it’s less than the short side of a credit card because it’s so many scratches in one area. I would have figured they would have said the entire area is messed up. I wonder how they determine that…good for you that they didn’t charge you for it.
yeah they also “touched it up” with touchup paint. I didn’t see the final result but apparently it might’ve fooled the inspector. I wasn’t present for the inspection.
@chrispbacon at bmw, when it comes to front lip scratches like that, I was told that they only charge you if you can see it standing in front of the car from 10 feet away (i don’t recall the exact distance but it had to be visible if you stand in front of the car). I guess they don’t even care if it’s “under” the car because you can’t really see it.
Sir,
I appreciate your reply to my situation. I am very surprised that bumper scratch was not deducted! I can tell from your post you were open to discuss it with MB, but they resolved it to your satisfaction. When I went to MB and asked for clarification on why the tire needed to be replaced, I was told, "it’s out of our hands! you need to speak with the inspection company " I also asked for a copy of which you kindly highlighted, and was told they did not have a copy and would see about sending me one. After the Mgr offered to replace, mount and balance the
Pirelli at a very fair discount, I just wanted to resolve the situation without further adeu, and that’s what I did.
I appreciate all who “chipped” in!
Jon,
Waiting for resolution from Lexus on my certificate issue. Long story!
Sir,
Located in Georgia. Once I finally sign will provide dealer and salesman.
is this the made up forged certificate or a real one?
that will help others.
I was able to get a code that was not used , but have to get that code and my name on the certificate.
Since the code is from Lexus, it will pass validation , but may not able to match my name.
1 Like