tl;dr: Does anyone know how long it takes to get the title when buying out an Audi lease?
I’m nearing lease end on an Audi lease, and I have a bit of positive equity in the car (well under mileage). Unfortunately, my state’s tax laws and Audi’s leasing restrictions make that positive equity difficult to access. As far as I can tell (someone please correct me if I’m wrong), Audi doesn’t allow lease transfers within the last 6 months, and they don’t allow third party buyouts. Indiana requires me to pay tax on the remaining buyout amount, and then any private party buying the car would have to pay tax again on the purchase price to register the car (there’s no waiver like in CA, I checked with the state government). So most of the equity is eaten up by the $1800 in taxes, which have to be paid twice. Plus, who wants to buy an Audi convertible in December in Indiana…
Another option is to go with a dealer buyout, which would pretty much end up being a wash. From the dealer buyout amount I was quoted by a local (non-Audi) dealership, it seems that the dealer buyout doesn’t include tax, but does include @ $475 fee that isn’t included in my buyout cost.
The third option is to buy out the lease and then trade it in. This option is attractive because Indiana does allow sales tax credit for the trade-in value, so it avoids the extra fee and saves some on the taxes - enough to come out slightly ahead overall. The downside is that this can’t be used for a lease, since the tax credit would only be usable up to the full cost of the lease. I’ve been looking at gently used cars recently anyway, so that may end up being the way I go. Timing could be an issue though, because if I find the right car, I can’t be waiting weeks for my lease buyout to go through. At the same time, I don’t want to buy the lease out before I have a deal and take the chance of losing more money than the turn-in fee will be.
Has anyone here bought out an Audi lease? How long did it take to process? Also, is anyone familiar with how Audi determines the dealer buyout, and is it less for an Audi dealership? What about for a VW dealership?