Lease is ending in 90 days for my Q7. We had fewer out of town trips than I anticipated so I have not hit 36K miles. I am thinking I can get equal or more than the payoff amount from a third party rather than returning the car the Audi to avoid the lease return fee. Has anyone hear sold their Audi outside and paid off the lease amount?
Here is the language from the Lease-End guide -
In addition to the lessee or the co-lessee, an immediate family member may be eligible to purchase the vehicle. They will need to show proof of kinship.
You can. But if you go to an Audi dealer you will get option… A,B,C… but do know that carvanna will get a higher option for C ( which I do believe is the only option with third party… straight buy out, nothing charge to you, but you have to be the original leasee)
I would do carvanna, vroom and carmax, with just straight buy out. Then calculate the value with you buying out lease with tax… if you have the money on hand, great, if not calculate loan fees.
If it make sense, do it… if not… send it to lease return
I’m going to be in the same boat here in a few months…
So if I try to sell the car to carmax/vana/vroom before lease end then they will have to pay more then the residual payoff quote I see through Audi Financial since they are not me or a family member? Or would they pay the same payoff quote I see?
Selling the 4Runner lease my wife previously had was very straightforward and naively figured this one would be too.
For what it’s worth- before finding this thread we took a 2018 Audi Q5 w/ 10 mos remaining to a Porsche Dealer as a trade in. They offered to match Vroom’s offer to buy the car. Our payoff amount from Audi FS website was $36k. Vroom and the Porsche dealer offered $34k. We accepted- we’d owe $2k. But - at the dealer we discovered
Audi FS quotes a different buyout price to DEALERS, even another VW company dealer
the won’t tell the dealer the buyout over the phone- we and they had to wait 1 hour for a fax
the buyout price to the DEALER was $40k… WAY above what the car was worth (wholesale or retail). $4k MORE than our buyout price. So we left the dealer after a couple of hours “empty handed”
We called Audi FS- and they said “yep- we can charge dealers more”, but not if you buy/lease another Audi. This seemed clearly designed to prevent someone from trading in an Audi to lease another make.
So, we purchased ourself, paid $15 to get title fed-ex’d to us, and per CA DMV have 10 days from the receipt of title to sell to another party without having to pay use tax. So we drove back to the Porsche dealer and made the same deal a week later.
Sort of “smarting” from this, and not real anxious to lease from Audi again. Anyway be aware everyone… John
I also had very bad experience with AudiFS. After my leased car got totaled due to an accident. Insurance paid AudiFS to settle with over $6k more than my buyout. I was hoping to get those excess money, but AudiFS kept it all! I love Audi Q5, but will stay away from AudiFS.
The idea of making money off a lease because the car is totaled is kinda strange to me. They don’t charge us more at disposition if the car is worth less due to market conditions.
@John_Clarke wow this is interesting. i was hoping to sell to carvana/carmax however their quote is a couple grand lower than the lease buyout price. I am thinking of listing the car as a private seller hoping to get just enough so I do not have to pay the disposition fee.
I got the inspection done with the 3rd party company AIM 45 days prior to lease end. No issues with the bodywork but the front tires came up at just over 4/32. Inspector said if at lease end it is below 4/32, Audi considers that not acceptable and have to be replaced. I got the tires rotated to the back to minimize any additional wear on the tires. Anyone have any issues with having to replace tires closer to lease return?
That’s not how it works. AudiFS owes you $6k. Surprised they didn’t send you the check automatically. They cannot keep your money. You are the insurance policy holder, not Audi. You keep the excess. That’s not even an issue of company policy, it’s a legal issue.
Brother. We pay the insurance premiums for the exchange of risk. That’s not Audi’s money. The whole point of the lease is the risk of fluctuation in value. If value decreases lower than residual, we win. If it doesn’t, then Audi wins. They surely don’t lower the lease if the value increases more than the residual…
What is it that you don’t understand? Insurance is an exchange of risk from the person buying the insurance to the insurance company.
Yeah…but Audi FS owns the car. We are renting it for X number of months at X price. If you do get into an accident Audi FS takes a huge hit when the car is returned with an accident on the car’s history. They don’t come after you for that difference in value.
Well then Audi should pay for the insurance like a true fair lease would be set up! Instead they force us into purchasing insurance…better yet, Audi would get a better rate on the insurance due to their shear volume.
Your logic doesn’t make sense, we pay the premiums and they receive the benefit from the hedged risk? You do realize there is a chance you lose on the value from the insurance too right (which is where gap coverage comes into play which a lot of dealers have baked into their lease cost).
I don’t think you completely understand how finance / insurance works. Its a transfer of risk.
Audi GAP waives any payoff quote. You are covered if insurance pays less but they also don’t payout difference if insurance pays more.
You can argue with people all you want about logic and legality but this is the cold hard answer AudiFS gave me and others on the site who tried to get money from total loss payoff lol
