I leased a 2022 330i xDrive in May 2022 and my lease ends in May 2025. I believe I paid about $5000 at signing and my monthly payment with tax and everything is $751 a month. From what I am reading now, it doesn’t seem like it was the best deal given the MSRP and everything, I am attaching a picture of the sticker below. Right now, my lease pay out before the December payment goes through is $34,422.16 and the residual is $28,753.65.
My question is if it is worth keeping the car or moving into a better lease to get a better value. I love everything about the car and it has just under 21k miles on it. The dealer mentioned that it will need the rear breaks and tires all over soon (I thought it is a little early), which is going to be another expense on the car probably in a year if I buy it out.
Right now I think the only thing I would switch it for is another 330 or the possibility of an M340. The dealer quoted me $1132 a month with $5900 DAS for a $67k M340 which I wasn’t sure if it was a good deal. I see some auto brokers posting on this site new 330 leases for about 520/month before tax and very little down. What should I expect to pay on another 330 lease with nothing out of pocket and all taxes fees rolled in? What should the difference in price be to upgrade to an M340?
Let me know any thoughts or suggestions on how to figure out what the best option is as I have just started getting into this form and am excited to get better lease deals.
I doubt it makes sense to buy out your lease at the end because you will probably have negative equity. The same car today can be had for about $500 a month depending on your state tax system. Discounts of 10-12% for this car are common right now.
Not bad I believe they are in the yellow zone when the technician sent me a video. Im guessing within the next year it will need to be changed.
Is it not suggested to buy these kinds of cars out of the lease? My thinking was that most people have said the reliability of these cars has improved, and seeing that they only refreshed the lights on the newer model, I can basically finance the buy out for around 30k and will still be driving an updated version of the car for the next few years.
Again, new to this and open to any suggestion of how to consider these options and the long term costs.
I was mainly concerned about your safety, and wanted to make sure you weren’t deferring services that are needed now.
Most cars don’t make sense to buy at lease end. Generally you’ll be financially better off just buying something if you intend to keep it longer than the lease term you may be considering.
Your vehicle is probably going to be worth less than the residual, and if that’s true you’d essentially be overpaying for a used car.
There are pro’s and con’s to buying your car at lease end.
Pro - You’ve had the car since new and know the history; If you like it and want to keep it, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Con - You may be overpaying since the RV is set, it might not be close to market value, do some research to check. You may be spending $1k or $2k or $5k more to buyout your specific car vs. another similar spec 330.
Con - The obvious maintenance and wear and tear expenses of owning a 4+ year old German car vs. leasing something else brand new.
FWIW I bought my last lease out at lease end over the summer (Mercedes). I certainly didn’t lease with the intention of buying it at lease end, but I liked the car, also lightly used, and there wasn’t anything else I liked at the price point. Of course it helps that my RV buyout was actually around $10k under market value.
Doesn’t having a residual buyout $10K below market value just means you already paid $10K more than you should have if the lease had the proper residual to start with?
The RV on my truck was 49%. If MBFS had fortune telling abilities and could set it to match the market value exactly in June 2024, it would be more like 62%.
If I adjust my calculator from a 49% to 62% RV it drops the payment by about $250, which would have saved $10,500 in payments over a 42 mo. lease.
But in the real world a 49% RV was realistic in late 2020; MBFS rarely has any interest in inflating AMG RV’s just to make leases more attractive.
You should try to get a AMG GLE63s right now. @BENZORNOTHING has his AMG63s GLE listing less monthly than the 580 trim since the 48 month AMG resid is being propped up.
