Cash down vs Single pay

TL,DR

one pay lease + car gets totaled = Shit out of luck?

There have been conflicting reports on this.

I personally called GM Financial and asked this and was told single payment would be forfeited. I am not sure if they 100% understood the question.

A poster here said Mercedes would pro-rate the unused part of the single pay lease back to the customer.

pro-rating the “unused part” and a refund seems like the logical thing to do

If the rebates went toward cap cost and your ACV exceeded the payoff amount, you would get money back from your insurer.

Wouldn’t that be a totally separate transaction than from the single pay lease being possibly pro-rated?

Yes. …(20)

I mean, single pay leases are only good for crazy extreme deals right? Like the chevy’s from last month?

Why else would you single-pay? Lower the money factor I guess that doesn’t make sense on an average lease right?

When the company states it will prorate returns, there is no risk of being SOL.

Even on an expensive Mercedes lease the savings could be worth it.

Actually you save more on the more expensive leases since more principal is being charged interest.

Just found out a written clause in my GM lease which should clear some air on what should happen if one pay leased car is totaled…
To my knowledge, general motors will give you pro rated portion back.

:fearful: really? wow, must be a crazy story. I hope you were ok, but oh man what a day that was.

Awesome! Thank you for that info. I knew when I called them the rep had no clue what they were talking about or what I was even asking.

That actually doesn’t say GM will give you the unused prorated portion back, it just says you’ll receive a credit for it. This is important because gap insurance might not work on one pays.

Here’s the rub, let’s say your lease balance is 30k with $10k one pay and it gets totaled a day after signing. The insurance adjuster decides the replacement value is $28k and pays out that amount. According to that GMF they will prorate basically the entire $10k back to you as a credit and so now you get 28k+10k-30k= 8k back, it doesn’t say anything about gap insurance covering that $2k you’ve lost.

To really confirm you need to get ahold of somebody that works in the gap insurance department.

That section also does not say anything about gap insurance in the monthly payment lease section either, but we know gap insurance is included on all GM Financial leases. This includes single pay leases.

I see your point though.

Exactly. GM financial includes gap insurance on all of their leases.