End of lease options on my E450 wagon

Why can’t I ask how much it would cost just out of curiosity?! Wtf is with this attitude?

Similar boat on my 19’ E300, but expiring in December. My research is showing I’ve got $6k to $9k in equity.

My struggle is that my tires are sitting at 4-5/32. A set of used tires that could carry me a few months is looking like $500 plus installation. Forget a new set at $1000+.

I’ve all but given up on another lease, due to the market. I’m currently trying to thread the needle on these requirements:

  • Good front legroom
  • As nice or nicer than my E300
  • More power (or at least a bit quicker)
  • Under $75k
  • Still inside the original manufacturer warranty

Top picks are 2018 - 2019 Range Rover Sport, Macan GTS and Panamera. I’ve come across the Fidelity platinum warranty, which is looking better than some CPO warranties, so that helps mitigate most of my reliability concerns.

1 Like

Said goodbye to this beauty today.

I got Autonation and TrueCar quotes in addition to Carvana and Vroom. The AN and TC quotes were significantly higher. I ultimately got the highest from my TC dealer after inspection, which dinged a little bit for curb rash and tire tread. Just a bit over $56K and netted $11K plus in equity. The car ended up being about $257/mo over 18k miles.

The process with the dealer was easy and I was out in 20 minutes. The buyer said that because I went through TrueCar, their cash offer was higher than if I had just come in on my own. He said that TrueCar backstops their offers and will buy the cars from them if needed. The AN dealer was unwilling to match the number.

I’ve been monitoring asking prices on used wagons and they have started to drop over the last couple of weeks. I didn’t want to risk losing any more equity. I probably could have sold it for around $58K in January.

Here’s a sampling of my offers.
Vroom 6/3/21 $59,342
Carvana 10/21/21 $51,989
AutoNation 1/8 $57,500
Carvana 1/10 $56,318
Carvana 2/1 $54,743
TrueCar 3/10 $58,100
AutoNation 3/10 $56,000
Carvana 3/10 $53,000
Vroom 3/10 $54,377
Shift 3/11 $52,300

7 Likes

On the truecar portal, what did you rate your tires at (Excellent, Good or Poor)? Compared to what they dinged you for? I’m sitting at like 4/32 and marked “Good”, thinking “poor” would be at or below the tread marker.

You know the answer. 4/32 is poor.

3 Likes

One can hope!

I believe I selected good as they are definitely more than where I would be required to replace them at lease turn in.

It was -$800 for tires and -$450 for curb rash.

But my original TC offer (which was $2K over AN) had already expired (you have only 72 hours). The market seems to have settled some since a week and a half ago.

1 Like

A beauty indeed. I have the sedan in the same color and wheel combo.

QQ - did you buy it out, pay taxes, and then sell? Or was you truecar offer from a MB dealer negating you needing to buy it out? Trying to see how to play this out on my car but the gap between buy out and offers is really small.

I did the MB dealer lease payoff.

TrueCar referred to a MB, a Suburu, and an independent used car shop. I might have selected owned car on the submission.

Suburu said they couldn’t buy the lease out.

The independent shop said that I needed to request a payoff packet and they will facilitate the buyout without me having to pay sales tax (they said they had a contact at a nearby MB dealer that they work with). But even though they were adamant about beating my offer, I didn’t want to spend a few days on the process and take the risk on something going afoul.