Ever made a profit on a lease?

Off-Ramp
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Hi Hackrs,

Has anyone here sold a leased vehicle for the original sales price or greater, thereby making it a “free lease?”

Or, have you ever sold and got equity back at the end of the lease?

If so, how did you do it? Did you sell the car before the lease ended? What car/year/model was it?

Would love to hear some motivational stories!

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Yes, probably 10-12 years ago. Sold our Lexus RX to carmax for about 1.5k over payoff prior to lease return. Hasn’t happened again.

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I don’t think that is what op is asking since you made payments and that 1.5k probably did not cover all your prior payments.

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I see your point. Still decreased total lease cost. But I guess no profit.

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Yep definitely can’t complain about getting money at the end I just sold a lease which was going to be due in 3 months for $1500 over buyout car needed all new tires and some tlc.

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Are you asking about selling a leased vehicle for the original sales price or greater, thereby making it a “free lease?”

Or, are you asking about getting equity back at the end of the lease?

These are 2 different data points. Both, however, are very rare.

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Both scenarios I’d love to hear about. Updating post.

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I got the Chevy Spark EV 3 years ago for $137/mo before tax for 39mo with zero down. I did have to pay over $1000 in cap tax, title, registration, etc., but I got back $2500 from CA EV rebate.

I then switched over from normal electric rates to EV rates. I switched my AC to run to 63 degrees from 3am to 5am to cool the house, and then turned it off during the day. Everyone had to sleep with thick blankets. I switched the pool pump to run between 12am and 3am. I did laundry, that’s right, after midnight. With the new EV rate schedule, our electric bill was $50/mo less even adding in the EV charging. I would drive super slow and not run AC or heat on the car. I turned the daytime driving lights off as well. I also got a 240v Charger from Bosch for free.

Now, here’s where I really saved money and made it seem like I was driving this thing for free - I had a 1997 Jeep Wrangler running 33s that got about 15mpg. I only filled it up twice a month, but that was still about $100/mo that I no longer had to pay. Then there were repair costs. I actually did my own oil changes. I replaced the starter and alternator like every 2-3 years. Replaced a bunch of u-joints. Replaced brakes and calipers, radiator, hoses, etc… I did most of the work myself, but there were just some stuff that I couldn’t do. I would ball park estimate at about $1000 in repairs per year.

If I had a Toyota Corolla, I probably wouldn’t have saved much going to the Spark EV, but in my case, it made a big difference in savings.

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The Chevy insanity with Costco gift card was a free lease back in the day.

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@cheapdad00 recently did. But he only had his car for couple of months.

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@ilovetohack Yeah you can definitely do this on some cars. Knew a guy who made a ton from a McLaren P1

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Yes, bought last day of 2017 (actually a couple of days into 2018), thought about flipping it as soon as Volvo changed their incentive structure in January. Sold a month later with 250 miles for 3500 profit.

3 Likes
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Time to change your handle to smartdad00

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I’ve had some good ones, but none beat this one.

2001 BMW 740i sport.
$820/mo, $26,500 residual value
US Bank calls 8 months before end and says will sell you the car right now for the residuals and wipe out the 8 months of oayments. (-$6560)
Sold the car a week later for $36,000.

So made $9500 on the car sale.
Made $6560 on us bank wiping the payments

Net - $16,060 on the car in a week.

Or another way to look at it. I only paid for 3.5 mo of the 36 mo lease. Or paid $79/mo - 36/mo for a $87K car. Lol.

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I did a lease on a 2005 Lexus LS430 (guess i just dated myself a bit). The residual was $31k and I sold it private party for $35k. Toyota told me I had to buy it then sell it to the next guy. The thought I had was tax was going to eat into the gain. That was until I located the CA code that allows you to buy the vehicle and transfer to the second party within 10 days so there is only one taxable event.

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I wouldn’t say it’s a profit as I got less overall than I paid. But I did have 5k in equity on Jeep Wrangler unlimited at lease end. Low residual on those 5 years ago. I bought it and traded it in a month later.

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$87k car had a $26.5k residual?

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Last year of that body style I guess. The irony is 10-15 years later everyone wanted the E38 instead of the 2002+ E65, as they had their quirks but many shade-trees could still maintain them.

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nah, ED is just full of sh!t. Read his prior posts and have some laughs.

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Brokeven on a 2015 VW eGolf Lease Takeover
Car had 12 month of payments left at 125/mo incl tax at 23000 miles spent out of 36k
Residual was ~10,500$
Took over the lease with 1000$ incentive from seller
Bought the car at the end of the lease from VW Finance (car had 47000 miles obviously didn’t make sense to pay for the extra miles!) and sold it at the end of the lease for 11000$ to BidLane
Drove the car everyday for work approx total of 24000 miles for just electric fuel money. Battery depletion got me crazy in the end.
Will do deal again !