Helping me get my girlfriend out of her Mercedes Benz GLE350 lease

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My girlfriend got into a terrible lease for a GLE350 two years ago. She is from Thailand originally and didnt understand exactly what she was doing, or had a clue what she was doing. She absolutely could not afford the car, but is one of those people where money burns a hole in their pocket the moment it is in there. She works as a bartender at a small bar and somehow ended up leasing a GLE350 after putting $21k dollars down. I started dating her about a week after she signed the lease, so unfortunately I couldn’t do anything at that point. I worked at Enterprise rent a car for 7 years, so I am super familiar with car dealerships, as I was in car sales at Enterprise as well. They bent her over well. She got absolutely hammered on with her lease. Shortly after she signed the lease, obviously Covid hit and she lost her bartending job. I am very financially responsible, and I have talked her into getting out of the Mercedes and getting a reasonable car for a bartender that is unemployed :slight_smile:

Anyway, I am obviously not happy with Mercedes for selling her the car in the first place. I know they were doing their job, financial responsibility blah, blah, blah, but they just ripped her off at every point from what I can tell.

Long story short, she now has a chance to get out of the lease and get a little bit of the money back.

  1. What are my best options for selling the a Mercedes Benz? I would be willing to sell it myself as I used to work at a car dealership, but I think by the time I paid off the vehicle and sold it myself and paid taxes, I would be better off having a someone by out the lease and make money over what her payoff is and save on the taxes. Does that sound correct?

  2. Can I contact any other Mercedes dealerships to see what they would give me for a payout, or am I obligated to go back to the one I have the current lease with? I absolutely despise the current Mercedes dealership I am working with, and the less I can do anything to keep them in business the better.

3 What are the 4-5 lease companies would you recommend I check with? (Carmax, Vroom, etc, etc) Any I should avoid with it being a Mercedes, or all they all pretty much the same, even with a higher end car?

  1. Even though it is a complete waste of money, I have to keep her happy with her new vehicle, otherwise she wont trade in her Mercedes SUV no matter how much sense it makes to do. I am expecting the chip shortage to subside in the next year or so, so I am not completely against leasing again, if it was a good deal. I normally would NEVER lease unless it was a super, super deal. I would normally buy a 2 year old vehicle and let the first buyer take the first huge depreciation hit. That obviously is not happening in the used car market now. Are there any really really really poor mans Mercedes Benz GLE350 like leasing deals out there where it might make sense to do a 2 year lease until this craziness is over? Like great deal on a Hyundai SUV lease deal that I might be able to sucker her into driving?

  2. Any other hints or tricks I need to keep in mind when negotiating through this? Again, I am super experienced in the Used, new, and rental portion of auto sales, but am basically a rookie in the leasing portion of it.

I am willing to do complex deals and I am willing to drive anywhere from 500-1000 miles if it makes financial sense to do so. I like driving and no distance is usually too far, especially if it is a portion of the country I have not traveled to or visited.

Sorry if all these questions have been answered elsewhere, I tried to find them but had very little luck.

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The current market sucks and getting approved for anything decent while unemployed is going to be a painful task.

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In this current market, unless you can find someone to take over your GF lease, I’d keep paying on it somehow and then move over when the market changes.

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Curious… what was the deal?

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Why exactly are you so concerned with her financial positions?

Why not sell the car to Carvana, Vroom, Texas Direct Auto, Carmax - or attempt to lease swap on swapalease.com.

If she piled on the downpayment, then her monthly should look attractive compared to what someone could get a monthly on a used GLE now is? What’s her payment? I’m wondering if a lease swap would look attractive to a buyer or not

This whole line about having to keep her happy, ouch… I wouldn’t lift a finger other than giving her a little advice when she asks for it. And if she didn’t ask, I’d stay out of it. And I wouldn’t be subsidizing her payment, either.

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Here is her agreement.

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Does MBFS even allow transfers? I thought they did not.

And I’m not sure if they allow 3rd party but outs either.

Regardless you should first get quotes from all the usual suspects first, then come back here with that plus the payoff quote before we can advise you.

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$8211 in rent charge after a $20,5xx down payment!?? Holy hell, what was the money factor!?

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What’s her current payoff (not incl sales tax) and what is Vroom et al offering? No lease transfers with MBFS ASFAIK so third party buyout is likely the best bet here. Of course, unless there’s significant pos equity, not sure it would make sense to do that either.

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I am concerned about her financial position because I have been with her for a couple years and we are probably going to be starting a family soon together. I am 47 and she is 36. I am financially secure and she is not. Just because I am financially secure and CAN take care of her, doesnt mean that I want to because she is not making good financial decisions. I am going to be handling basically all financial decisions in our relationship, because that is what I am good at. She will probably be a more “traditional” house wife, because that is what she loves doing and I am terrible at it. It works out well for both of us.

Her monthly payment is ok. $400 a month. She has about $10k worth of “equity” in the vehicle, mainly because of the hot market. I want to get out of this albatross as sooon as possible and while the market is hot. I also want to get her into something a little bit more reasonable long term. In 7 months, that equity is gone, because their is no way she is going to be able to finance that vehicle with no job, and she is not going to be able to come up with $40k to pay cash, so she will be back at square one again.

I am not subsidizing her payment. She is extremely hard working but due to the pandemic lost her job. I am sure she will be getting a new one asap, but that is probably going to be paying cash for the most part, which isnt going to help with financing.

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What is this based one? Did you get quotes for selling the vehicle from Carvana/vroom/Carmax/shift?

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Sorry, what does “what was the money factor” mean?

She put down $21k and traded in a 2017 Cadillac xt5 suv, which they also hammered on her for.

As I said, she is not very good with money :joy: :sleepy:

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28 months into the lease and she has paid $32K thus far. If she gets $10k back in equity, her net cost on the lease is roughly $780/month. Not bad on a GLE 350.

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No they do not allow transfers (ask my meme), yes they currently allow 3rd party buyout

The only 2 year lease whose RV makes sense is a LR Defender, and they don’t lease well.

Why not keep driving it another six months, and if inventory is better try again? If you sell used cars, you know how bad things are now to get-in.

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Neither of you should be entering a replacement lease if you haven’t read Leasing 101

The best place to start is

Please read links in there such as “how to calculate payments” and other helpful articles.

It might seem like a lot but TBH there are fewer <60 minute exercises which will save you so much time, money and anxiety over your driving lifetime.

It may also save you (after your negotiations with LH input) inside the finance office where no one can from the internet can really help you.

Remember, it’s almost impossible to reverse-engineer the math starting from the output (monthly payment) and figure out if it’s a good deal. Start at the beginning.

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I’m guessing the thought is by waiting out the market you’d lose more in lost positive equity than you overpaid getting a née car now vs 6-mo assuming you stepped down to something more reasonable.

That said, I’m not entirely sure that’s the case here.

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.00281, which suggests there’s probably some lower tier credit going on here too.

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If the 3PP and ACV are here, I missed them. But I suspect we’re stepping over dollars to pickup dimes from 2019…

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You don’t expect her to have a job by then? Then why do you think she will be able to finance now or ever since you are not going to help her with it? But you plan to start a family together?

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Definitely not present here. I can only speculate that’s the thought process, but to your point since neither data point was shared, there’s some healthy skepticism that it’s going to work out quite that way, also to your point.

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