Seems legit to me. If you sell used cars and only buy used cars you’re not going to know much about leasing. Understandable he doesn’t know about MF, 3rd party buyouts, extracting equity, etc. OP didn’t walk into a lease uninformed, he is trying to help someone else who is uninformed and OP is trying to learn.
3 Likes
Now THAT is quotable. I will borrow that one for future use!
Wish I could say I came up with it myself!
Yikes! lol.
Buying, selling, and renting cars is COMPLETELY different than leasing. A lot of those leasing terms I have literally never heard in my life after working at Enterprise as a manager overlooking a 200 car fleet.
I am sure I could run circles price wise around anyone looking to get a good price on a rental vehicle for a vacation rental that arent common knowledge or even really available on the internet in forums.
Leasing is a whole different animal that I was never exposed to really ever even though I worked in the car industry for a long time. Enterprise rents, sells, buys, does maintenance, does repairs, works with body shops, works with dealerships, works with auto service centers, etc, etc. I cant remember an encounter with someone where I dealt with someone leasing a vehicle that would pertain to selling a leased vehicle.
Selling a leased vehicle where you are trying to get some money back is completely different than taking in a vehicle on a trade, or financing a purchase.
1 Like
Yet you still put a lot of energy and effort into convincing a bunch of people on a leasing forum how good at these completely different things you are.
There’s good advice in this thread! I hope you’re able to make use of some of it to help with your current lease-related situation.
2 Likes
And this is why this site exists.
2 Likes
Just thinking out loud here, but I feel like the risk/reward here is not something I would want to take.
You are going to get her out of a Mercedes, that she wanted, and into a lower end car. Probably a lot lower end, because of the current market.
What is the reward? You saved her some money over the next few months? The risk is that you don’t have a girlfriend soon.
Unless she is very much complaining about this car, I would let this lease play out. I would guess you would take a poorer girlfriend over no girlfriend in this situation.
1 Like
To be fair, while one could always sell a leased vehicle, it was never “a thing” until recently when the used car market skyrocketed. Bottom line- the best way to mitigate the overall cost of her ownership is by offloading this car to Autonation it seems. But be prepared to downgrade and overpay on the next car now regardless of your knowledge and experience in that arena.
Can’t disagree with the above statement.
1 Like
How does she feel about a Jeep 
1 Like
She wants a jeep grand cherokee, which I am ok with her getting, but I am not seeing anything that is a very good deal right now on the purchase side.
JGC was leasing somewhat decently last time
I was checking . It’s not a three pointed star but probably a good compromise for everyone given the circumstances.
Yea I was half joking because of the Wrangler 4xe craze that is going on right now.
1 Like
Buying, selling, and renting cars means you also SHOULD have a clue about leasing. You aren’t oblivious to it, it’s not like a brand new thing in a different industry.
Agree with you, seems like a moral red flag. Let her make and learn from her own mistakes, but this is a car forum, not a relationship forum.
This community can be so brutal to new members 
1 Like
Tough love
2 Likes
putting the money management skills, post & pre-marriage financial counselling aside,
IMO, I only see 2 options (assuming, if she has cash to pay 21k down)
-
- she has $$ to buy this thing out. So just buy out the lease, & see if you can sell it for quickly for the best price you can to recoup any $$ in the current market.
OR
2 - she has the $$ to buy out, just buy out & use it till the car is ready to go to the junk yard.
The current Used car market is blessings in disguise for you if you really want to get out of this horrible deal.
Good Luck.
MB let you sell a leased car to a 3rd party dealer so you don’t need to buy out the lease and sell that. You can even sell a leased car to a MB dealer. Selling the leased car directly to a dealer is advantageous when you don’t need to pay the sales tax on the buyout price and you won’t have to deal with finance or come up with the capital.
even better.