If I mean to buy out a lease early just to get the 7500 lease cash, is there any difference between adding my old car to the mix on the lease as a trade, versus selling it to Carmax, and then using that money to help buy out the lease in a month?
I’ve gotten multiple online bids and a couple from nearby dealerships as well; the offer from the dealer I’m talking to for the Ioniq 5 is the best one, pending an inspection.
Sorry if this is redundant, I’ve been trying to search around but I keep getting redundant or irrelevant results.
In some States, you can get a sales tax credit if you trade in your old car. California does not do this. You should take the best offer. If it is from someone other than the dealer, I would ask the dealer to match it.
Okay. So there’s no difference if I do the sale of the old car to the dealership as a separate transaction, it all just goes towards reducing the base cost of the new vehicle?
You can structure the deal any way you like. You can pocket the proceeds from your old car, or use them to pay some/all of the upfront fees of the lease, or use as an upfront payment to reduce the monthly on the lease. From a sales tax perspective, there is little difference, unlike some states where you can save a lot of money on sales tax by trading in a vehicle.
The more money you put down, the lower your monthly payments will be, and you will save some amount on rent charge/interest, and sales tax. But money you put down could be at risk if the car gets totaled, and your insurer sends the insurance settlement to Hyundai, not you.
