Currently leasing a 2015 Jeep Cherokee Latitude 4x4. We have 8 payments remaining and are 2,000 miles away from our limit. We had a sick family member and were travelling way more than usual.
In addition, the car is going to need tires (I plan on putting some cheap ones on to get by).
Looking for advice on how to best handle this situation.
I was in the dealership I got the car from 3 months ago looking at potentially turning it in early and leasing a Jeep Grand Cherokee Altitude package.
To make a long story short, I didn’t lease the new car that day. I mentioned that I was concerned we were going to go way over on miles.
The salesman suggested 2 things that I am skeptical of and wanted to get this forums advice on:
1- If we go over on miles, as long as I got my next car from his dealership, they would make the charges go away. I’ve always thought that to be the case, but are they really forgiving the charges or just burying them somewhere in the new contract?
2- This is the one that struck me. He suggested that I went with a minimum 10K miles/year lease to keep the payment down. Referring back to #1, his point was it didn’t matter if I went over on miles, just stick with his dealership and they’d make the penalties go away. And I get the benefit of the lower monthly payment. Is this realistic? Can I count on this?
I don’t necessarily want to be locked into this dealership and the models they sell. I’m actually leaning now towards buying a year or two old SUV.
Back to the situation at hand, should I just continue to pay the remaining months of the lease ($358 x 8 = $2,864) and paying the mileage penalty at the end?
What are my options?
Thanks in advance and let me know if I need to provide additional info.
I would make sure the tires are comparable to the ones it came with. The dealer can waive the mileage penalty but i wouldn’t count on what the salesman tells you.
You have to share all the detail of the deal they are offering you on the new vehicle to find out if anything hidden in the payment. But yes, some dealers/manufacturers are known for letting excess miles slide if you lease another vehicle from them. Yes, that way they have you on a perpetual lease/leash, call it the way you want it.
Buying a used vehicle is a great idea if you know you are going over miles and can afford it.
Please don’t forget to include your residual value on the current lease, maybe that’s your “used car”.
As far as driving your current Jeep. Try reducing your driving as much as possible if you have another vehicle and return it with allotted miles in 8 month, or lease another car to drive that instead, again if you can afford it. The best deals will probably be available in late December/ January so try waiting till then if you want another lease.
The residual value of the current lease is 15,392. Are you suggesting buying it out right? That isn’t an option as we’re in need of a bigger vehicle.
What about taking it to Car Max and getting an offer? And then shopping that offer to other dealerships to see if they will want to payoff the remaining months of my lease or buy it out right for their used car inventory?
Don’t fool yourself, one way or another you probably will pay for much of those extra miles Somebody need pay for the reduced value of the returned car due to “higher” mileage. They’ll just roll the depreciated value/mileage cost into the next lease payment.
To be fair though, sometimes the manufacturer will have a (modest) allowance for mileage and dings. The key word being modest amount.
Miles are almost always cheaper to buy up front. If you think you need more miles then get a higher mileage lease. Going from 10k to 12k might cost $12-15/month. going from that 12k to 15k might cost another $12-15 or so.
It might not end up as bad as you think. You just may get some sort of lease pull-ahead offer at 6 months or so where they’ll waive the last payments.
How many miles total do you project putting on the car before lease-end 8 months from now ?
Ok, then a used whatever bigger is starts sounding better and better, otherwise you are going to pay for both the bigger vehicle and more miles to put on it. That’s not going to be cheap.
If you lease another Jeep any dealer will waive the over mileage and any damage. So its really up to you if you want the new car now or can wait a couple of months.
