Need Opinions—What Would You Do?

Ask the Hackrs
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Hello everyone! I’ve been lurking here for a while trying to figure out what to do with my situation. I thought that I was pretty savvy when it came to leasing, but seeing the deals that some of you have gotten has really put me on my heels.

I leased a 2015 Q50 Premium AWD in Feb of 2016 for 39/12,000 at $412 per month—it was going to be a second car to get me to-and-from work. Right after that, a lot of things changed and it was my only car. Currently, I have a ‘94 Camaro that I fixed up and I’m driving that as often as possible. The Q50 has 36,000 miles on it and I have 10 payments left until end of lease in May. Current trade in is $20,566 according to KBB and pay off is $27,800 (currently have it listed for private purchase at this price, but no bites).

So here’s my problem: I can’t drive the Camaro in the winter (too powerful for Upstate NY winters) and I have 3000 miles to go before my cap. I’ll drive the Camaro until the snow flies, but our winters are long and it’s 30 miles round trip to and from work. The Infiniti also likely needs new tires—at least a $400 adventure.

I was thinking of trying to find the cheapest short-term (12 months if possible, not sure how to find these), or lease a car I actually like and have the dealership essentially roll the cost of the remaining payments for the Infiniti into a new lease and cut me a check. If it’s a short enough term, I’m not too concerned about what I lease—I can live with almost anything for a year.

I enjoy the Q50, but I don’t think I want to buy it at lease-end. I’ve been considering a BMW 230i XDrive (or really any BMW for that matter), a shorter term lease on another Q50, a Mazda 6, or even a cheap VW lease. I’d also consider a great deal on a base Audi or MB. I know those are kind of all over the place, but they’re the cars that I like.

Would you recommend engaging a broker for my situation? Would you recommend keeping the Infiniti until lease end and just eating the overage charges? It would be excellent if I could save myself even $50/mo from my current payment.

Sorry for the wall of text! Thanks in advance!

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That’s probably the cheapest option. Rolling $4120 into another lease will not be cheap, especially if you want it to be on the shorter side.

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You can see if you can get a 3-month pull ahead (7 months from now), and see what kind of loyalty programs are available if you lease another Infinity.

With Acura, we got a 3-month pull ahead. We returned our Acura with a tad over 31,000 miles on it after 33 months. The lease was for 36/10k. We thought they were going to pro rate the milage to 33 months. With the 1500 loyalty milage forgiveness we ended up paying nothing. If we went over 1500, they would also give us 50% off for up to 7500 miles - party of loyalty program.

In your case, worst case scenario of no loyalty, if you put another 10k on that car at 20cent/mi, you’re looking at $2000 - so $200/mo which is what you would pay for leasing another car. You mind as well drive the Q60 until the end of the lease. Just make sure you buy more miles on your next lease.

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Thank you so much! That’s what I was thinking. What I really like about going that route is that then I can lease on my terms instead of being at someone else’s mercy.

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