First post, but have been here reading along for some time.
Located in Ohio, I have a lease buyout on a Nissan coming up this month. Here are the numbers:
Original cost 34k
Residual 19k
I plan to buy the car because I am over mileage, have some chargeable dings and dents, think the car is fine to beat up with 2 young kids, and the value seems decent compared to buying something new right now. I should be able to get another 4-5 years out of it which amortizes pretty well.
I typically finance cars through a CU, and I am getting rates of 5.2-5.6% for the range of terms. I called dealer as instructed by NMAC, to let them know that I am buying out. Dealer had said they would match CU, then today when I was supposed to close the deal, they quoted 8.2-8.5%. My credit is tier 1.
I then called the dealer I got the car from, which is much further away, but always shoots me straight. They said that in Ohio, Nissan requires you to ādo the purchase through a dealerā. From what I can gather this has something to do with transferring title from NMAC to the buyer, which I guess in Ohio has to be done through the dealership, so they can charge some fees and pack points onto the rate which is beyond frustrating.
Does anyone have experience with lease buyouts in Ohio, specifically with Nissan?
In several other states NMAC also states dealer only buyout in the online portal, but if you call them, theyāll ok a direct buyout. Thatās what I did here in CA and what I recommend you try.
30 minutes of paperwork, 1 trip to post office and 1 trip to DMV saved me nearly $1k in nonsense dealer fees as well as a trip to the dealer. Dealer wasnāt even willing to provide a breakdown of the costs, so I effectively had to back into what the fee is based on the delta if that tells you how fun the dealer experience would have been. Probably worth the hassle going to DMV yourself in that case.
For sure. NMAC folks were actually super easy to work with on the direct sale. They will also email you the documentation you need. Note that as you approach lease end date, some of the documentation you need to generate will cease to be available in the online portal.
It may not come up but they may ask why you want to buy it out directly (in states where they do not officially offer this option they may need to document the reason for the āoverrideā). The reason I gave was unreasonably high dealer fees to purchase it. They will also warn you they cannot arrange financing for you. Obviously not an issue in your case.
I think my reasoning will be unreasonable spread on interest rates along with dealer fees. Hopefully they go for it. Will report back. Otherwise Iāll be stuck taking dealer financing and paying cash after a month to get rid of it, or refinancing into the CU loan and paying more fees
