I was looking for inputs on what the rules are when trading a lease, I was going to a few dealers to trade in my current lease, above the mileage into a new lease and while most of them appraised the car and gave me a “book value” or whatever subjective terms they use to (under)value your trade, one not only gave me a lowball offer, they rolled the mileage overage into the quote and when confronted on this I was told by the sales lady and her manager that “even if they gave you a higher trade-in value, my captive (H-M-F) would send me a bill later for the miles anyway” - and I insisted this is not me terminating/grounding the lease, I’m trading it as is and rolling negative equity (if any) to the next lease but no penalties on top, after all, if I exercise my buying right I owe no penalties and no other fees than the one specified for the purchase option.
Is this true and everybody else was setting me up for a decent overage bill in the mail later or this is yet another game to pocket a LOT of money, and if I may say a well maintained car from an unsuspecting buyer? (as a side rant: it does feel like they’re not willing to sell cars a dollar below MSRP and with a foot massage thrown in these days.)
Sorry for the wall, but I appreciate any input on this. This can be the difference between “just exercise the clause and never look back” or “stay in the market and keep trying for the jackpot” lol
When you trade in the car, they will buy it at the Market Rate, if it is extremely low, they might try to ‘ground the car’ (causing a ton of fees to you) and then give you a ‘new deal’ with profit baked in.
What’s your current buyout (on HMF) and what did Carmax or Carvana bid on it?
Buyout is $23k, Carmax offered $20k, Carvana offered $18k when I checked them a couple months ago, didn’t even drive 1000 miles since so it should be about the same now (but I’ll try my hand at the 2 companies later, see if any actual change occurred)
Do you have a long time left? If you have like 2 months or what not, in your offer to the dealer, have them cover your remaining payments, disposition fee and your overage. You need to tell them what that is though. Obviously you won’t be getting an insane discount + that but you can count it as part of your discount they are giving you. Then you can ground the car and use their payment they gave you to make the finally return payments
So to clarify, if I sell them the car, it is for their offer, whatever it is and nothing else is owed, unless it’s negative or positive equity from my payoff amount? No excess miles, disposition, anything?
I know grounding is essentially me terminating my lease agreement so everything is owed and due but I just wanted to confirm whether there is a difference or if either scenario ends up with me paying $7k in excess mileage which at that point I may as well just exercise my buying right that will erase the overages, and live with the car, for as long as it lasts.
If my cost to walk out is $300 + neg equity it beats by miles having to pay disposition, excess mileage and maybe even a wear and tear penalty if they deem it
All that said, dealers have been playing hard ball to a point where I’m just entertaining the idea to keep my car, buy it at the end for residual + $300 regardless of how deep underwater I’ll be as I know it was well maintained and payment/insurance wise I’ll stay in the exact same spot.
The reason for all that excess is that I had to share the car for a while - because back then finding a car was enough pain and used cars were worth more than new so it took a while to get that sorted out - my commute is like 20 miles/day round trip so as long as I’m the sole driver of the car this time, a 10/12k contract should be fine but I was definitely entertaining 15 in case history repeats itself
