Sell M4 now or later

Ask the Hackrs
1

Cayman S is replacing the M4. And before anyone asks, no open 911 allocations for an employee lease. I tried and I would like a mid-engine car.

Here is my conundrum. Do I sell the M4 now (I have a “beater” to drive) and potentially get a check for $7k and save 3-4 months of payments or buy it out and use it as a trade-in on a balloon? I will be vague on the lease details since it is an employee deal but it is a $92.5k MSRP with Chicago tax.:

Balloon:

I can buy out my lease now for $63,500 with tax and pay it down to $60,500 by April. MRM is currently $68,000 so lets assume it goes down to $64,000 in April. Trade it in and it works out to either $785/mo for 24 or 36 months with a $3500 trade-in equity as a down payment. However, the trade-in acts as a tax credit, so I save $5800 in taxes. So a total of $9,300 I am essentially “saving” by buying out my lease early and trading in.

So my total cost for 24 months is $22,340 for 24 months or $31,760 for 36 months (monthly x 24 or 36 + 3500 down).

Traditional Lease:

Sell M4 now, profit $6k-$8k plus $790/mo in payments x 4 months = about $10k in my pocket

Lease: 36 months with $3500 due at signing is 1080/mo. Big payment. But lets put down the tax savings from the balloon too and it comes to $900/mo plus I still have about $1000 in my pocket. So my total cost is $36300 for 36 months, so balloon is better here.

However, 24 months gets interesting. $940/mo with $3500 DAS, but $675/mo with the $9300 due so a total of $23825 over 24 months. Essentially $1,400 more than the 24 mo balloon but without risk.

Disregarding the DAS amount of the lease (I would save the $10k and use it to make monthly payments). So the question becomes, am I better off getting a check now for $10k or rolling to dice on the trade-in value to maybe save a few grand in 4 months? Also, the monthly on a 36 month balloon is the same as a 24 month lease/balloon. So is it worth keeping it for an extra year at the same rate with a potential 6 month pull ahead and another tax credit of $5,000.

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Order a trx. Chicago winter - conquered.

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My CRV is currently conquering Chicago rain and will eventually conquer snow.

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Personally, I would sell the M4 and put in an order for an Emira. You aren’t going to get a whole lot of benefit of a sports car for the next 3-4 months anyway particularly with performance tires so make the most of the CRV. Not to mention 6 cylinder with a new interior versus 4 cylinder with an interior from 2016.

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Why not a Taycan?

Also: Sell the M4 while you’re still ahead of the game on an F82, because when that shoe drops it’s going to be a hard drop.

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That is still a year + away and I have plans that require a sports car every summer. 718 won’t be here until April anyways and the M4 has a set of winter tires, so I can drive it when there is little to no snow.

Taycan doesn’t fit my lifestyle as a sports car. I go on a 3,000 mile road trip every year over a 10 day span and not only will an EV eventually leave me stranded, but I don’t want to spend hours everyday charging. If I were to get an EV/PHEV for everyday, it would be the Cayenne Hybrid since it is AWD and half the price of a base Taycan to lease.

That is my fear as well. ETA for the Cayman is early April, so it shouldn’t drop by then but who knows. I think I will shop it around with some local BMW dealers and see if any can make it worthwhile for me to let it go now.

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wait until after the holidays. market will pick back up 2nd week of january, but definitely cash that thing out asap.

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You can’t enjoy the M4 in the potholes and winter now so sell.

Save the money and get the new car with a 24 month lease.

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Agreed. Cash out now. Free up capital for any unknown/planned opportunities

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I’d imagine anyone going on annual, 10 day, 100k vehicle road trips has an extra $3k sitting around lol

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But when you can afford that, you don’t simply have 3K problems. You may encounter 10K problems.

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I want to see a normal supply/demand market during the current G8x pig nose generation. F8x values might not go down as much with BMW enthusiasts when the market normalizes. E9x values never really dropped like the E46, their values are actually going up.

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3k road trip not 100k. 10k miles a day would be insane. But the trip itself with hotels cost $5k plus gas, livery, and entertainment so I have to find another $3k one way or another.

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a C8 maybe a nice one to get also, speculation on value of a 2 yr old c8 vs cayman s would be interesting.

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I think the C8 will hold its value more since those are selling for $20k+ over their MSRP.

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Chevy dealers in LA have the 3LT for 15k dealer mark up. 1 and 2 LT are getting closer to msrp

If productions gets sorted in a year. It maybe close. No wrong choices. Life short to speculate over a few $$$. Driving awesome stuff is worth it.

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I have on good authority that the first launch editions are landing in September. With that said, what’s to guarantee your Cayman is going to be here in April? Not necessarily Porsche, but my SQ5 ordered in May with October delivery is now pushed to early February.

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My good authority is Porsche’s ordering system that I can log onto at any second. Unexpected delays can happen but nothing in my order has a production delay.

I am just not a Corvette or American car guy. I respect the high performance models, but just not for me.

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Decided to the M4 now and found a buyer willing to give me a check that puts $10k in my pocket. Also I can get it off my insurance and weirdly the Porsche is cheaper to insure.

Also here is the build for anyone interested. Still debating between the agate gray or chalk/black leather since I am already a little over MRM: The Porsche Code 

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Where’s the leather air vents?!?