Not sure if this is the right place to ask this but figured I’d give it a try! Currently I am located in NY and am headed back to SoCal next month for school. I drove my car here for the summer due to my cat traveling with me & to see some national parks, but need to ship the car back as no time to do the drive again. Current quotes are $1500 to ship it and I need new tires so I’ve been doing some thinking to see if it’s worth it to sell here and lease in California. Some info on my car:
2014 Hyundai Elantra bought in 2018 with 45k miles
Monthly payment: $247/month with extended warranty worked into payment that totaled to $2k (I’ve used it for a $900 claim already)
Loan Amount left: $8,800 with a maturity date of 12/2024
Currently 80k miles
Carvana offer: $8,700
I’m now aware this was a horrible deal lol but my dad and I spent 5 hours in the dealership and this was the best we could get.
And so now I’m seeing all these great deals on the Marketplace and great leases advertised and I’m like ok, why am I going to drop $2k on this car right now when I could spend probably less DAS and get a lower monthly payment for a lease by selling it for basically break even to Carvana? It’s probably worth noting that when I graduate from school I’ll be moving back to the East Coast so I’d have to drive or ship the car AGAIN…
These are the lease terms/car I’m looking at.
New (don’t care about 2020 or 2021) Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid or PHEV, SE trim
24mos/10k (I graduate in 2 years)
Under $200/mo
$1200 or less DAS, willing to pay broker fee of under $300.
My FICO score is 695 but my dad’s is 800+ and is willing to cosign again.
I’ve heard about the shortages and the Hyundai hybrids seem popular, but does this idea make sense to anyone as a plausible option? Also open to any other thoughts regarding leasing a different fuel-efficient vehicle for similar or less monthly payment. I do quite a bit of traveling due to clinical rotations. Returning to CA 9/11 so looking to buy around that time period, or earlier if it can be mine and waiting for me when I get there.
Thanks in advance and let me know if there’s a better place for this or if not allowed!
Thanks for your reply! The 24mos/10k is definitely wishful thinking as I know most do 36, but the other terms I gathered from scouring previous deals on Marketplace. Saw quite a few Hybrid & PHEV deals from earlier this year for under $200/month for 36/10, 1500 DAS, no other incentives or loyalties applied. Could swing 1500 but prefer not to if paying $300 broker fee.
ETA: Checked Carmax and got a quote $1k less. Haven’t checked others. I was nervous to deal with private sales or anything that got more complicated since I still have the loan on it.
I’ve been keeping an eye on inventory near me (well, where I will be) and using the payment calculator and here is most recent numbers:
2021 Hyundai Ioniq PHEV SE
$217/mo
$1717 DAS
36mos/10k
2021 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid Blue
$259/mo
$1759 DAS
36mos/10k
There’s a higher financing offer/incentive it looks like for the PHEV. They don’t allow me to do a 24mo quote so not sure if they even do them…I am looking to go back pretty soon after and would drive no problem, but don’t know what my miles will look like then and if I’d go over.
I’m not in the market for a full electric vehicle right now due to my long-range traveling and average access to charging stations. Also the all Bolt model years were just recalled and stop sale as far as I’m aware…
From what I understand and here is the comparison,
You can either pay $2000 for new tires and shipping your Elantra with 45k miles which is worth $8700 now and drive it for 30k miles, pay for maintenance etc and have an Elantra you own in 2024 with 75k miles.
Or you will pay about $9500 to lease and drive a brand new Hyundai for 3 years and end up with nothing in 2024.
These are from the hyundaiusa.com site under the payment calculator, not the direct dealer. Dealer quote for the PHEV is $344/month same terms, with $70 of that being due to a pre-installed protection package they selected. My terms from the original post were what I thought were reasonable using a broker and comparing previous deals & current dealer offers.
I will likely be getting a new car upon graduation anyway as I’ll be living in a snow-y environment (New Hampshire) and as a veterinarian I need to be able to get to work as I can’t do my job from home, and I’ll be able to afford it at that point. Do you really think my car that’s worth $8.7k to Carvana now will still be worth $7k in 3 years? I genuinely don’t know which is why I’m asking. Not trying to be naive.
It used to be that the OEM website offers were the low water mark sucker deals. Now with low inventory, it’s actually become challenging to find dealers that will even honor those advertised deals since they require dealer contribution. So it’s not a given those are live deals.
The car had 45k miles when I bought it, currently 80k. Was considering it selling it upon graduation anyway for reasons I just listed in other reply.
Appreciate your reply and thoughts. As I said, I’m new to this, and I’m more of trying to consider the best financial situation for me for the time being since I’m on a student budget and need a reliable car for traveling rotations. Not trying to be naive.
Let’s try to take out or nail down the shipping costs in the equation first. You’re either starting school or on summer break, can you actually not drive the car to CA? Is it something you can’t do or don’t want to do?
I misread the end date of the loan as 2022 but the principle remains the same. The car is going to be worth a non-trivial amount of money, and it’s not going to depreciate much with each passing year. You can appraise the same car but 3 years and X miles older than yours on KBB, Edmunds, etc. to estimate how much it could be worth in the future.
Definitely ask all your questions and get all the information before you pull the trigger. Plenty of good advice here.
a few more issues I see:
worst time in history to lease (just a reminder, your only comps are this summer)
Is the current car NY plates/reg? Most CA dealers are not going let you register the new lease in NY, so if you aren’t domiciled in CA be prepared to switch that also
Nobody knows what the current car will be worth in another year, but tax/title/tax in a new one will definitely be more than tires (shipping is the cost of driving home and waiting until now to not drive back, nbd)
If you are going to lease, you are probably on the wrong brand (and in general it makes no sense to lease now and again in another year+)
There was a time when you could have taken over a cheaper Bolt/i3 lease than you have now, highly unlikely now.
Talk to @Benedetto about transport (I don’t know if he handles used), and check recommendations here in the other shipping threads by searching - but if you can get your car back to CA for less than that quote, even if you have to wait a few weeks, that’s the scenario with the most control and least risk.
I’ve done the trip twice and love it so it’s not that I don’t want to. Vet school starts in the summer so I’ve been in class (virtually) for 2 weeks already, and can’t miss class when it’s in session, so driving is no longer an option as it takes too long.
No, current plates/reg are CA.
The reason I had to drive it back is because I drove it here for a full time job at an ER vet with a 30 mile one way commute, needed my car and went straight from work to virtual class with no option to drive it back.
I like Hyundai, but am open to other brands with fuel-efficient options. Toyota? And I won’t be leasing again after this, will either buy in 2023/4 or trade in to buy. Not sure yet but the lease is only temporary, since my time in CA is temporary, it made sense to me.
Yeah I’ve seen that now is not the best time to lease…I just hate the thought of dropping $2k just to transport & maintain it, until something else goes wrong now that I’m at 80k miles.
I’ll see if he can help with transport, thanks! I looked at major shipping companies but didn’t even think to check here for that.
I bought it used and got an extended warranty to bring it back to 100k that covers “almost everything”. I have to bring it to a dealer to get diagnosed and I used the service in October, it was a nightmare, but I did get a $900 fuel/evap repair covered, no deductible or copay or anything. The nightmare definitely fell more on the dealer than warranty company, not sure since I don’t deal with them the dealer calls them directly when they find out what’s wrong.
I guess I’m looking at more of short-term relief than long term as I’ll likely be in the market anyway after graduating and the lease would be up, but I see all the points in the post about long-term ownership, being debt-free, and the horrible market right now.
