My lease is due next month. I had a check engine light and someone gave me a love tap on the highway. I took it in to my local dearlership service center to get an appraisal for the bumper (guy was gonna just pay for it) and to get engine light checked. They tell me the car actually has two recalls they’ll take care of too. They give me a loaner and I go back to work. Thursday late afternoon they tell me they’ll need it overnight as they aren’t done yet, but I’m good with the loaner.
…
That was Thursday. Monday rolls around and I’m like hmmm…they haven’t called or anything. I call the place and the lady is acting all weird:
Her: Uh…you dropped off your car last week?
Me: Yeah, Thursday.
Her: uh…you don’t watch the news?
Me:…no. Why?
Her: The service center burned down on Friday.
So, yeah my lease burned up.
Thankfully I ordered a nice M340 with Auto Lease Ninjas but…damn.
This poor car was 13000 miles under on the lease! I was gonna sell it
Just felt I had to share/vent. Anyone ever have something this crazy happen?
Still waiting to hear back from service manager on what happens now. Thankfully I have a loaner and a new car coming. I’m going to for sure say I was going to buy the car though as I want it appraised properly and make sure I still get the $3-4k of equity I calculated was still in it.
I was going to buy my lease and sell it. (I was always going to buy out my lease due to the car’s mileage [1,500] and condition). Keeping and not selling it in this market is an opportunity one should not miss. Also, I have no more payments due, my lease ends in January, and I have another vehicle, so, fortunately, I can wait out the overpriced market. I was driving the car to get an issue checked out yesterday, and I was rear-ended in a parking lot a mile from home. I never had any such close calls in nearly three years.
I had not received an offer of less than $7,800 above my payoff. The average was $8,000 (Vroom, Carvana, TrueCash, etc.), $12,900, the highest late last week.
They will file an insurance claim and include your car in it. You’ll have to ask them how long they’ll provide a loaner (is it the same store you ordered a car from?).
Sorry for the aggravation - that store handled it terribly if you had to call and find out that way
I’m surprised that no one has responded with the admonition to never put money down on a lease, because you’re out that money when the dealership burns down while your car is in for service.
Well… this particular vehicle was due to be returned next month, so @tismeddo would have realized, depending on the lease term, about 23/24 (96%) or 35/36 (97%) of the rent charge savings from a CCR made at lease signing.
I agree about being suspicious about the Car Service Center burning down ( which probably did happen) but I would still try to track the vin # , just o make sure that the dealer did not did not try to sell the car deviously. Under today’s car market conditions, the dealer and the bank will try to foil an “end of lease-buy -out” ( by the lessee)-base upon the price -as stated in the lease agreement. They can sell it for more , so why sell it to the lessee at a lower price- (as agreed upon 3 years ago) ?
The first clue which makes me think you are right was it was a nearly new, low mileage vehicle with a check engine light on (must be a VW).
Next of course was the fire.
As a previous leasee of a 2018 VW Tiguan, a CEL is a right of passage for all VW drivers.
Suggesting they committed all kinds of fraud to make a few k on some used vehicles at the same time of burning down their service center and had vw financial in cahoots to release the titles is a huge claim. That’s unreasonable paranoia.
You do not recover a down payment on a total loss for a leased vehicle. Let GAP cover the difference between the vehicle value and the remaining balance on the vehicle.
