I am turning in my passat but luckily wear & tear package I have covers tires. It has 30k miles so tires pretty much have to be changed to meet their criteria. What is your experience - do dealerships tend to care about it? If you get a new car from them do they care less? I’m looking at bmw as a next lease and am wondering if it might be better to get 24 month lease if it’s not that much more expensive to avoid extra cost of replacing run flat tires when turning it in.
The policies I’ve encountered state that the tires need to have X amount of tread otherwise, the tires must be replaced at the same size and speed rating. In practice, I found the dealers to be lenient especially if opting for another car within the brand. I once turned in an Altima with fairly new T-rated snow tires (OEM was all season H-rated). No issue. I also did any early lease trade in on my wife’s car - tread wear was out of policy. They waived the charges since we leased within the brand. These are my experiences - of course YMMV.
Lucky or not depends on how much you paid for the protection package
It was $500 so a pretty good deal, especially since the car has a few big scratches from leaving it on a parking lot in a shopping center plus some windshield chips.
This sounds reasonable, thanks for your input.
@james.bond20 in my opinion optional wear & tear packages are usually not worth it unless you street park regularly or live in an area with a lot of debris. Most leasing companies are ok with a few small dents and scratches as part of normal wear and tear. So if you garage your car at home for example or have a dedicated spot at work, there’s unlikely to be damage to your car in excess of the cost of optional wear & tear packages. A lot of people like the piece of mind though so to each their own.
In regards to tires:
You have to return the car with enough tire tread to pass (i believe most brands require 4/32" from thinnest tread but you need to find out from your leasing company). If your car came with runflat tires you have to return it with runflat tires. If you don’t, they will charge you for new tires.
I personally just buy used tires from craigslist right before returning. Doesn’t really matter how they drive as long as they pass the tread level and are similar to the ones that came on your car. I usually buy 4 of the same brand (usually doesn’t have to be the same brand that originally came on the car) but others on this forum have suggested that you can have different brands in pairs (as in one brand for the front pair and another brand on the back pair). I am not sure if that’s true, you should find out from your leasing company. You can typically find a decent used set for under $200 and have some cheap place slap them on for a few bucks. Still a lot less than most wear and tear packages. On my previous car, i took off the runflat tires after about 10k mi when they had plenty of tread left and when I saw a good sale on non-runflat tires (they were much cheaper and had a better ride, runflats tend to have a stiff ride). I drove the remaining miles until the time of lease return where i put the originals back on. I didn’t even balance them i paid a guy a few bucks to just slap the old ones back on.
A lot of people find themselves thinking about tires at the very end and end up spending $1000 on a set of brand new runflat tires just for the purpose of turning in the car and passing lease end inspection. This is ridiculous in my view because you’re just saving the leasing company a ton of money for them to be able to profit more to resell the car at your expense. A little planning goes a long way when it comes to tires.
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Great advice, thanks! I was actually thinking about getting used tires at the end of lease, but it does sound like a good idea to look throughout the lease for a good priced tires to replace originals.
I thought you said the wear and tear package covers tires?
It does, I meant for the next lease.
Since this thread is related to tire wear, I thought I post my question here:
I currently have about 6months left on my current 328ixdrive lease and after recent service, I learnt that my rear’s are at 3/32 and front’s at 4/32, along with slight alignment issue in the front causing some uneven wear in the front. I just have 20k miles now and this came in as a shocker/surprise to meI. I was quoted about $1150 for 4 tires and alignment by the dealer. I am kind of confused what to do next?
Do I fix it now? Do I just continue to drive for a couple of months and swap it out as it with another lease ?
First choice would be not to spend least amount of money as it’s a leased vehicle…Thoughts ,? Please.
Thanks!
We turned in an Escape last month to Ford. 34,000 miles, original tires were definitely out of spec, we were around 1250 or so over miles, one ding in the shield, and tags were 2 days past due. Ford only ended up sending us a bill for $250 for the over miles. We shot them a call, they knocked it down to $125, but the Rep. did mention on that call if we had not Leased another Ford the day we turned in, the bill would have been over $1500 for the tires, tags, and one other thing we didn’t even notice, not sure what it was (I guess they allow a few under 1" stars on the windshield, so no charge for that). Apparently it was noted on the account or something. I’m starting to think 24/12 leases is the sweet spot for us, which should be just few enough miles to maybe keep tires in spec.
First - I love the comments about buying used tires at lease end to pass inspection. Never would have thought of that.
I bought the wear/tear package on my Fusion lease just for tire purposes. For $8/mo or $288 over the lease, I could get away without worrying about buying $800-1000 in tires. Seemed like a no brainer. I was glad I did it on the Fusion.
When I did my S90, I was thinking about the wear/tear until they said it would add $800 to the lease and wouldn’t residualize. Hell no, I said. Boy am I glad I didn’t. After looking into it, the Pirelli rubber on the 20"s on my Volvo won’t last longer than 20k or so anyway. I’m going to be replacing tires regardless. I would be really shooting myself in the foot had I done wear/tear for tire purposes. Shoot…even if I destroy a wheel and it costs me $500, I’ll be ahead of the wear/tear.
So, long story short - wear and tear on tires can work out well but only if the timing is just right. Tough gamble IMO, especially given the advice of used rubber. $0.02
My view on it is wear and tear pre-payment is usually not a good deal. As with all things offered to you in the F&I office. In the aggregate, consumers lose money on these plans. If they didn’t, the plans wouldn’t be sold. So on average, the typical consumer will come out ahead not buying the plan.
It’s like playing 21. Some people will win, some times. But in the long run everyone loses. 
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Yeah I mean it will be interesting to see how it will turn out at the end, am just trying to figure what the best move for me would be
I did read about threads suggesting on getting the used tires here, but has anyone had any good/bad experience with getting used tires on a bmw? Is it safe/reliable to do so?
Do you have to lease the same brand from the same dealership of any dealership?
I use bestusedtires.com for my lease turnins that are low on tread. For a fraction of the price you can find the original brand/rating of tide that came on your lease. They’re so cheap, I just slap them on before turn in just to be safe when I’m close to the wear threshold
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For my run flat leases, i pull the tires off while they still have sufficient tread for lease return and store them. I don’t like run flats anyway so This allows me drive most of my lease on regular tires. Just throw a fix a flat kit in the trunk.
You can buy new tires cheaper than that, albeit they will not be the original brand. Something like a Zenna Argus for example. You dont even need matching tire brands, just same size and speed rating(or better) that the car came with.
You have to have at least 2 of a matching pair.
My lease with lexus is going to end in a month and i have a flat tire. Currently I am using the spare tire. I dont want to get a new tire just for one month.
I have purchased wear and tear protection. The agreement says, each event of up to $2000 is covered. I am wondering if it would cover flat tire.
Can someone suggest what to do now?
Thanks!