So in researching leases I always see articles that say you shouldn’t do a 39 month lease because you’re making 3 extra payments and it brings the lease outside of the factory warranty. That’s true if you simply return your lease to the dealer after 39 months, but what’s stopping you from going to the dealership early and getting into a new lease? That’s what I’m doing right now on my current lease which was a 36 month lease. I have 3 payments left, every dealer I’ve been to is willing to pay off the remaining months of I get into a new lease.
So what’s so bad about doing a 39 month lease for the lower monthly payment? Just start shopping for a new lease at the around the 35th month. Am I missing something here? Does the residual value change significantly for a 39 month?
There’s little risk warranty-wise since the powertrains on almost all vehicles are warrantied longer than 36 or 39 mos.
Doing 39 mos helps with lower pmt, of course. But a vehicle made these days is RARELY going to have much, if any mech or electronic failure that the dealer acting on your behalf (because they are getting paid by the manufacturer to fix it) isn’t going to get handled for you at zero cost,
But be wary of “we will make your payments for you” ads or talk from the dealer. Usually that is just them saying they are going to throw it back into your deal and in actuality YOU are paying for it over time in your new lease or finance deal. Rarely are they so generous as to absorb it on their own. It happens and it happens more frequently bc of internal incentives from the manufacturer to dealer that we don’t know about or see, but it’s usually a come on or “scam” tactic to make the dealer look like they’re DEALING, baby!!!
Don’t fret about a 39 mo deal vs a 36 mo and taking it to the full term bc of warranty issue.
For the most part, 36 months is traditionally better than 39 months. Infiniti is the exception to this. Dealers who are offering to pay off your lease may simply be putting them into the new lease, so be careful
unless you take out another lease from the same manufacturer and they are offering an official pull ahead program in which you are allowed to get out of your current lease in exchange for taking out a new lease, someone has to pay for it. The dealership isn’t going to absorb the last 3 payments because it comes out of their pocket if there’s no pull ahead lease program, they’ll bake it into the new lease without you knowing. So yes, sure you can do that, you’re just ultimately pay for it and you’ll get a better payment if you didn’t have the last 3 payments to deal with.
As for 36 mo vs 39 mo, i agree there’s little risk in anything big happening, the only thing that would worry me is that having the car an extra 3 mo might wear your tires down further to a point where you go below the tread threshold and have to pay for new tires just for lease return purposes. Even if you go buy a used set of tires you’re still out money.
My Hyundai dealership has an early lease termination program if you lease or purchase another car from them. They offer up to 6 months of payments and the early lease termination fee and possibility anything else I might have to pay. This is from their website “This program takes advantage of manufacturer incentives as well as additional incentives provided by our dealership to terminate your lease early and pay as many as 6 lease payments for you when you buy or lease a new vehicle from us.” They way it was explained to me was all of the incentives offered on the car would be the Money they would use to pay off my lease early. So buyer beware.
If you are over mileage but within your lease mileage on turn in are you legally liable to turn the car back in with no CEL on? Or any issues that WOULD have been covered under bumper-to-bumper?
Its not an issue with 15k on most companies but Jeep’s Bumper to Bumper warranty, for example, is 3y/36k. So if you do 36mo/15k miles you’re well over the warranty by lease turn in. Lets say the Uconnect is shot. Are you screwed and have to pay the dealer to repair it at turn in?
In general, if you’re outside of warranty coverage, you are liable. Now how that translates into the real world is a different story. For example, i doubt that during lease end inspection they’ll “test” every feature such as uconnect to see if it works and make you pay for it. Car might go to auction etc by the time someone figures out it’s not working, i don’t think i’ll back bill you for it. Now if it’s something that would be apparent during lease end inspection they’ll mark it down and make you pay for it.
