So my wife’s 2018 BMW 330e lease is up in 2 weeks and while I thought we’d have to extend because I didn’t think I’d find anything with how bad the market is now, we were able to purchase a VW ID4 (for MSRP luckily) and so now I can either turn in or try and do a 3rd party buyout (or more likely buyout and sell to a 3rd party).
Most of the offers I’m getting seem to be at or a little below our current buyout, but if we turn it in we’ll owe $1550 ($1200 for new tires, $350 lease disposition).
So I’m trying to figure out the math on whether it’s worth the effort to try and sell the car. From my reading in CA it sounds like if we were to buyout and then sell to a 3rd party within 10 days then we wouldn’t owe taxes, so would my all in cost to “buy” the car be the lease buyout quote that BMWFS is showing me on the website or am I missing other costs?
If I’ll owe $1550 at turn in, would it be smart to take any offer that is > (my buyout - $1550), or is it also a big hassle to buyout then sell or sell via autonation so I’d want it to be a least closer to the actual buyout to make it worth the effort?
Also, I know BMWFS doesn’t allow third party buyouts anymore, but sounds like Autonation and maybe MyCarAuction can actually do direct buyouts due to some association with BMW dealerships. Am I missing any others?
Thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions. We just picked up the ID4 after I spent way too much time over the last 2 months trying to track one down so this wasn’t even on my radar and now I have 2 weeks to figure it out so I appreciate any help as this was our first lease and so our first time with lease turn-in or sale.
Would recommend checking with MyCarAuction to see what their offer is as they will pay off the car in your name and give you any equity. Buying out the car to sell it would be a hassle and if you are only talking hundreds of dollars vs thousands that would probably not be worth it. Good luck!
This is correct. RODO should be able to do the same. Have you contacted any BMW dealers yet? That’s the no headache approach, and I don’t like headaches.
If you’re going to be in the negative anyway, it’s best to try the path of least resistance first.
Correct, and any buyout fees if any. But again, talk to a dealer that can buy a BMWFS lease, BMW Dealers, Rodo, any of the aforementioned services, etc. If you can come out of that pretty similarly, it might not even be worth the headache.
Thanks for the MyCarAuction tip. Their offer was like $2-3k higher than the other ones got so far and would totally make sense to take, especially if they can buy direct from BMW. I requested an inspection, guess we’ll see how that works out.
I didn’t even realize trading in a lease was an option towards the new car. Guess I should have thought this through a little better but honestly I was so consumed with trying to get an ID4 before our lease was up in 2 weeks that I figured I’d deal with the sell/lease return after (or extend the lease til we could hopefully get something). Plus my wife was still using the car as I was trying to get the new one so couldn’t even take it in with me.
The guy is coming tomorrow from MyCarAuction to look at it. If he gives me what they offered or close to it (and don’t see why he wouldn’t considering the car was very lightly used and in pretty pristine condition) then that’s a win for us. Gets us out of paying the $1550 and gets us $1k+ on top of that. Autonation also called me back today and sounded like they might match MyCarAuction’s offer.
I did look into getting other tires, and my brother-in-law works in a car shop so he checked to see how much he could get them for me, but they were only like $50 cheaper a tire and then I’d need to get them mounted so didn’t seem worth the effort. Because they have to be equivalent to the run flat tires that were on there when we got it they were kinda expensive. I guess I could have seen if there was another brand with cheaper but equivalent spec run flats, but didn’t seem like I’d get them for that much cheaper so didn’t put in the effort.
Buy used runflats on eBay. 4 would run you around 250 ish-300. BMW dealer told me any major brand name rft tire works for them when I turned my last car in. Doesn’t need to be the exact same tire that your car came with (mine came with Contis and I returned with Pirelli on the front and Conti on the back). Tires just need to match on the same axle.
Thanks for the tip. If we end up not selling it for some reason I’ll look into doing that, especially if it saves us $900 cause i can get my brother in law to mount them for free.
If you yourself personally buy the vehicle you shouldn’t see a disposition fee. But since the dealer is buying it out and reconditioning the vehicle for resale, I was told I had to pay it. Not sure if that’s supposed to be the case but I figured it wasn’t worth the time to pursue it further
I guess we’ll find out. I ended up selling it today to MyCarAuction who, from my understanding, pays off the car in my name (which I hope avoids the disposition fee). Not a big moneymaker for me, but honestly I’m mostly just happy to not have to pay the $1550, so anything on top of that is icing on the cake. We’ll see how the process continues, but so far it was super easy. Guy came out and inspected the car and then we did some paperwork. They docked me off the quoted price about $800 for some curb rash on the rims and the fact that it needs 4 new tires. Since the offer wasn’t $1000 over the buyout they didn’t give me a check, but I guess I’ll get it when the title arrives and once the buyout is done with BMW they’ll send someone with a truck to pickup the car.
So it’s been 10 days since I sold the car to MyCarAuction and I still haven’t seen the payoff hit with BMW. Starting to get a little worried as I was supposed to turn the car in before 12/23.
Has anyone else had it take this long? No one answered the phone when I called and I texted them again 2 days ago and they said they’d look into it but nothing since.
