Very disappointed with Infiniti - Lease buyout Carmax/Carvana/Vroom

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Update: I just sold the car to Autonation Infiniti of Tustin. They matched the local Carmax offer ($31k), and made the whole process extremely convenient and painless. I leased two QX60’s from them including the one I just sold, and will definitely be going back to them in the future. The way they treated me during this process made up for the initial disappointment caused by Infiniti’s policies. If you are in the area and need an Infiniti, I would definitely give them a call. Ask for Abdul (sales representative), or David (sales manager). The deal is not totally done as they need to write me a check ($1.4k) for the positive equity after factoring in the $2k security deposit, but they said the check will be in the mail once Infiniti sends the title to them, which could take two weeks to a month.

Does anyone have any experience with selling your leased Infiniti to Carmax, Carvana, Vroom, etc? I have been getting conflicting information from Infiniti Financial reps, and Carvana just flat out declined to work with Infiniti/Nissan after I accepted their offer and uploaded docs (see below). Has anyone been able to sell their leased Infiniti to anyone besides an Infiniti dealer? I have spoken with 3 IFS reps so far. The first one was barely able to answer any questions and didn’t seem to understand the situation, the second one immediately said that you can’t sell the car to a 3rd party, the third one was the most helpful and said that they prefer that you sell the car to an Infiniti/Nissan dealer, but they won’t stop a 3rd party from buying it. He even said that Carmax and Carvana are great to deal with. I was excited after talking to the last rep, but I haven’t been able to make much progress with any of the 3rd party buyers so far.

Details:

I am trying to get rid of my 2019 QX60 Luxe Essential with less than 16k miles as we don’t need two QX60s anymore (our work situation changed drastically since we leased the cars, and we already have a second 2019 QX60). This particular lease has 9 more payments due @ $370 including tax, with a payoff of $31500 (includes a $2k security deposit), so I was thrilled to find out that I may be able to get out of the lease without taking a loss (Carvana) or for a nominal amount (Carmax, Vroom).

Got offers from Carvana, Carmax, and Vroom. Carvana was the best offer and was even a bit over the payoff amount ($31.6k), so I decided to move ahead with the buyout. After submitting all the documents, got an email from them that they can’t go ahead with the purchase due to Infiniti/Nissan’s “policies”.

Went to Carmax ($31k offer) and Infiniti wouldn’t even give them the payoff amount on the phone, which they needed. Had to jump through multiple hoops to have Carmax talk to Infiniti on my speakerphone, only to have to pause that effort as Infiniti wouldn’t give us a 10 day payoff quote (the current quote expires in 5 days). Will have to wait for a day past the next due date to get another payoff quote, which should hopefully be valid till next due date (30 days). Even with the the new payoff quote, I am not sure if Carmax will also hit the same roadblock that Carvana did. Will find out next week. Vroom has the lowest offer ($30.8k), but I’ll give them a try if Carmax doesn’t work out.

Keeping the lease till the end of the year will cost me an additional $3-4k or so, so it’s not the end of the world (and yes, I do understand that I signed up for that), but I am very disappointed in Infiniti for their anti consumer policies when it comes to leases (3rd party buyout issue, and also holding original lessee liable even after the lease has been transferred).

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I sold my Q50 to Shift last year and it was a lease. All they need was the payoff amount and IFS account and you are all set. Just make sure that the amount is accurate. Not sure why you were told you cannot sell to as 3rd party.

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I already tried that. Didn’t even get a quote. This is the response I got from them after filling in the car details:

#### Sorry, we can’t take your car right now.

Unfortunately, we are unable to accept INFINITI leases.

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I experienced a similar situation. I would give up on any third party dealer. I ended up selling my lease to Autonation. But you have to take it to a Infiniti Autonation dealer.

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I would happily sell to an Infiniti dealer if they made an offer even remotely close to the offers made by 3rd party buyers.

One Infiniti dealer even said that my car is only worth 26.5k to them, and that I am better off selling to Carmax (which it is at $31k!). He even said that people sell Infiniti leases to Carmax all the time, and that it is not up to Infiniti to decline that. I just don’t know who to trust at this point.

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have you tried autonation? you can get an online quote

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I tried it a few days ago, but it didn’t seem to work. Just resubmitted.

Edit: Found the offer made by Autonation. It was $29.5k. So $1500 less than Carmax, and $2100 less that Carvana. The offer was sent by someone from Autonation Ford. Does that mean that it won’t work? Does it have to come directly from Autonation Infiniti?

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At the time, Autonation a few hundred below Carvana. I was directed to the nearest Autonation dealer (BMW dealer). They were not able to pay off the car. Then, I was directed to a Infiniti Autonation dealer. They honored the original quote.

It doesn’t hurt to try Carmax if you’re happy with the quote. However, it is my understanding in the past year that Infiniti financial no longer allows third party dealer lease buy outs.

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Read the lease agreement that you signed. Nowhere did the lessor agree to sell their property to a third party of your choosing.

Would you expect to be able to rent a car from Hertz, and then three days later ask Hertz to settle up with a buyer for their car that you found on Craigslist?

And then blacklist Hertz for all future rentals if they don’t comply?

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I had great success selling my Infiniti Q50 to ALGo. It couldn’t have been easier. However, IFS took almost two months to close the account and that was with insistent follow-up calls on my end. Try AutoLendersGo and negotiate with them. Be prepared with additional quotes from other third parties because they ask for them and you can use it to your advantage.

For comparison, I requested quotes from ALGo, Carvana and Vroom for my 340i yesterday -
Vroom 28k
Carvana 30
ALGo 33 On the first phone call I had them up to 36, but overall there is no equity in the vehicle so not worth it

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I was waiting for the “Hertz” comparison.

I’m sorry, but Infiniti is not Hertz, and a 39 month lease is not the same as a short term rental from Hertz. Also, you can log into your account and get a payoff quote directly from Infiniti. So the mechanism to pay off the car already exists. I was complaining about Infiniti’s decision to silently exclude 3rd party buyouts, even through they do allow buyouts. All this does is hurt consumers as it forces them to sell their car to an Infiniti dealer at a steep loss, or just continue making the payments. I would understand if Infiniti and other brands flat out disallowed buyouts, and if that was the norm, but they do allow buyouts. Whether a 3rd party or an Infiniti dealer cuts them a check for the payoff shouldn’t matter to them as they receive the same amount for the car.

This is an intentional policy that hurts customers. That’s all I was complaining about. I don’t need a lawyer to tell me to “look at the contract”, or “I told you so” to justify this policy. I am allowed to feel disappointed when it is costing me $2100, and Infiniti Financial Services is not getting any additional money from the transaction. All they are doing is to force me to appease a dealer so they can make a profit at my cost. So yeah, thanks for the Hertz comparison. That really helped!

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How long ago did you sell the car? It looks like Infiniti changed something not that long ago to cut off 3rd party buyouts, though, I am not certain since I am getting conflicting information directly from IFS.

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You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how business works. You cannot retroactively alter the terms of an agreement because you wish it said something else.

Both you and the lessor have clearly-defined rights and obligations in the contract to which you each agreed.

What if they mailed you a letter that said, “Sorry, we overestimated the residual value on this car, and we’re going to lose our ass when you turn it in. Please add $100 to each of the remaining payments, because if you don’t it’s going to cost us money.”?

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Getting tired of hearing this over and over and over again by people who don’t seem to understand how corporations work.

They have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to not do stupid things like sell assets below fair market value. The only reason they will sell to you (and only you) at the RV at the end of the lease is that the contract gave you (and only you) that option. Nobody else.

So you’ve got it ass backwards. They will seek FMV from everybody; you’re right it doesn’t matter who writes that check for FMV. Literally the only person who can buy it at RV below FMV is you and only you.

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It makes a huge difference. One is a contractually obligated amount established at the inception of the contract. The other is them willingly selling their asset to someone they don’t have an obligation to sell to for a loss.

We’re seeing more and more banks ceasing to offering the same buyout terms to 3rd parties as to the lessor as market conditions change. The fact that anyone allows you to sell out their vehicle for your profit is a luxury that seems to be correcting itself.

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Successfully sold our 2018 QX60 lease to Algo in December for few hundred bucks over the payoff amount. You can print out the payoff information from your IFS online account.

Unless something changed, it was a seamless process. Selling my Volvo lease was pretty easy too, but it took Volvo 4 weeks to mail my MSD refund check. Infiniti deducted my MSD from payoff, so I got extra cash back from Algo when they picked it up.

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I sold it last week of August 2020. IFS emailed me the 10 day dealer payoff, which was convenient compared to BMWFS who requires the dealer contact them directly.

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which state are you located?

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You made a valid point, and I respect that.

But why not make this clear? Why is one IFS rep saying you can do it, and another saying you can’t? Why is the dealer himself telling me that I can sell the car to Carmax and many people who came to him have done so? Another dealer told me that they used to allow this, but changed something 2 to 3 months ago.

Like I had said, I would have been okay with a policy that is crystal clear and if this was the norm, but this has been anything but that.

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California