Before I knew about Leasehackr, we leased a 2015 Leaf EV (lease terms attached), where we pay $321/month. With the 2018 Leaf months away, Nissan is offering to extend our lease 8 months and pay for 3 months, effectively reducing our monthly cost to $200/month(plus a $233 car registration annual renewal) (terms attached).
When are lease renewals worth it? Are they negotiable (perhaps to make them month-to-month)?
We are watching to Bolt EV leases drop gradually, we’re not thrilled with getting one next month because there is no other options. Extending the Leaf EV lease to Spring will potentially offer real extended range competition (Focus, Leaf, Bolt, e-Golf, Ionic, etc).
If it’s as straightforward as you seem to make it, then you basically have to ask: can I find another better car for $200 a month + registration fee/12?
I guess I don’t know if it is that straightforward. I’m not convinced they’d offer to pay 3/8 monthly payments out of charity, so I wonder what the catch is. On the other hand, maybe that gives the opportunity for a competitive lease to buy out the remainder within the next 8 months?
@kabir
i’m not too familiar with Nissan in particular but it’s an odd proposition, they extend it for an arbitrary number of months but you only have to pay for part of it but you have to pay for registration on top of it?
Something seems weird.
For example, at Lexus, lease extension is a flat 6 months at original payment. But it’s a month-to-month so you can return the car at any point in time in that 6 months period.
At Honda you can go month-to-month, i’ve extended it a year in the past, they were the most accommodating.
At BMW, they don’t really want to give you an extension, there’s no set time, usually 2 months isn’t a problem, beyond that they give you a hard time unless you ordered a new car from them etc.
I’ve heard some companies let you extend but the payment changes to where it’s not worth it. Like a 200/mo car goes to 800/mo on the extension because they reprice it somehow.
What you are describing seems odd to me, I would call them again and find out the details.
Thanks @305Hackr for the info, I attached the lease extension offer so experienced folks like you could take a look and let me know if that looked like a typical lease extension. Any probing questions that I should ask in particular? I figured knowing how the 3 months being paid for would actually work would be important.
The only motivation that I can see from Nissan is that they want me to remain in the market for their new 2018 Leaf, and since I put a zero down lease, maybe they felt they could be generous with the 3 months credit. I searched this forum and didn’t see a mention of anything like this before.
Partly they want you to wait for the new Leaf. Partly it’s that any money you pay them on the lease is money they wouldn’t have otherwise. The car has already had the brunt of it’s depreciation. It’s not worthless, but it’s not worth much, and it’s going to depreciate less than $1400 over the next 8 months. If you like the car, you’re both out ahead to a certain extent. If you do end up getting another Leaf, you won’t have any turn-in fees. Another plus of this.
according to the below link, you can extend and return at any time:
“you’ll continue the payments regularly, you can turn in/buy out the vehicle at any time, and your milage allowance is pro rated by month as long as you keep the car.”
