I’m curious to know why folks care for mileage on leases? Are people aware that you can always sell/trade a lease in at any time? By getting a lease with 15k or 18k, it is potentially increasing the monthly payment, versus getting lower miles (example 7500/y miles) on a lease and trading it in before the lease end. The trade in value is usually the same near the end of the lease as the market value of the car so you can walk out of the trade without paying any thing extra. This also helps in eliminating any additional lease costs such as new tires, door ding repairs etc. What do you think is the drawback of doing this?
This isn’t true in many cases. Manufacturers usually will have inflated RVs to help leasing numbers.
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You forget one little detail that gets in the way of your logic. You will still be on the hook for all those future lease payments unless you have some sort of pull-ahead offer from the manufacturer
Most leases cannot be “traded in” because the residual value is higher than the payoff. The best example is when my 2007 BMW 750LI was returned in 2009. the economy had crashed and my residual value was $67,000. The car ended up for sale as a CPO vehicle on a dealers lot for $39,900. Trade in value as $30k. No way to get out of that other than return.
While that is an extreme case, I have never had equity or even come close to being break even on a lease return car (and I have had 20 over the years). That is the beauty of leasing, finding a car that the manufacturer has pumped up the residual and lowered the money factor to give you a great payment.
Less extreme example is a $39,500 2016 GMC Terrain Denali that I am returning on Friday. Payment was $285 with tax on a 24 month lease. The residual (payoff) is $28,440. Dealers are now offering 30% off new ones (the same as my residual is now). Why would a dealer buy a 2 year old car for what new ones are retailing for now? My guess is trade in on this vehicle is under 23k. That is a 5k looser on a car with only 14,000 miles on it. I will turn it in and walk away happily.
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I assume he’s talking about when the lease is over. OP you have any actual examples of this working? If it were that easy, we’d read about it all the time on here. Instead we see people going thousands over and owing a ton.
I recently received an offer from the dealer I leased my 2016 Civic LX from to come in and trade for a new Civic. I have 18 months remaining and currently at 19,000 miles. They offered me $11,500 on trade, given, it was rear-ended a month after I had gotten it. My residual after 36 months is $12,773. You can only imagine how much a dealer will offer for a trade at that point.
I suppose the question is…
Is the payoff less than the (residual value - mileage penalty) ?
this plan will work about 0.01% of the time… maybe.
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@masterblaster not true, I’ve sold and traded in several BMWs and a Lexus mid-lease without issue. Couple of times to Carmax and once to an individual cash buyer…the cash sale ended up with a stupid tax runaround that was a pain but got sorted out over a couple of months through the CA FTB, but that’s another story.
As others have said, it rarely happens like this. The exception is some Hondas and some Subarus. I was shocked when we had positive equity on our 2016 Equinox. It was worth like $4000 less than the residual, but the dealer purchased it at wholesale cost from GM Financial and gave us a little extra. This is the only time I can see it working, but it has to be an in-demand crossover. They ended up certifying it and selling it for what the residual was. A non GM dealer could have never done this.
@lotsomiles I’ve sold mid-lease BMWs and Hondas to carmax multiple times with mileage higher than where it should’ve been and each time they take the car, pay off the lease, and I have paid nothing beyond that. It comes down to the deal received on the car and it’s value at time of sale, as long as they aren’t too far apart it shouldn’t be problem - maybe a little out of pocket cost may be necessary to close the gap but no need to pay any additional lease payments.
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I’ve done the same multiple times as well. Leased a 2015 CRV, kept it for a year and traded it in for a 2017 X1 (bought in late 2016). Kept that for only 6 months and traded it in for a 2017 X5 which I’ve owned now for about 9 months. Each time I got back exactly what was owed on the car without taking a loss on the trade in and at the same time got a sweet lease deal.
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Not what the OP is discussing but from having equity in a lease at the end…we just sold my wife’s 2015 4Runner to a carmax like place last night. Payoff was 28.3k and they bought it for 33.5k. 5.2k in our pocket. If we wanted to go through the trouble we could’ve purchased it then sold it private party for 38k easy…but that’s a hassle. I’m sure it’s now on their lot for 39.5k. Crazy. The purchase price was 42ish in December 2014. I’m sure this is a rare case.
This is what extaclty what I was thinking as well. But I mostly sell to CarMax before the lease is up.
Never tried to trade it in. Are you saying you have better trade numbers then CarMax offers?
See, this is a great example where you profit from selling/trading the car in rather than waiting for the lease to end then giving the car back and having to pay for excessive miles, wear and tear etc. So back to my original questions, not sure why this option is discussed more often on this forum. 
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I’ve heard this is the way to go for Toyota Tacoma and 4Runner leases as well.
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I can see the trade in value being similar on certain cars. The FJ cruiser. Civic si. Most ford trucks will be pretty close because of how there leases are setup. Gtr is also usually pretty good at 2-3years. Regular cars nope.
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Italian, British, German cars often have inflated RV so people are usually upside down
I tried selling to Carmax, they offered $3k less than the residual. Same with the dealer I leased it from…
Yeah depends on the car and rv. What was the car?