Want to buy my car off lease...or should I say "wanted to"

[the1andonly]

Want to buy my car off lease...or should I say "wanted to". I was thinking about buying my manual black on black 128i off lease. This is my first lease, usually buy, and the more i read about buying off lease the bigger headache it sounds like. my residual is around $21500, and I heard BMW inflates it to offer better lease rates. problem with that is at lease end car will be worth significantly less than that. Im also surprised to hear BMW financial almost never negotiates a lower residual off lease. so what are my options? to get robbed in order to buy my car off lease? or to turn in a car i want, pay ridiculous end of lease fee's and have to buy/lease a totally different car? sounds like i get robbed either way. thoughts anybody? thanks in advance...

[chrisv_335EBII]

Originally Posted by the1andonly

Want to buy my car off lease...or should I say "wanted to". I was thinking about buying my manual black on black 128i off lease. This is my first lease, usually buy, and the more i read about buying off lease the bigger headache it sounds like. my residual is around $21500, and I heard BMW inflates it to offer better lease rates. problem with that is at lease end car will be worth significantly less than that. Im also surprised to hear BMW financial almost never negotiates a lower residual off lease. so what are my options? to get robbed in order to buy my car off lease? or to turn in a car i want, pay ridiculous end of lease fee's and have to buy/lease a totally different car? sounds like i get robbed either way. thoughts anybody? thanks in advance...

How are you getting robbed? If the residual was set too high it means that you have been paying less than your actual depreciation over the term of your lease. If the car depreciated 30K and you've only paid 20K of that depreciation it doens't mean BMW should take that hit. You agreed to the residual when you bought the vehicle.

A lot of people turn in their leases, have the dealership buy it at their cost (much less than residual) and then buy it from them and allow for a small profit to dealership.

This is how leases work. They will ALWAYS cost you more if you plan to buy the car at the end of the lease. You should not lease a car if you dont intend on turning it in at the end of the lease.

BTW there is no ridiculous end of lease fee's unless you went over the miles, damaged the vehicle. Again, this is all things you agreed too so you should not be suprised or feel robbed.

[simianspeedster]

Basically, it's a case where you can't reasonably expect to get the best of both worlds.

BMW's leases are the most competitive around (though Infiniti is quite close). The residuals on most BMWs are very high -- unrealistically high in most cases relative to real world resale values. For example, the 36 month residual on my wife's F30 is 64% and there are very few regular (i.e. non-exotic) luxury or sports cars that really hold about 2/3 of their value after 3 years. If I recall correctly, Audi offered a residual of 56% on a comparable A4 at the time we bought her car.

So if you lease a car and turn it in with no issues, you can get a great deal end to end. But the flip side is that the high residual makes a buyout feel like a ripoff. That said, it's not fair to expect BMW to eat it on both sides of the coin.

I've never heard of the idea suggested by the1andonly, but if your dealer is game for that and you really like your car, it's worth a shot.

[The Dowager Countess]

just lease another one.

[ixm3]

I wouldn't be so sure about this. BMW makes the active decision to not let the customer buy the car at market price for the benefit of its dealers.

Just play this out...BMW subsidizes your lease with an unrealistically high residual. When you return the car to them they still have to unload the car at wholesale price to a dealer who will then mark up the price up from wholesale to market levels. So, BMW FS is willing to take the hit from unrealistically high residual down to wholesale, instead of letting us just buying the car outright at market price. BMW FS loses either way. The dealer gets a shot at selling decent off lease car, while the customer (who could have just kept the car at a fair price), has no realisitic chance of keeping the car. Sure, the customer got a great lease deal, but BMW FS set that stage and could just as easily set the second "off lease" stage to benefit the customer as well...but they don't.

Originally Posted by simianspeedster

Basically, it's a case where you can't reasonably expect to get the best of both worlds.
...

So if you lease a car and turn it in with no issues, you can get a great deal end to end. But the flip side is that the high residual makes a buyout feel like a ripoff. That said, it's not fair to expect BMW to eat it on both sides of the coin.
...

[Kouper]

As suggested above, go into a dealer you like and ask to talk to the Finance Mgr or Sales Mgr. Tell them you are interested in finding out what it would cost to turn in your car to them and then buy it back from them at a reasonable profit to them. The dealer can buy it for a much lower price than your residual. Now, some dealers won't play this game so you may need to ask around of a few different ones who want to turn a quick low risk profit. Good luck, let us know what you find out.

Your other option is to just lease a new one. The rates and residuals on the 1's are very favorable right now, so you may be able to get into a new last-of-the-ones for less than you are actually paying right now.

[bbbbmw]

There is also the "balloon note" as an alternative to a lease. You can structure it the same way as a lease (low payments for, say, 36 months, with payment number 37 being the balance of the note), and then trade it in, sell it, or keep it and refinance when the balloon payment comes due. There are no excess mileage fees, disposal fees, etc.

This also makes sense if your state has negative tax treatment for leases.

[doublevanosrc]

Hey OP what was the outcome?? You keep the 1er?

I'm in your same position right now, don't know what to do.