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How often do you get a new car?

3K views 18 replies 16 participants last post by  MoistCabbage 
#1 ·
Hey all,

Just curious, how long do you own/lease your cars for?

I personally love new cars, I don't have a wife or kids, got a good job and so I have had 6 cars in the last 3 years...gulp, but I just love having a new car. I got my ATS 3.6 black/black last week and I like it a lot and I'm going to try to keep it as long as possible just seeing what average is, what reasonable is and if anyone else gets the itch to trade like I do.
 
#6 ·
I lease and my previous 2 leases were 39 months but I got out of them both around 6 months early to do lease pullaheads into other cars. Anyway, my ATS is 36 months but I'm thinking of just buying it out after the lease because of the sick deal i got. Then when it's paid off, I'll trade it for an ELR :bouncy:
 
#9 ·
I buy and usually go 5 to 6 years or 90k range. This way I have it paid off for a couple of years with only one major service and enough tread on the 3d set of tires to not replace. The residual value from private sale or trade in goes toward the new car. I like the idea of a lease and a new car more often but the freedom of owning (barely) outweighs it.
 
#12 ·
In past I had 4 year leases, but I bought out my last car, a 2007 Civic, and drove for 6 years in total, until I bought my ATS. (First Cadi !!!) I got a 3 year lease on the ATS because monthly lease rates for the 3 year lease are quite low, but the buyout is rather high -- I love my ATS, but the high buyout makes me less likely to buy it. I will probably lease a 2016 when the lease is up.
 
#15 ·
Hoosier Daddy said:
It's not like you have to pay the buyout amount. The car will be worth whatever it's worth. They will gladly sell it to you for the going rate. The lessor would just as soon avoid having to auction it off.
If that's the case, what does the buyout amount mean? Is it only relevant if the car is worth more than the buyout at the end of the lease?
 
#16 ·
It's just a cap on what they can charge you if you want to keep it. As you might guess, they might try to convince you that's what you have to pay, but it's not.

So a sky high buy out figure at lease end is an extremely good thing for the lessee because the higher the buy out at end of lease, the less the monthly amount is. In the case of the ATS, GM paid the lessor for that high buy out to lower the payments. For example, if the lessee estimates the car will be worth x and Cadillac wants it to be y, they pay the lessee the difference.
 
#17 ·
When I was signing my lease papers, I asked the finance manager the very same question ; what if at the end of the lease term I like to buy the car, but the fair market value of the car is way less than the residual value. Is there any way to negotiate the buyout value and make it realistic? His answer was interesting. He told me there used to be procedures and possibilities for such cases. But during the financial crisis of 2007-2008, when the fair market values were considerably less than the estimated residual values, the dealers abused such procedures and possibilities so much that the leasing banks and GM almost totally removed such possibilities. So the short and the simple answer is no.
 
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