My 3 year lease is up as of December 15th. By then I will be just a little over on the mileage, 60,000 miles, when I should have 36k.
So, needless to say I want to buy out the truck.
My questions are..
I leased through NMAC, brand new 2001 X. They said that my buy out is fixed at $14k when lease is over.
However the dealership said that I can renegotiate that number towards the end of the lease if I'm over on mileage, dented or scratched, etc. They also said that if I renogotiate the buy-out it can result in about $500 off.
I also forgot to mention that the truck is quite modified, everything is reversable, i.e. ARB, KMA, safari rack, sliders,etc. But I dont really want to go that route and reinstall crap on a new truck.
So, Anyone in the same boat as me?
I obviously want to buy ut the truck.
I cant swing $14k up front. I can put down a decent deposit like $4-5k and finance the rest.
Who should I go through? Nissan financing? third party? etc.
Any info is greatly appreciated.
Thanx

If you're buying the truck outright, there will be no penalty because you're at the end of the lease. Nissan won't care what the mileage is. Check your lease agreement - who guarantees the buyout amount, you or Nissan Finance? Every lease agreement can vary.

Sounds like you want to keep it, so just ask them for their finance rate and compare it to your bank. Typically, I find the dealer rates can be pretty competitive.

I'm trying to get out of my lease right now, and it's a nightmare.

Don't say that! I am in a lease now and I hope to purchase the X when it ends. However I will most likely be below the mileage limits. Wonder what that does?

If you are going to buy out your truck, the mileage, dents, scratches, mods mean nothing to the dealership or NMAC. They wont have to deal with the repairs.
If you were to trade it in with high mileage then thats a different story.

I never heard of a lease (I'm not very familiar or have any experience with them but I've had friends with them) that the bu-out price at the end of the lease is not at least as low a BLUE BOOK / NADA .

You might want to look a little further into that and I'd think you have a lot of bargaining power...Think of it this way, YOU ARE THE CUSTOMER / BOSS with the $ and it is basically a car 4 sale.

Please let us know the result when it is all said and done.

Did you guys with leases negotiate the value of the buyout at the end, and calculate what the real cost is of all your payments when combined with this? If you didn't ... uh ... why not? Everything can be negotiated. You need to calculate your total cost over the lifetime of your ownership.

I love how some people just jump into a lease and get all excited because they put nothing down, but payments are $550+ a month for 4 years, then the buyout at the end is something ridiculous like $15000 (truck isn't even worth that much at that point). TCO is over $41K!! I'm not saying this is you or you or even you, but for example a coworker just bought a new Altima and is all excited because he negotiated free floor mat fluid and muffler bearings, but his monthly payments are too high and his buyout is way more than the value of the car after 3 years. :rolleyes:

Well.....if you are under your milage they would love to take your X back..if you are over your milage they pretty much have you by the balls. When you turn it in off a lease you end up paying the termination fee (I believe NMAC is still only $350.) Plus your milage that you are over, and they nit pick on damage). I had tried to negotiate when my lease was up on my maxima (where I was over by 9k) and they wouldnt budge on the price of my buyout. I had wanted to negotiate my buyout and I was told that it was not negotiable. Either you pay your buyout on your contract or turn it in and pay the fee. The only way I got a break was to turn this lease in and buy another (or lease) another Nissan, (which I did) and they waived the milage and the termination fee (or anydamage up to 1k for that matter).
The situation is different when you lease through another party (other then NMAC). With my experience through VW, the lease company did not want to hear anything about negotiating, or care to finance the buyout. I had to travel 1hr just to have the damn thing inspected before I could turn it in! Last time I deal with a small outside finance group..........I guess if you are lucky your dealer may negotiate with you, but from my experience, they love you if you are over your milage and have to turn it in......just my .02

It's probably too late now, but why not just trade off on a different make of vehicle (unless you really NEED a Nissan). If you do that before your lease is up don't you just have to pay the fee and payoff? So essentially you trade to another dealer who pays that fee and whatever value is left gets rolled into your down payment on another vehicle. Of course your payoff needs to be less than the trade value. I don't know, this may work with another Nissan too. I have never tried this or known anyone who has, but I've read it somewhere. Almost considered it since I could get in a vehicle cheap, drive it for a couple years and then trade it on something different without having to pay penalties or fees at lease closing.

My Buy out is only 9k which isnt too bad...

Why keep paying another couple years on a car you basically though money away on for three years, im sure if you took it to the dealer you could trade it in for a new one and keep paying close to what you where paying. Thats what i did with my truck. I had a 99 F-150 leased for 4 years (biggest mistake of my life) if i where to buy it ide have to pay 400$ a month for the next 3 years. I went to the Ford dealer they gave me a decent trade in (more than the lease buy out) and i Bought, not leased a 2003 F-150 Super Crew for less than i would have paid per month if i would have bought out the lease, It might be for 5 years but hey 0% Interest can't argue with that.

These are all prime examples of why I will never lease. To me, it's renting a car basically.

I might have lost my ass buying a new one, but if I keep it, which I will do come hell or high water, the depreciation will catch up, provided I take care of it. Which I also will do.

I guess you're not too good with math, and you don't get the appeal of having a new car all the time.

My lease, when all is said and done after I buy it out and pay that portion off, is going to cost me the exact same thing overall as if I'd bought it outright (financed). Leases are great, it's all about when you want to pay what.

Hey Jose, Im leasing too...can you xplain that for me? I have a 5 year lease and WOULD love to get out of that ug.... Any ideas help from all?

It depends what leasing company you have, for example i had Omni Financial. They made me an offer that instead of continuing to pay the lease for a couple of years i could continue paying but it would be torward buying it, thats what gave me the idea to go out and see how much it would cost me to just go get a new truck. it made absolutly no sense to continue paying for something that wasn't mine so the dealer paid of the lease and they also gave me enough so i had 1000 torwards down payment. So now im paying about the same and the truck is new and its mine. Im sure you could do something similer with your X

Yea i pay 230 a month with about with about 36 months left... the buy back is about 9k, and i have 25k miles left... i figure if i trade it in earlier i should have atleast 2-3k left over... If i put it on another car at the same dealer... bc i am trying to get something more economical for my needs (i drive a lot) and the X is great but just isnt it my means. Or can i just terminate my lease early and just pay the penality which is 350 dollars? Any help would be much appricated... I have NMAC by the way.

leasing vs buying discussion has come up before.

I leased my truck with NOTHING down, the payments are $515 a month (which my company takes care of) the buyout after 48 months is $11038 Canadian Dollars, which means I have paid about $8500 more than the end sticker price on the truck BUT compared to fianacing.... During the 48months I have deducted = Limited depreciation (about $3400) plus upkeep and mileage for business purposes. This is my 2nd leased Truck and I have been with the same fleet management company for 6 years now. when I decided to get the Xterra i visited the local Nissan Dealer, found the truck and called the lease guy. They bought wholesale and leased it to me without markup AND bought the old car at MY asking price.....easy eh!?

I am going to finance it out in November of this year without penalty for early buyout!.

A lot of people haven't noticed the tax deduction side of it. If you own your own business, it is better to lease a vehicle than finance or buy outright. If my mileage wasnt so ridiculous last year, I would've deducted my lease payments, and at $339/month it adds up to a heavy deduction. Of course you can deduct up to a certain percentage, but that for the accountant to figure out.

I guess what I'm going to have to do is talk to my sales manager at the dealership and see if I can negotiate with them on the buyout.

Anyone know of any online car/truck financing companies that are decent?

I've been leasing for years, and it evens out at the end:

Leasing allows you to write off up to the entire lease amount for business use. This is a 25-30% tax savings at the end of the year, each year.

However, if you finance, you can write off the interest payments (again for business), and depreciate the capital cost every year. I've worked the math out with my accountant, and it evens out after say, 48 months.

I personally wouldn't lease if I couldn't write off the payments though, you pay more at the end.

All this assumes similar interest rates - if you get some far out 0% financing happening, then bring it on, baby!

I'm very good with math and that's why I know there is NO appeal to having a new car all the time other than satisfying my ego. The math also shows that leasing sucks and should be avoided at all costs since you never really own anything - esp. if you hop from one lease to another. Unless you are a Bill Gates type and will never have to worry about finances for the rest of your life - and then you wouldn't have to worry about something like leasing since you could just buy a new vehicle whenever you wanted, for cash.

Furthermore, with the reliability of todays cars leasing really isn't needed - other than the whole ego thing.

Luckily for me, my ego is stable enough to where I don't need a new car all the time. My 240sx was 12 years old (5 years old when I bought it) and it looked brand new when I sold it - the first buyer that looked at it paid over Blue Book and Edmunds estimated dealer price, in cash, for exactly what I was asking. My Miata is over 10 years old and other than a few door dings (can happen to any vehicle and can easily be fixed) looks and runs like new. The only reason I bought a new X, other than I wanted to was the price gap between the decent used ones and the new ones wasn't that great. And I wanted an exact configuration that was less than a year old

I will keep my X for at least 10 years, if not longer. The money that you put into leasing cars and keeping the car companies in business I will invest towards my retirement. To each his own. Over 30 years, $5K a year (and I would wager you spend more than that a year) can turn into BIG bucks via the miracle of compounding intrest. Wouldn't you rather have that money working for your retirement than just giving it away to the car companies?

http://www.carbuyingtips.com/lease.htm

I was just reading it - some good stuff.

Unfortunatly you are reading it at the end of your lease instead of before you got your lease so you may be stuck - sounds like it depends on your lease contract terms. I hope you have a copy of your lease contract - I would read it to find out what your options are at the end. If you don't have a copy or can't find it, NMAC is very friendly - call their customer service number on your statement and get them to mail you a copy ASAP.

It doesn't matter what your dealer tells you, it matters what is in your contract.

And he has some tips to keep in mind when you come off a lease towards the bottom of this page:

http://www.carbuyingtips.com/lease5.htm

Good luck...