Leasing is new to me…and the electric vehicle part of it is making it hard to know what to do next. Any of you have experience with this?
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We leased a 2015 Nissan Leaf for a very low deposit & monthly payment (federal & state incentives)
We’ve liked the car a great deal…it works for us.
It has less than 15,000 miles on it.
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Now the car is due back…this week…they will sell it to us for $10,000…which seems like a fine deal…but would it be a mistake to take on a 2nd generation electric car when many finer cars are on the way? And – because the tech is new – are we over-estimating how long these cars might last?
My only question is how long does the warranty last on the battery pack? And how much does it cost to replace? That to me is the biggest concern with a car like that, the battery pack can be expensive to replace. I looked it up, the battery is warrented for 100k miles or 8 years, so you have that covered for a while it looks like, so the 10k price might be a good deal.The battery also has a warranty that it won’t be under 9 bars of capacity (ie its max charging level) for 60k miles and 5 years. They also offer, when the warranty is running out, a kind of service contract it seems, for a hundred a month you basically get the piece of mind that if the battery fails or can’t charge, you get a new battery pack (the minute you start the program you get your current pack replaced it seems, too), though what I read didn’t say how long that would run. The actual cost to replace the pack is around 5500 dollars…
Ask yourself this question… What will $10,000 buy you at this point? A very, very used Corolla that will last 5-6 years before it will need a bunch of repairs?
I need to take my car in for an oil change… I need to stop on the way home to get some gas… With your Leaf, you will not have to do either. I would take that into consideration, too.
If you like the car, and $10,000 is a good deal compared to the market, then why not?
You should be able to drive it for at least several more years. By then, there should be used Bolts (should be less expensive than new ones) around, or a larger selection of new long-range electric vehicles, if that is what you want.
I have been shopping for that exact car. Haven’t even looked at one yet, but I have been checking listings because $10k for a 2015 low mileage electric car seems like a good deal to me. You have the big advantage of already knowing the car and knowing if it fits your needs. For me I am thinking it would be great for local shopping trips, but not for any trip of more than 25 miles because it might not make it all the way home! So if you like it, check your local listings and see if $10k is a fair price.
KBB trade in is around $8K for a 2015 SV Leaf, so DON’T buy it. Put it this way: a $10K loan @ 5% interest is about $230 per month plus maintenance, insurance, etc. for a very limited , short life vehicle. Batteries will continue to deteriorate and range will go down. You would be much better off with a used Corolla or Civic which is much more versatile, has low operating costs and no range limitations. $2/gal gas make the Leaf’s operating cost advantage much smaller. You could even lease a car for about the same price. I think the Leaf is too impractical to own.
We got rid of our Civic Hybrid after the battery pack issues. Fortunately the Cali HOV sticker added $5K to the sales price so we didn’t lose much!
However, if the OP were to buy a car on the general market, s/he would pay dealer retail or private party price, not trade in price. (OP should check the general market prices for his/her area.)
@TooOld4School has it right. You shouldn’t just hold a finger up to the wind and think 10k sounds pretty cheap. You have to compare the buyout price to fair market value, dealer resale price specifically (i.e. the price you’d pay a dealer for an identical used car).
In this case since the buyout price is higher than actual market value, what happened is Nissan has subsidized your lease saving you money. Yay! To buy the car now at their inflated residual would be to give them back all the money they saved you. Boo!
Batteries in electric cars have been lasting longer than originally anticipated, so that’s in the plus column. In the negative column is that the technology is improving really, really fast. Personally, I’d let it go. Alternatively, if you really like the car then offer the dealer 8k for it and see what they say.
There has to be a reason these are selling so low, I noticed the pricing and availability when I was looking for a used subie. It made me instantly skeptical LOL.
A 5% rate? More like 2-3%. However, it does not matter, if the OP has to finance the car, she will be paying interest regardless of the type of the car. OP will need insurance regardless of the type of fuel, so that is also not in the equation. Business decision making 101.
However, since this is electric, no oil changes, no hassle of stoping at the pump. A big plus in my book. And ucb is correct that the trade in value is not what the dealer will sell that car to you for. That said, it always makes sense to negotiate, unless the OP signed a contract saying that the residual price is non-negotiable. Good luck!
I would buy the car for $10,000 but I would make sure I was well protected under warranty coverage for 100k miles. If the car is not covered, ask them to throw in coverage or no deal. Remember, everything is negotiable.
I have a friend who is the “Million dollar club” at Ford (he has sold over a million dollars worth of vehicles). This is what he told me about buying a leased vehicle…Don’t. The only winner in a deal from lease to owner is the dealer. That vehicle will not go on that dealers floor, it will be shipped off to auction somewhere and sold to the highest bidder (traditionally a used car dealer) for about 1/3 the price they are offering to sell you the car. His recommendation is to either lease another brand new vehicle under the same terms as your current lease, or buy a new car.
So here’s what we did. We purchased the car this morning for $9600…all in. We paid cash (sorry kid #2 about limiting your college options!) and now we have a car that we’ve owned from its first hour of life, has 14,000ish miles on it, and everybody in our family likes. The advice here helped a great deal – especially with the warranty info – and we confirmed that this would be added. As usual, the smart CC people have informed opinions on pretty much everything.
