If you are leasing an S2000 and want to stop leasing the car to get another car (not a honda and not from the honda dealership) what are your options? I thought you could not transfer your lease but then I also see people on this board trying to get rid of their car by "take over my lease" type stuff.

My payment is currently $586.xx per month with like 24 months left. This is just an idea I'm kicking around...if it's easy to do I'd like to get rid of it and get a slightly less expensive car ($400/mo. or less).

Thanks.

 

wow, why is your payment so high for a lease? You obviously have a longer-than-24 month lease if you have 24 to go. My 36 month lease is 460/month w/0down

 

You can buy out your lease thats the easiest way to get out. Call your finance company and find out what your buy out price is. Then sell your car for that amount or just go to a dealer and try to get them to give you your buy out amount as a trade ( not likely). Basically getting out of a lease is going to cost you more money then staying in the lease.

 

Try LeaseTrader.com. You can get someone to take over your lease for you there. I think this is one of the better sites, and I know there are others. The Wall Street Journal did a writeup on them a few months back.

 

I heard of leasetrader, but again, if Honda doesn't allow you to transfer the lease, then how can I use it? I don't want to let someone make my payments if I'm still ultimately liable for the payments and the car. That's too much risk to entrust with a stranger.

 

oh, and I hear about $460/mo leases w/ 0 down but that is not the norm. I believe most pay over $550 on a 36/mo 15k mile lease. Or maybe i just got screwed. Either way, no use rubbing it in.

 

Getting out of a lease is quite similar to getting out of a loan.

The bank/finance company can quote you a payoff amount - which is the amount of money you need to pay them in order for them to release their lien on the title of the vehicle.

You can either:

1. Pay them the payoff directly. Title becomes yours. You can then sell the car. Disadvantage is that you will have to pay sales tax since finance company is "selling" you the car.

2. Trade the vehicle in at a dealer. Dealer will payoff the vehicle in full and roll the negative equity into your new car loan/lease. Advantage is that you are not liable for sales tax on your S2000. Disadvantage is that the negative equity will add to your car payments on the new vehicle you acquire.

3. Find a buyer for your vehicle on the open market. Once you secure the funds from him, you can mail the payoff to the finance company and they will release the title. Again, you may not be able to sell for your full payoff amount - so you may have to make up the difference (i.e. negative equity) yourself. Advantage is that the buyer of the vehicle will be the third party you sell to - so they will be reponsible for sales tax and not you. Disadvantage is that people are generally hesitant about buying lease cars on the open market since you cannot "hand-deliver" them the title of the vehicle as you may in option #1 above. Rather the title will be sent to them from the lienholder once they receive your payoff in full.

4. Advertise on lease trader.com for someone to take over your lease directly.

Hope this helped. Good luck

 

Try trading it in when you go to get your new car. When i got my S, i had a 99Civ SI, w/40k miles out of 48k on the lease, and 13 months left to go, 5 door dents, 2 rims w/bad scrape from a curb, and a key scratch across the entire trunk. The civic was leased through honda, but my new car loan was from 5/3 bank, so i dont think the fact i was stick'n w/honda would matter. Long story short, i managed to get them to give me 13.5k for the civic, with only owing 13k on it, including remaining payments and residual value. Viola, out of my lease on my Civic, and ready to get my S, i did Zero out of pocket, and ended up with 400w/tax payments, and my insurance only went up $20 bucks a month, seeing i was paying 300w/tax on my civic, this is a deal and a half. Dont know if this is a great deal, but i was more then happy with it Worth a shot, anywho the s2k on any car lot will turn peeps heads, any dealer would like to have a s2k on their lot IMO.

V8-What?

 

sorry minboost, I wasn't trying to rub it in.
good luck on breaking your lease! keep us informed

 

2. Trade the vehicle in at a dealer. Dealer will payoff the vehicle in full and roll the negative equity into your new car loan/lease. Advantage is that you are not liable for sales tax on your S2000. Disadvantage is that the negative equity will add to your car payments on the new vehicle you acquire.

That choice seems the simplest. An advantage to that is, a car dealer will try to work everything out for you just to move a new car. They will be more than happy to pay off your lease and transfer the negative equity your car has. Trying to have a private party purchase your vehicle with the residual due is hard. Your residual will most likely be higher than the current market price of a USED S2000 is going for. So the private party is less likely to fall for that one

If you decide to pay off the vehicle yourself and own it free and clear, you will most likely be at an even greater loss. If you lease a vehicle and compare to actually financing it, you will lose and estimate of $2000-4000 more of lease interest than a standard finance.