forgot to mention, I live in Oregon, and there is no sales tax...

tax factored in might swing the decision in a different way...

 

Well here are my two cents
You lease and in 3 yrs you dont know what will happens so who cares, but if you finance from the top you will be paying interest in the whole 35k(with tax assuming you get msrp) take it to 9.0 if you r lucky and you are looking at at about $7,365.00 in interest, payments of $622.75 that is with 5k as money down for 60 months, for a total of $43,592.40. or you can lease with 4900 down for 398/mo. for 39 months for a total of $15,522 + $4900= $20,422, then buy at end of lease for $19,755, so it would be $20,422 + $19,755 plus tax $1,629 (not if you pay cash heheh) which is a total of 21,384 + 20,422 is at the end $41,806 Assuming you have the cash at the end, or you can finance it and pay like 2.8-3.2k more, so if you are not sure or might want to get a new car in 3 yrs it might be right for you! Its what i went with cause 398 compared to 622 is not even a comparisson. Well i hope i helped you out a bit!

 

There WAS a time people PAID for things they bought......BEFORE credit.....People asked "How much is this car" NOW they ask "How much are the payments? Everything it seems is disposable these days, cars, houses, wife's, husbands, friends........Buy what you can afford and afford to PAY for what you buy!

Paid cash for every car I have had (some were nice, some were not) in 1988 it was the Prelude 4WSSi when Four Wheel Steering came out. Got it in May of 88.
Sold for $12,000 only a few months ago (Dec 2000) when I thought the "S" was about to come in. Not a bad return for a car that was $17557.17.

2001 S2000....? Wrote check for it and plan to keep it.
Pay for a car and keep it, drive it and sell it. (Buy what you want and want what you buy! Try OWNING something, it's an Old NEW idea!)

A lease is for business only (I have always had a company car as well) or a lease is for the "keeping up with the Jones's" crowd who over bought with no intention of paying for anything in life....You can tell these two groups apart by watching them "turn-in" the lease car, cringing at the "over-charge" for addition miles...then the "damage" because they did not car about the "lease" car (Nothing "revs" like a rental) they created problems for some one else when they turned it in and then they ALWAYS ask....How MUCH are the PAYMENTS on the new one again?

My $.02 (Paid in full)

 

The General: I noticed that you wrote "wife's" instead of "wives" so I assume that you can't dispose of your wife but can dispose of her stuff?

Anyways. I do feel kind of bad for taking care of a car that isn't mine. And I hate telling people that I don't own the car b/c I lease it. But I think I can keep up a car and lease might work for me since I would like a new car every so often. But if the S2000 is reliable, and the rear window and top doesn't fall apart and the S2K maintains its value I guess buying is a better option.

I think buying in full is the best thing you can possibly do since you won't be paying any interest. But that's not possible for most people. I guess I'm just too afraid to lease. There's a lot of different opinions on this issue. A lot of people say that leasing will be good if you don't intend to keep the car for more than 4 years or so. But then the idea of not having equity is bad. Hmm...

 

I lease.

#1. See my other vehicles listed? I wanted to keep them

#2. I own my own business, so I can write some of it off.

 

I'll second that. Of course, with a new baby on the way we had to get the Accord, so I only had enough money left for my used Integra. I like my Integra quite a bit, but do drool over the S2000. Oh well, the downside of paying cash.

Our last two cars were a 111k Galant (w/tranny approaching second death) and a 30k Escort, and I refused to keep the defective or the why-the-hell-did-we-buy-an-Escort, so two good cars won out over one great car.

 

I must add - you have to do what is best for you. It's not always a math problem, otherwise we'd all be in Escorts. And trust me, that is NO fun at all.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CriticalPath
[B]I must add - you have to do what is best for you.

 

Let's get one thing straight here. There is a misconception out there that it is always better to lease if you use the car in business because you can deduct the lease payments. Yes you can deduct a PERCENTAGE of the lease costs (based on percentage of business use). However, if you PURCHASE the car (cash or finance) and use it in business you can deduct the same percentage of ownership costs INCLUDING depreciation. The only catch is that depreciation is limited to a certain max per year whereas lease payments are not limited. The bottom line is that it makes no difference whether you lease or buy up to a certain purchase price (I think it's about 25K) so there is a SMALL advantage to leasing a S2k but not much.

 

I bought...I plan to keep it.