i have always been against leasing. but there seems to be pretty good deals on them.

but the more i think about it, i think leasing might be a good option for me. i dont drive more than 12,000 miles and that was when i was commuting a long way to school and now i carpool and the work is much closer.

i only plan on doing, rims, hardtop, lip, coilovers and spoiler.

the only question i have is, at the end of the lease, if i still want the car, what options will i have?

yay or nay?

 

I leased an Accord coupe in 1998. It worked out for me, but the whole time I was worried about every ding and scratch--which on a Honda is very easy to get. Read the T&C's very carefully regarding body damage. Also, I hated having to worry about the miles. You never know when you will switch jobs or move and have to deal with a longer commute. Of course, YMMV.

Cheers

 

well i am in real estate so i will be using it mainly to commute to the office and with driving clients we use my fiancees pilot.

at the end of your lease, what did you do? did you give it back or buy it?

 

since you're an agent you may be able to deduct a lot of the car as a business expense. yes it's a 2 seater but still for business if you take that 1 client in the car (wink wink).

leases are also good if they're short term like 2-3 years otherwise your factory warranty expires. wouldn't make sense to pay for an extended warranty on a leased car.

if you like changing cars short term this a good reason to lease. if you think for sure long term then financing may be a better route.

I've leased several cars and yes the payment is lower but not all worth keeping the car at the end of the contract.

if you're adding those wheels and stuff, prepare to put the stock stuff back too if you do turn it in.

 

The current S2K lease plan is awesome. It's equivalent to 1.75% financing. So for the three years of the lease, at least, this is far cheaper than most financing plans you can get. If you simply walk away from the car, or sell the car at lease end, then the lease is a far better deal than financing. If you decide to keep the car, then you need to do some math to see how good of a deal it is.

I am leasing my 05, and fell like it's a great deal ($273 a month). I'm also thinking about what happens at lease end, and looking at various options. If I happen to have a spare $20K laying around for any reason, then I would definitely buy the car. According to my calculations, I would come out pretty good financially.

You can get my S2K lease spreadsheet at:

http://members.cox.net/craig.hunter/s2k-lease.xls

It will give total cost of ownership if you decide to keep the car. You can compare this number to financing and your other options. Note, if you change the inputs, then manually alter the monthly payment until the money factor comes out to 0.00073. This means everything is in sync with the current Honda deal.

Craig

 

That is an awesome excel sheet!

 

thanks guys for all the great words of wisdom.
so if i wanted a s2k at a certain honda dealer, do i walk in and say i want to lease a s2k or is it only at participating dealerships?

are there anythings that i should we weary of? how do they try to add "additional" charges?

 

http://biz.yahoo.com/pfg/e16buylease/

 

First thing you want to do is negotiate the price of the car as low as you can. They may try to put you in the $299 lease deal, but that assumes you pay above invoice for the car. You should be able to get the car for $29500 - $30335 (invoice). Once you settle on a price, have them work the numbers for the lease.

Craig