I am leasing a 02 and the value after 3 years will be just over $21k. I wonder about the accuracy of this estimate. If Honda does not mess up and makes too many, the value should stay high. There are already a number of S2K's for sale out there. Has anyone heard how long will Honda produce the S2K?
This is my first lease and here is my outlook:
1. I won't have to go through the hasle of sell it
2. I can buy it at the end if I really like it and the deal is good
3. My payment is fairly reasonable ($380 per month with $4000 down)
and
4. I can get a new nissan 350Z in three years if I want!
Any comments?

 

Make sure you factor in insurance costs when looking at the 'cheaper' lease option. All leases that I know of require you to carry maximum policy limits (ie. generally 100-300-100) which drives up your insurance costs substantially. I would agree that $21K seems like a pretty low residual value for this car at the end of three years. I just traded in my 2001 w/ 20K miles and a big hole in the dash and got $30K.

 

A few notes. Leasing can be very good... if at any time you want to buy the car, you can get a payoff quote from AMH and write them a check. This helps if you want to enjoy the s2000 now and pay the downpayment later. You can transfer a lease over to ANYONE that gets approved by AMH. Not a bad option if you have to get rid of it. Allows someone who wants the car but doesn't have/want a downpayment to take it over. You cannot transfer a lease 6 months before the maturity date. You cannot sell a leased car to someone. You have to buy it first, and then sell it. But you will have to pay taxes TWICE. You cannot sell it outright to someone else.

 

The 21k sounds about right to me. That's 64% of new RETAIL, higher than they use on most cars on a 3 yr lease. Also remember that the 21k figure is WHOLESALE. Wholesale on your brand new car is about 28.5k so you are really talking about only 26% depreciation in 3 years when you compare apples to apples (wholesale to wholesale). Besides, if it's worth more than 21k at the end of the lease you can just buy it and sell at a profit if you don't want to keep it. They are taking the depreciation risk, not you.