My Lease/Buy Dilemna

[jack_bauer]

Hi Everyone,

I just joined today and I have already found tons of info on this site!

I am looking to purchase/lease a Mazda3 GS within the next week or two. I have always been a bit anti-leasing but now find myself in a position that I think it may be necessary for me. Tell me what you think I should do.

I am starting a new job (just graduated) and after 2 years there is a good chance that I will either be travelling extensively for work for long periods of time or living in Europe. I am a little hesitant to use purchase financing if I am going to have to turn around and sell the car in 2 years. I am thinking about doing a 24 month lease, but this will make the payments pretty large.

If you are in the middle of financing a car (say a 60 month term) and halfway through you want to sell the car, how difficult is this? Are you going to pay big penalties?

Do you think it is better to lease for 2 years and know how much you are going to pay and not worry about the resale value if you do have to sell the car?

I\'m new to this whole car buying experience so excuse my ignorance.

Any insight would be appreciated!

[Jeff-TheBiz]

Better to lease for 2 yrs and suffer through a big payment for 24 months than cruise through 24 months of a 60 month term only to have to jump through 30 hoops to transfer the lease.. If you are planning to lease for the 60 months at least put down a lot of money to make the transfer look good to the next guy...

Jeff

PM me if you have any questions.

[jack_bauer]

Originally posted by TheBiz


Better to lease for 2 yrs and suffer through a big payment for 24 months than cruise through 24 months of a 60 month term only to have to jump through 30 hoops to transfer the lease.. If you are planning to lease for the 60 months at least put down a lot of money to make the transfer look good to the next guy...

Jeff

PM me if you have any questions.

Thanks, I mistakenly said a 60 month lease when I meant 60 months of purchase financing. Is it difficult to sell a car that you have only paid a portion of?

Do you just take the residual value and subtract the amount you have not paid through financing, to determine the resale value?

[TheProfessor]

My wife and I recently sold our 2002 Protege5 halfway through our 60 month finance to buy our 3. We had absolutely no problems doing it and would be the method I would recommend. If you think you\'re only gonna need it for two years though, why not try and find a gently used on, you\'d save a ton and when it came time to sell it in two years the \"hit\" won\'t be so bad. I\'ve never been a fan of leasing (unless for writing off purposes) as it locks you in to a contract that you may not be prepared or willing to fulfill. If you finance and don\'t end up going in two years, great, keep the car and all is good.

[Whos ur dadd]

Get the 8!

Mazda is having a promo right now - $5K down and $298 per month for 2 years. Easy decision!