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Yeah, I put a down payment on my leases for the lower monthly's as well. I have an almost fully loaded 2016 Ford Focus SE for $255 per month. I only put $1,800 down and that knocked a few bucks off on a 3-year lease. I went with the low mileage option of 10,500 miles per year and after 8 months of owning it I only have 3,500 miles on it.

That means your true monthly payment is $305. If you put a downpayment then divide it over the length of the lease and add it to the monthly payment.
 
You made a wise choice, never buy an expensive depreciating asset if you can help it. If it drives, flies or floats, lease it.

Also some users already mentioned this but it can't be stressed enough never put money down on a lease. If anything put that money away and apply it towards your monthly payments

3rd there's a website called swapalease where you can easily get out of your lease zby transferring it to someone else if you get bored or can't afford it anymore

By the same token you can use this website to find a lease and avoid all the upfront costs like bank fees, dealer fees, down payment etc...

I've gotten some amazing deals on this site because people put money down to lower the monthly payments and I reap the benefits by taking over the lease (another reason why you should never put money down)
 
You made a wise choice, never buy an expensive depreciating asset if you can help it. If it drives, flies or floats, lease it.

Leasing probably makes sense to some and not to others. If you have to update your vehicle regularly then it may be more cost effective to lease. I buy cars new and keep them for 15-20 years. I'd never lease.
 
You made a wise choice, never buy an expensive depreciating asset if you can help it. If it drives, flies or floats, lease it.
I'm not entirely sold on leasing, we'll have to wait and see how this fleshes out. Something about owning a tangible asset seems to draw me in - maybe its my age, and I've been "owning" cars since I was 19.

Now, I've gone through a stretch of time, where I've traded in a car 3 or 4 years, which means I still owed the bank and technically its not my car, but, prior to that "habit", I was holding onto a car for 6 or more years. Being without a car payment is rather nice and something that I'd like to see again, but that won't happen with a lease.

I also understand that the dynamics of the auto industry has changed. Given the high expense of cars now a days, its hard to justify putting several thousand dollars down on a car/suv/truck and still having a 400 - 600+ monthly payment.

I'm not having buyers remorse, but if I had my druthers, I'd rather buy the vehicle. Its a gorgeous Jeep, I can't wait to get my hands on it, and I'm excited. I can't believe I have this for the same monthly expense of my Honda Civic. So don't take my comments about leasing the wrong way. It certainly opened the door to something that I would not normally have gotten.
 
My dad has leased his last 2 cars, but he gets a stipend from the chevy dealer he works at each month to pay for it. So he is essentially driving the care around for free, sans insurance.

I likely will not ever lease a vehicle. I have always bought outright and not had a vehicle payment, granted all the vehicles I have owned have been pretty old, but in very good shape with low miles.
 
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My dad has leased his last 2 cars, but he gets a stipend from the chevy dealer he works at each month to pay for it. So he is essentially driving the care around for free, sans insurance.

I likely will not ever lease a vehicle. I have always bought outright and not had a vehicle payment, granted all the vehicles I have owned have been pretty old, but in very good shape with low miles.

Same here. I've bought 2-3 year old cars (avoiding the big depreciation) run them for 5-6 years and then traded them in against the next.
I have low mileage, and I don't like any monthly outgoings.
Actually for the last 8 years my biggest monthly outgoing has been the standing order paid into my savings.
Yet many of the people I work with who are much younger and earn a lot less, have newer cars and are always complaining about having too much month left at the end of the money.
I don't get it tbh.
 
chevy dealer he works at each month to pay for it. So he is essentially driving the care around for free
Back in the day, car salesmen could just drive the cars for free, but that's been tighten up.

I likely will not ever lease a vehicle. I have always bought outright and not had a vehicle payment, granted all the vehicles I have owned have been pretty old, but in very good shape with low miles.
Yeah, that's the decision, you can buy new, and enjoy the benefits of a new car (either buying or leasing) or you can opt for a used car. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

As for me, I finally picked up my jeep yesterday, it was a bit of a headache; the insurance company was dragging their feet so when I show up, its not ready, and I had doctor's appointments for my kids, so I had leave after waiting, which meant driving back in the late afternoon to try again. The problem with that, is I'm now driving through the city of Boston during the rush hour traffic. Horrible drive, and my Civic is on E, since I don't want to give the dealership free gas. I'm praying I'll make it as I'm inching a long in bumper to bumper traffic. We saw no less then 4 car accidents on the way there.

The drive home was about the same, including 2 more accidents, but at least now I had the jeep and I wasn't praying we'd run out of gas :D

Here's a couple of picks of the Jeep, the thing is loaded with features, not that I was looking for those features, but I'm wicked happy to have them. I have power windows, a touch screen console, voice control, navigation, satellite radio (subscription paid for by the dealership for at least a year). Dual top roof, upgraded tires/rims.

I was looking for a Sport model, no features, other then standard transmission. My research led me to believe this can be leased for between 250 and 350 a month. I got instead a Sahara with the navigation package and dual top package - basically a 10,000 dollar upgrade and I got it for 299 a month, which i think is an excellent deal.

IMG_2114_edit.jpg
IMG_2115.JPG
 
Nice! Proper color, too!
Yep,I love the color, the other model they had with standard transmission was a very bright blue. I just couldn't bring myself to pick this. It felt like I was settling and I'd regret this after the newness wore off. I was walking out the dealership when the manager suddenly "found" the one I bought and offered that (with the upgraded packages) for this price.

IMG_2087.JPG
 
Nice research @maflynn I've been thinking about the leasing process. And that's mainly because I change cars so often...
Check out this site
Some good reading here. http://leasehackr.com/

Check out Post #2 of this thread, lots of great info
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/auto-leasing-101.1977059/#post-22999034

I will be honest and say that I had a good salesman and the dealership was hungry for a sale, YMMV depending on what oyu choose and where you go. As helpful as the salesman was, he had no idea about the details about leasing. In fact he kept saying how we don't negotiate on the price of the vehicle, its what the sticker says and we deal with how much we want to pay per month. I showed him the app that I used (Leasematic) and how I want to compute the monthly cost and not rely on the dealership.
[doublepost=1466507604][/doublepost]I'm sure a seasoned negotiator could drive a harder bargain, but, I'm tickled pink over the deal I got.
 
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Same here. I've bought 2-3 year old cars (avoiding the big depreciation) run them for 5-6 years and then traded them in against the next.
I have low mileage, and I don't like any monthly outgoings.
Actually for the last 8 years my biggest monthly outgoing has been the standing order paid into my savings.
Yet many of the people I work with who are much younger and earn a lot less, have newer cars and are always complaining about having too much month left at the end of the money.
I don't get it tbh.

Yup, I know exactly what you are talking about. I have friends with house payments in the $1000 range, $400 vehicle, $100 cell phone, and $100 cable that make less money than I do. I would not have any fun paying for all of that but I could and would still have some left over and be OK. I can only imagine how the friends feel that do this... they must be house/vehicle/etc poor each month.

The single largest monthly payment for me is my house each month and I started with a 30year and am not down to 15, only been in the house 6 years. I through extra at it each month in an attempt to get it paid off quicker. My cell phone is on a family plan and we just split that bill 3 ways; I write my mom a check at the beginning of the year each year and pay for it all in one go.

I use a credit card for just about everything but don't carry a balance from month to month.
 
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Yup, I know exactly what you are talking about. I have friends with house payments in the $1000 range, $400 vehicle, $100 cell phone, and $100 cable that make less money than I do. I would not have any fun paying for all of that but I could and would still have some left over and be OK. I can only imagine how the friends feel that do this... they must be house/vehicle/etc poor each month.

The single largest monthly payment for me is my house each month and I started with a 30year and am not down to 15, only been in the house 6 years. I through extra at it each month in an attempt to get it paid off quicker. My cell phone is on a family plan and we just split that bill 3 ways; I write my mom a check at the beginning of the year each year and pay for it all in one go.

I use a credit card for just about everything but don't carry a balance from month to month.
Making over payments is the smart thing to do. We did that and meant our mortgage was finished by the time I was 33. We just carried on paying the same amount into our tax free savings afterwards.

But back on topic, how's the jeep @maflynn?
 
Check out this site


Check out Post #2 of this thread, lots of great info
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/auto-leasing-101.1977059/#post-22999034

I will be honest and say that I had a good salesman and the dealership was hungry for a sale, YMMV depending on what oyu choose and where you go. As helpful as the salesman was, he had no idea about the details about leasing. In fact he kept saying how we don't negotiate on the price of the vehicle, its what the sticker says and we deal with how much we want to pay per month. I showed him the app that I used (Leasematic) and how I want to compute the monthly cost and not rely on the dealership.
[doublepost=1466507604][/doublepost]I'm sure a seasoned negotiator could drive a harder bargain, but, I'm tickled pink over the deal I got.

Jeep looks good, funny you mention the hydro blue pearl, for me that would be the color of choice on a Sahara or Rubi (probably Sahara) with body color hardtop.

Also re: salesman not being knowledgeable, he knew exactly what he was doing. Saying they don't negotiate the sticker price and pointing you towards monthly payment is the oldest trick in the book. Getting customers to shop on payment is every salesman's dream because they will make sure you pay not one penny less than whatever monthly target you tell them, and will wrap every single piece of garbage fee or bogus accessory add-on or a super long term (84 months no problem!) into it to get right at that monthly value, even if it should easily be less. Something to watch out for next time.

Either way I suspect you got a good deal, depending on the money down and residual, the latter of which I'm sure was fine. I like the color, enjoy it!
 
Nice color choice! I agree with you on the blue. It doesn't blend in. I'm a bit sad that the flat color has orange peel whereas the bright blue metallic doesn't. Regardless, the Wrangler is possibly the best and most reliable car that FCA puts out or Jeep in general has put out in more than a decade.
 
Either way I suspect you got a good deal, depending on the money down and residual, the latter of which I'm sure was fine. I like the color, enjoy it!
I'm happy with the deal, I'm under no illusions that they obviously made money but I do think I was fully taken advantage of :)

Its a stick shift, and I'm still not 100% transitioning back to a manual transmission. I've lost the light touch I had with getting into first gear. It will come in time (I've only had it two days), but at the moment I want to improve how well I'm doing with the stick shift.
 
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