What cars would you lease but not buy? That’s the question I put to you yesterday, and hesitated to use, to be honest, because I was afraid there wasn’t enough disagreement to keep things interesting. But agreeing differently, as you demonstrated, can be a thing! Notably, most of you answered with brands and categories much more than individual models, which makes sense, I think.
To your replies:
Jack Trade
I like the might-get-sick-of-it criterion. I’m resolutely a car guy, so SUVs and trucks don’t usually do it for me. But I’ve become kinda intrigued by the Bronco, esp with the full soft top and a manual.
Aw, thanks Jack. I had quipped, “Also on the lease-list: anything I think I might get sick of. C8 Corvette, I’m looking at you.” I bet there are more than a few first-time-legit-4X4-buyers out there who thought it’d be fun to own a Bronco or Jeep just for the cool factor, and tired of the compromises made to just daily one.
Ppnw
Anything electric. I like to keep my cars for a long time and am not usually a lease person. But the rate of progress of electric cars is insane, and a 3-5 year old electric (usually the sweet spot for me on gas cars) means a heavily outdated car.
Indeed, an EV a mere few years old may seem positively ancient. Also, I’d rather get out of an EV long before battery wear becomes a problem, though today’s batts seem pretty long-lived. But still.
Ben makes a good point though: the deal matters, and the deals may not be so good:
Ben
I could maybe see leasing an EV back when they had great deals going, but now that the automakers have figured out they depreciate like crazy, the leases are outrageously expensive and don’t include enough miles to cover the driving I’d want to do either.
There is joy to be found in leasing an EV, though. Or a mostly-EV:
D0nut
Well, we just finished our first lease ever, a 2024 Mazda CX-90 PHEV. I’m REALLY glad we leased it, for a number of reasons:
- it depreciated like a rock
- we got the $7500 EV lease loophole
- we didn’t end up liking it very much
That being said, I don’t plan on leasing again. I really didn’t like the lease termination experience. We got charged 4 new wheels for minor scuffs, and really had no recourse. It was still a good deal overall, but I never want the pressure of having to keep a car absolutely perfect for 3 years, especially with kids.
I get that, for sure. Going a year keeping a car minty is easy; two years requires some diligence; but three years? You’re almost certainly going to get dinged in a parking lot. And then dinged when you return the car.
derK
Alfa Romeo Giulia. A friend works for Stellantis and he and his wife currently have a Wagoneer S and a Wrangler 4xe. Probably are leasing them for peanuts. Meant to chide him for not taking a chance (lower risk due to the likely cheap lease) on an Alfa but other things came up. A perfect opportunity to experience the (intermittent) joy of an Alfa. Might be one and done but you had the experience.
If there’s one that would make me hit the LEASE button with wack-a-mole strength, it’s an Alfa. Sexy, fun to drive I hear, but reliable? Ehhh …
GFunk
I’d might consider leasing anything that might be fun but that I wouldn’t be confident could give me ten or so years of reliable driving. Better to give it up a little earlier than I might want rather than resent it for being an expensive pain in the ass after its warranty is up.
That said, the only car I ever actually leased was a VW Rabbit, after getting thousands more for a (clearly broken) trade-in than the dealer should have offered – ended up paying less to drive the Rabbit for two years than the other car would have cost to fix.
I just love a good happy ending.
Vic Vinegar
I read Leasehackr out of curiosity and it is pretty crazy to see some of the deals. Like the $134k BMW i7 recently posted for like $500/month. Or the sub-$100/month Dodge Hornets and Charger EVs from last year. Would I lust over driving some of these cars normally? Probably not, but for the right (low) price I might.
It is always about looking at depreciation, and whether the lease might let you beat the depreciation curve after incentives or a juiced up residual. I can buy a Mercedes and trade it in at 3 years, 36k miles if I am afraid of owning one out of warranty. The lease hopefully just lets you do it cheaper.
Indeed, the math has to match. If you’re coming out ahead with a lease, and can keep it within the alotted miles and in return-worthy shape, it’s worth considering.
Not worth considering for ownership, perhaps:
JurassicComanche25
Jeep oh looord JEEP.
My wife has had Wranglers since I met her. A 2018, then a 2021 Gladiator (okay, not a Wrangler), and now a 2024 4xe. The 2018, shockingly reliable. The Gladiator? O2 sensors at 1500 miles. Valve cover gaskets at 5. Steering at 12. Blown speakers at 17. Bad third brake light. The 4xe? It’s a 4xe. She will lease, and NOT buy. Even her rule. But why does she keep getting one? She likes a 4×4 convertible. Her next one is this spring, so we shall see what happens. Shes open to a Bronco, 2-door only.
Why am I okay with the unreliable leases? first, it’s a car I dont need to maintain. Second, her rule is ‘I dont care what you get, as long as I get what I want.’
You gonna argue with Jeep advice from a guy handle’d Jurassic Commanche25? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t tangle with a Sasquatch, either (the reader or the cryptid):
Sasquatch
Any new car from Audi, BMW, or Mercedes would only find it’s way into my driveway with a lease; and honestly, I’d rather buy an older car outright than even lease a high end German luxury car. They are simply too complicated to be reliable, too expensive to fix, and in a race down a cliff would only be beaten by their own plummeting value. The depreciation alone rules out a new purchase, and the cost and complexity of ownership rules out anything used.
Give me a W123 or a Sacco-era Mercedes over anything made in the last 20 years.
Yes. I would love to own a W123.
Top graphic image: Alfa Romeo
There’s a long list of cars I would not own, but there are zero cars I would lease.
Prelude leaders are in for either a steal or a deal.
I’m not fully in the market for a new car, but I am certainly going to be there in the next year or so and I am so torn on what to do and what to get. I’ve said this elsewhere, I’ve got no interest in an SUV/CUV. I want something fun and smaller than my Altima 2013 SL. I’ve got no kids to put in it, just a wife and a 70lb dog. Not opposed to any sort of electrification. Not wanting to do a lot of wrenching on it, but can do the easier things.
I was hopefully for the Prelude, but the more I read about it, the more I’m meh about it. Maybe Acura Integra, an Audi A3, a BMW 3 series, or a Genesis G70. I’m curious if any of the manufacturers will come out with something interesting.
I would just like to reiterate that the Giulia is a perfectly reliable car so long as you purchase one that’s a 2019 or newer.
Out of curiosity, what changed in MY2019 that improved the reliability over the previous couple of model years?
I’m honestly not sure on the specifics but my understanding is that they discovered flaws in various parts and fixed those flaws by the 2019 model year. IIRC some electrical gremlins. Granted Alfa had continued to find more minor things in more recent model years. For example the only thing I think my car, a 2021, has had warranty work on is its rear sunshade, which would get stuck.
I would not lease anything. I have leased one car ever, and got screwed doing it.
I buy cars I can afford to buy, and I buy cars I can afford to FIX especially. This has never been much of a limitation as my Inner Yankee Cheapskate is FAR more of a limitation on my automotive excesses than my wallet for all but that very first new car.
I’ve never understood the reason for a lease for personal vehicles. Renting a car that you can’t afford to buy to look like you are doing better than you are only to become less well off every time you turn a lease over. However if my doctor said I had 2 years to live I might lease the 3rd new car I ever owned. Because as they say on Parks and Recreation
“TREAT YO SELF”
Never half-ass anything, Son. Ron Swanson
It’s two things. For people with lower income the warranty and included maintenance is great comfort that they can reliably get to work and won’t have an unexpected maintenance bill. For people with higher income it allows you to enjoy a car that’s maybe not reliable under warranty during its’ good years, and keep more money in appreciating investments rather than a lump purchase. But that said I’ve ran the numbers on leasing several times and you could more or less buy a $10k used car every 3 years, do no maintenance, send it to the crusher at the end and come out the same. So yes, it’s a bad investment.
Any power top convertible. I get paranoid about owning one out of warranty
My ’63 Galaxie 500 XL convertible had a one toggle button up/down switch that worked perfectly fine the whole time I had it. It didn’t work so well after I was hit head on, though…
Key thing is size. Had a girlfriend with a VW Cabrio whose fittings on the hydraulic hoses gave out. I discovered replacements were virtually unobtainable, so I just drained the system and we’d put the top up and down manually. It worked fine, but mostly b/c it’s a small car with a small top.
For sure that is true. Only one time I have had to put the top on my teensy little 128i up manually, and HOLY GOD is that thing heavy! It was all I could do to lift it up and over. I managed to get it out of sync and pissed off at me stopping the top halfway to clean the rear window, and let it sink back down on it’s own when I walked away to take a phone call. Had to manually cycle it closed and open again before the damned computer would be happy and run it correctly. Sigh.
Thankfully they have a pretty simple mechanism and are not known for having issues. I should not have said that out loud… Getting cooler down here in God’s Waiting Room, looking forward to some top down drives. Did one in the evening the other night and it was really nice, been a few months.
In the 13 years I’ve owned my now 17 year old Mercedes-Benz convertible (purchased CPO) I’ve only had two repairs done to the roof mechanism
.
One was a new switch for the retractable partition – the other a plastic flange which guides some of the roof wires came undone, which prevented the roof from going down.
They were both so inexpensive and simple to deal with that the costs to repair were negligible.
I was informed by my service advisor years ago that the more frequently I operated the roof, the fewer issues I’d have with the hydraulics – which has proven to be true.
I prefer my cars pre-depreciated.
Lease returns are the way to go with ownership nowadays
Yes it’s just like buying a retired rental car
Not really.
Rental cars are generally minimally maintained, frequently abused, have higher mileage, and are sold as-is with minimal warranties.
Off-Lease cars are generally fairly well coddled as the lessor doesn’t want to get hit at the term end with damage and over-mileage fees – and to qualify as a manufacturer CPO car, they have gone through a hefty inspection, have a full service record, and get an extended warranty.
Mine even had a brand-new set of Pirellis installed prior to my purchase.
So quite a different thing altogether.
On my first job working & living on the road, my new boss flew where we were and showed up at our hotel in a Town Car to take us to dinner. As we go to back out of the hotel parking spot, he says, “This is why you never buy a rental car”, and floors it in reverse, slams it into drive, and seriously smokes the tires while we fishtailed out onto the street. A lesson I’ve never forgotten.
Did he demonstrate to you that the Panther-based Town Cars can reach 65 mph in Reverse, per Car and Driver?
LOL, that would have been amazing, but it was more like 20, and laid waste to the tire.
Not to go off on a rental car tangent, but almost every car I’ve ever rented has had the tires pumped up to around 45 lbs. What gives? Oh, and they seldom have valve caps.
I am in the market for a car like the Alfa Giulia. It has been out long-enough that I might consider the biggest reliability issues to be resolved or resolvable. Am I confident-enough to buy a car with no dealers around here? I don’t know about that. Just test driving one will require me to drive nearly an hour.
Can confirm they have sorted out the issues. I’ve had mine since new. It’s a 2021 with 55k miles and no major issues. Oddly one of the more reliable cars I’ve had. I will say non-dealers can be weird about working on it though.
I traded in my 2019 Giulia with around 165k miles, an absolutely fantastic car with no major issues.
Although I was concerned that lightning wouldn’t strike twice, and talked myself out of buying another.
I was told that the 20 and newer Alfas are very solid reliability-wise. Both the Giulia and Stelvio are a delight to drive.
When I win the lottery, I’m going to ask Jay Leno to let me “lease” one of his cars for a week at a time. Promise to keep the shiny side up.
High depreciation and/or low reliability is the theme here.
But, if it’s high depreciation and high reliability, and you’re keeping it long-term, why not buy it anyway?
Does high depreciation and high reliability for long term exist in a new car at this point? Seems like you just came up with a tough question.
Recent EV’s from brands known for building reliable EV’s. Like a used Tesla. They seemingly lose 40% of their value instantly but hold the remainder for forever.
For now but that tech is soon to be unsavable and pennies on the dollar.
At which point I’m all in. Except never a Tesla. Waiting patiently for either an ionic 5
Or 6
I think that’s a theme for the trend towards connected vehicles.
Tesla is just the most bold example that comes to mind.
The Kia/Hyundai EVs, otoh, while do rely on the software/electrics aren’t as connected – so I would feel more comfortable with them longterm.
I have leased my EVs since 2020 with the Chevy Bolt and continued with that trend with our recent 26 Equinox EV. But the one that I actually pulled the trigger to purchase was with the 23 Bolt EUV since I knew GM wasnt going to come with something like that again (Well they released the 2027 version but they already said one year run and thats about it), the tax credit helped, and they are peak GM reliability (they figure out how to build a car and then kill it, classic GM).
Y’all. It’s a contraction of you all.
I missed yesterday’s post but I can’t think of a situation where I’d lease any car. But then again I’ve never purchased a new car either.
Yeah, I derped out on the contraction. Fixed!
I hate the word, “y’all.” We moved to the South from the Midwest when I was a child. “Y’all” was always followed by, “ain’t from around here, are ya?”