hooked2TL

On the leasing, purchasing topic,

Did you lease or did you get a loan to buy your car?

Crzy Acura

BOUGHT!

bdimc2001

Bought mine, still need to shell out another 16K before I really own it...

AKRY

Bought....

Andy Kuo

systek

...and my realtor said its a good thing i leased...cause i wouldnt have a chance on loan for house if i had bought...!!!

SlyTLS

Bought...I don't believe in leasing. I can't justify paying for a car I won't own when my payments are up.

mawaru

You should read this article from edmunds. It should help you decide to buy or lease. I think if you can afford it buy the car. It will save you money in the long run.

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/fiw/ar...9/article.html

BlackShadow

Same here.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Same here... plus I put too many miles commuting to lease....

Closer

Leasing is for people who don't like money or have too much of it.

hemants

You should only lease if:

1. your car is a tax writeoff

or

2. you know for a fact that you will trade the car after the lease is up AND you will be very close to but not over the km limit

or

3. you are buying a North American car because they are almost never worth the residual value.

FKNA

Bought....I would NEVER lease unless I were to ever find myself employed where my employer provided a car allowance. i.e. if it's on the company, I would lease and change out every couple of years.

busterkw

bought, why pay all that money and then have to give the car back in the end?

850EX

...SO TRUE!

yahtzee

As I have posted before, leasing can be a good thing. I leased a 1999 Audi A4 (loaded) for $399/mo with not a penny down. I was 13000 miles over the term limit for miles 6 months before my lease ended. Solution? Sold the car outright. if you take care of a car and you lease it, there is nothing to prevent you from selling the car early during the lease. The lease just has to be paid off. I had the best of both worlds. Drive a nice car, low monthly out of pocket, every ounce of maintenance was taken care of and voila!! Driving a TL-S with the intentions of doing the same thing.

I hear alot of people say, "I am leasing the car, I am not taking care of it like it were mine". If they only knew their options...........

PS> I cant drive the same car for more than 2 1/2 - 3 years anyway....

D

yahtzee

As I have posted before, leasing can be a good thing. I leased a 1999 Audi A4 (loaded) for $399/mo with not a penny down. I was 13000 miles over the term limit for miles 6 months before my lease ended. Solution? Sold the car outright. if you take care of a car and you lease it, there is nothing to prevent you from selling the car early during the lease. The lease just has to be paid off. I had the best of both worlds. Drive a nice car, low monthly out of pocket, every ounce of maintenance was taken care of and voila!! Driving a TL-S with the intentions of doing the same thing.

I hear alot of people say, "I am leasing the car, I am not taking care of it like it were mine". If they only knew their options...........

PS> I cant drive the same car for more than 2 1/2 - 3 years anyway....

D

yahtzee

Sorry for the dup post...

FTM-1

I bought it not paid off yet maybe someday.

BLEXV6

I leased mine, mainly for a tax writeoff, and I can decide @ the end of the lease if I want the car or walk away.

Basically, leasing allows lower payments, and a better car. I do not like to have high payments or it may leave me short, With the mortgage and family debt commitments, etc. Otherwise I would be driving an Accord.

samkws

bought...

Wash n Wax

major fallacy...

You can take a business deduction for a car if it is leased or purchased. There is a limit to the deduction that you can take on any car. Just because you have a $500 per month lease payment, doesn't mean that you can write off $500 per month...

bloo_tls02

Paid in full......32k+tx/tags.

2001TL4KCdude

Bought mine too

gohawks63

Bought, and I'm keeping it for a while.

sklongis

I lease and have leased my prior three cars.

Leasing for me has several advantages. First I must qualify and say that the write off is the main reason. I am an attorney and have my own practice. By leasing I am able to write off approx. 80% of the lease payment, gas, insurance and repairs. If I were to purchase, I would have higher monthly payments and then at the end of four years when the payments are completed, I would no longer have the deduction. While you can take a mileage deduction, it would not be as much as the payment deduction.

So, I lease which puts me in a new car every three years (though the Acura lease is now 42 months) all my repairs are covered except for tires, brakes, oil change and major service. I don't have to hassle with a resale at the end of the lease. The disadvantage is I always have a payment and have to repair any damage at the end of the lease (but then you would repair if you were selling also). I am told that the Acura lease waives up to $1,500 of wear and tear but each item can't be more than $500.00.

Bottom line it all depends what your needs are, what you can afford and what your long term plans are with cars.

CH-TLS

This isn't always true - leasing works well if you want a nicer car for a lower payment - just think of it as paying a rent or service fee, just like you do to your cable, internet provider or the city waterworks.

Leasing can also work nicely on the deductions if you own your own buisiness. I believe you can deduct the whole lease payment, but only the miles if you are purchasing (not a tax expert here, so you may want to check that out with your accountant before trying it on your next 1040)

We're currently buying the TL and the Max, and leasing the Truck, but we used to lease 3 cars for a good deal less than it would have cost to purchase two.

Yes, there is the residual factor, but a car is a depreciating asset and when I worked out the numbers, leasing was only costing me a few cents more per mile than buying (leased cars were VW, Nissan and Infiniti). At 30,000+ miles a year that's around $1000 total on 3 new cars with no service/maintenance issues (except for the VW, but that's another story). Besides, I got a new ride every 36 months with little or no$$ down.

However, if you drive big miles (as we now do), leasing is out of the question - the TLS lease for 18,000 miles a yr for 4 yrs was less than $100 away from the 60 month buy price. And with Honda's excellent residual rates, we may actually have some equity left in the TL-S when it's paid for, even though it will have close to 100K miles on it.

LarryLynx

I purchased my TLS.

However, I am self-employed and leased my BMW, with a 15,000/year mileage limit. The key for me at the time was that it was a very small down payment to get out the door with reasonable payments, and then it got me $9,500 in tax deductions each year for the life of the lease. When the lease was up, I just paid off the residual. With 270,000 miles and still running strong, 14 years later, I think I did pretty good.

I would have benefitted from the outright purchase just as much tax-wise, but the down payment would have killed me at the time. In reality, I just made the down payment on the back end.

Closer

Ok, my statement is pretty broad. But, You can deduct the
depreciation of a purchased car for business, so that advantage
of leasing is minimal. When you also factor in higher minimums
for insurance (so higher rates) and gap insurance... your savings
is even less.

Atleast that was my understanding of it. But, then again... thats
why I hire a tax guy.

crmsnidol

We ourchase our cars because we never want two simultaneous car payments. When my wife's car is 5 years old I replace my car that will be 10 years old. When her car is 10, we replace it and so on. I'm not shallow enough to feel the NEED to drive a new car every 3 years but I am practical enough to know that if I'm going to keep a car for 10 years it needs to be from a VERY RELIABLE manufacturer and should hold some value.

Example. I bought my first Honda - 1988 CRX Si (yeah it was yellow) for $10,330 March 1988 and sold it Feb 1997 for $4200 cash with 95,000 miles and no problems or damage. OK that was only 9 years but we just bought a house and trips to Home Depot are limiting to say the least when you have a car that small.

Current 93 Civic purchased Aug of 92 only has 88,600 miles on it - for 9 1/2 years old that is very low mileage and will last me until my time to replace with hopefully the redesigned TL or something else.

I understand why people lease but I personally cannot justify making payments to drive something I never really own. Did the CRX cost me $10,000? No, I was able to get something back when sold it. That's a nice justification for spending a little more to get what you want - it'll be worth a little more when the time comes to sell it.

pianoman41

I got a chuckle out of this one. This is the *exact* same thing we do at my house. Wife has the '97 Maxima SE and I've got the TL-S. Hers is paid in full and next up for replacement in 2006. Only one car payment and two decent cars. Works good for us poor working stiffs.

crmsnidol

It works but right now the anticipation is killing me. The Civic I'm driving was originally bought for my wife to drive regularly which she did for 6 years. The last 3 1/2 it's been mine and she drives a '97 CR-V. She said she feels "safer" than she did in the Civic. Gee thanks. I get to drive the unsafe, no power, no frills car. But hey - it's been paid for a long time now, has no problems and gets me from point A to point B - just not in any kind of style and I never have to worry about someone stealing my headlights.

my2sense

Leasing and selling outright is a great idea if your car holds its value and depreciates well.

My previous car was a 98' Integra, and after completing a 3 year lease term with low monthly payments (all the while using the lease for tax writeoffs), I sold the car outright and paid off the residual. When everything was all said and done, I netted more than 2k profit from this transaction.

What did I do with this 2k? I used it as a DP for my current lease. When my current 4-year term is over, I'll probably do the same thing again (lease-hop to a M3 maybe...).

dark inspire

BOUGHT !, oh yeah my2sense, u a kings fan, u in sac? holla

dj5

Agree, in the long run leasing is the most expensive way to own a car. If your the type who wants to trade in every couple of year and always have payments it may be worth you while lease.

But you need to make sure you don't go over the mileage allowance or you get slammed at the end.

Shoofin

Bought...But my cars from now on will be leased...I see buying a car a waste. They'd never appreciate in value, on depreciate. A house will appreciate. I'd rather spend my money on a house..
Ed

mriguru

I bought my TL-S. I like the fact that there isn't any guilt felt when modifying the vehicle(s). That is one of the major reasons I bought... plus I got 4.9% for 5

My 2 cents.

SGT C.J.

smoogdog

I'll have to let my accountant know about this $500 limit on writing off a leased car. Wrote of my wife's lease on her $715/month (24 month lease) Land Rover for the full two years without any problems. In fact, I was told that as long as the lease stayed under $900, it shouldn't be a red flag to our friends in the IRS.

I lease my TL-S, just like I have every car I've had in the last 6 years. If you have the cash for a big down payment, invest it in a competitive stock or mutual fund. If you negociate good lease terms (residual and lease factor), you can take the money you invested and buy the car at the end of the lease with it. Rather than throwing money away up front, invest it and earn interest. After all, a car is a depreciating asset. Not a good investment.

Best choice of all is buy a used car with cash. Depreciation is worst in the first year.

My $.02 This works for me because I never put more than 10K miles on a car a year.

Madman_32

Bought!

Type S Lady

Purchased mine with 48 more payments to go till I REALLY own it!

EH03TL

Hi all. I leased my 03 TL but I get an excellent deal through my employer so it is a no brainer for me. The only cost I have is the lease payment and fuel.