Hi, I have an 05 TL nonnavi lease that expires in August 09. The car is almost pristine, a little imprint in the rear bumper of someones license plate screws is the only blemish. Only 19,000 miles.
Last March, a lady turned in front of me, crunched the left front fender bumper area, no airbag depoyed $5,000 damage. Not my fault. Was repaired to pristine condition. I recently looked into trading up to an 08 TL-S and the guy who inspected my car somehow knew it had been wrecked. He said something about overspray when he lifted the hood. I decided not to upgrade.

I was hoping to keep the car 'til the end of the lease and buy it for $16,000 and sell to a private party since resale values are pretty high. I assume a buyer would find out it had been wrecked. What will this do to my resale value? Should I go back and trade in for a new model? Should I just turn it in at the end and walk away? Will the dealer try to ding me for more than normal wear and tear?

This is my first lease not sure what I should do. Love the car though. Thanks
Mark

 

insurance didnt give you money for the depreciated value? i know in some cases where someone hits you and its not your fault that not only should that partys insurance cover the damages, but give you some money since now the car is worth less being hit.

 

Didn't know about that. I'll check into it. Any comment on the questions I asked? Thanks.

 

I believe the rule of thumb is to take the repair costs, and 1/2 of that is the effect on a new car, so if you car worth 16K when you sell it, I would guess the 5000 dollar fender bender would be about 1250.

 

If a car has been hit or has been sprayed dealers will ALWAYS know. To the untrained eye it may look perfect but the appraiser at the dealer will know and you will get less for your car. If a dealer takes in your car and tries to re sell it, they will have to offer huge discounts because of the previous hit and most client will steer clear of it anyway even though it was repaired. It's unfortunate but thats just how it is.
As for your inspection upon lease return, the dealer doesnt do the inspection.....HVT inc/AHFC will send out an independent inspector to assess the condition. AHFC gives a $1500 damage waiver on all leases so you should'nt have a problem. They also put a meter to your paint to see how thick the paint is in certain areas, indicating if a car was hit and repaired more than once in a specific area. If you are over a certain threshold they may charge you for that specific panel. All in all AHFC is very lenient on their vehicle condition reports unlike BMW, AUDI/VW etc.

 

I would just turn it in. A few years ago my wife was involved in an accident that caused $9k of damage on a leased Accord 3 months prior to our lease end date. We had the car repaired and when honda inspected it about 30 days before lease turnin, the inspector annotated on the turn-in paperwork that a number of parts had been replaced and repainted. Honda didn't care about the accident, as long as OEM parts were used and and there was no damage to the car. I could still tell the car was in an accident after the repair. The truck gap wasn't perfect and there was slight overspray on the rear. Most people probably wouldn't even notice these slight problems. We also had the car repaired at a honda dealer, so if the inspector had any problems with the repair I would send it right back to honda.

We gave the car back to honda with no penalties and bought an Acura.

 

ps. it is real easy to tell if a cars been in an accident, not because of the overspray but for 2 reasons, carfax being the first, and the sticker with the vin # not being present

 

Ditto what aceman said. The great thing about a lease accident is that as long as the damage is repaired adequately you can just turn the car in and walk away from it. Before I leased my first TL in 2000, I had a Chrysler Concorde that was involved in a 10k repair accident (old man ran a stop sign and I broadsided them - no one hurt). Got it fixed, turned it in and it became the banks problem to resell.

 

I was hit recently. So far, there is $11,000 in damages. For an 05 TL with 75k miles, I would say that is more than 50% resale value of the car. I guess it is up to the insurance company whether or not they are willing to scrap the car.