July lease deal is great!!

[TJOs]

My first post here!

If you are considering a basic hatch, look on Nissan's website!

I just bought an '07 Versa HB using the July lease deal offered on Nissan's website. To get the deal you have to buy an S with auto, power package and floor mats. Put $1859 down to get the car for $190 a month, 39 months ($7321 residual). That's a lot of car for $190 a month (+$9 a month tax--Hawaii taxes are great).

I pick up the car on Friday and am looking forward to it--a Versa should be a great car for touring around Maui!

[Woogie]

Umm...

Does this sound like an ad to anyone else?

Anyway, if not I hope you negotiated the price on the lease. Most leasing prices are based on MSRP, which is negotiable, even on leases.

Though for $1,860 down and almost $200 a month, I'd want to be owning the car I'm paying for.

[Deke40]

Some leases aren't too bad when they have some high rebates (like the present one offered on the new Tundra pickup). There are usually two kind of people who lease. Businesses lease them for employees or somebody looking for low monthly payments to fit their income.

If your figures are right and you just give them the car back at the end of the lease you would have paid $9620 for the use of the car for 39 months.

If you pay the residual of $7321 and keep the car you would have paid $16941 for the 1.8S(not counting interest you will probably pay on the $7321) on a Versa that MSRPs for $14830. That would mean you paid $2111 over MSRP.

As you can see by these figures, sometimes a lease is only convenient because of the low monthly payments, not cost effective.

[ThirstyRoss]

Yeah, leasing is generally a poor choice, unless you are a business and can write off part of the lease costs.

[Ever Victorious]

At least in Hawaii he won't really have to worry about running over the 12,000 mile per year lease cap, since there's not really anywhere to go.

Leases are OK for short-term, low cost ownership if you don't drive anymore and intend to turn in the car at the end of the lease and don't want to have the hassle of selling the car yourself at the end. But yeah, generally spending the extra money and buying the car outright is better.

Also, buying a car and analyzing the monthly payment as your primary factor of purchase isn't always a great focus. I'm paying only $50 more per month, including horrendous WA taxes, to PURCHASE the more expensive SL hatchback with ABS.

[TJOs]

Basically I paid MSRP--I knew that going in. And, after 39 months, the total cost is exactly the same as purchasing. Here's why:

The MSRP on the car (including delivery) is 14790. With the residual of 7321 the difference is 7469. That's 191 a month, basically what I'm paying. So the 1859 "down" is the interest paid Nissan. In the first month you're paying interest on 14790, etc until the last month you're paying interest on 7321. So that works out to 5% interest, which is fair. So basically I paid exactly MSRP. (If you don't count the 595 lease acquisition fee, which is in the 1859, then Nissan is getting 3.5%.)

The fact that you don't own the car at the end of the lease is an irrelevant point--if I bought it through the bank at 5% I'd still owe 7321 at the end of 39 months and would still have choose whether to continue paying the bank or sell the car at that point--exactly the same decision you make with leasing.

Over the last 25 years or so I've bought 10 new cars, sometimes financing through the car company, sometimes through a bank and sometimes leased. In my calculations the 3 are always pretty close.

There are two main advantages of a lease (along with the disadvantages, of course). The first advantage is that it doesn't immediately eat into your borrowing potential that you might need for other purposes. The other is the ability to give the car back if the model turns out to have problems or if, for any other reason, the used price is bad at the end of the lease. So any extra cost of the lease is a bit like an extended warranty or extra insurance.

[Ever Victorious]

The fact that you don't own the car at the end of the lease is an irrelevant point--if I bought it through the bank at 5% I'd still owe 7321 at the end of 39 months and would still have choose whether to continue paying the bank or sell the car at that point--exactly the same decision you make with leasing.

Not correct. If you had purchased with $1800 down at 4.9% for 60 months, your payment would be $272, but you would only owe $5482 at the end of 39 months. And your choices at that point would be to keep the car, which you are at that point only 21 months from owning at the current rate, or selling the car, which could actually net you cash depending on the condition and mileage of the car.

There's no single dealer or manufacturer who will give you a CREDIT on a lease for low mileage. But if you own the car and don't put a lot of miles on it, you have a higher resale value that you personally get to keep.

Take this, of course, with a grain of salt, as I drive the entire mileage allowed by your lease in one year, so leasing would be the absolute worst idea in the world for me personally.

[TJOs]

Not correct. If you had purchased with $1800 down at 4.9% for 60 months, your payment would be $272, but you would only owe $5482 at the end of 39 months.

But you would have made $3237 more in payments in 39 months (over the $189 a month that I'm paying), so they do come out quite close.

There's no single dealer or manufacturer who will give you a CREDIT on a lease for low mileage.

About two years ago I had a Corolla on which the lease finished up. The mileage was low so I told the dealer I would do the buyout unless they gave me a $1000 credit on a new car--which they did.

[biggie]

At this point if I was gonna lease a vehicle I would choose the '07 Altima, they are really cheap around here. Like $9000 for a lease price.

I thought about leasing the V for a second, then realized all the miles I'd be putting on it. And leasing to me is like renting apt/house, you get nothing out of it for the money.

[TJOs]

Umm...Does this sound like an ad to anyone else?

No, not an ad for Nissan. Just someone pleased to have a new Versa coming.

I was pleased with the lease, in part, because a car loan through Nissan (or probably a bank) was going to be difficult in Hawaii since I am a Canadian resident and have no U.S. credit rating. I moved to Hawaii in late May and began looking for a car--had to be hatch with high seating (Matrix, Fit, etc.) It finally came down to Versa about a week ago. The dealer had exactly what I wanted (color, features, etc)--exactly what I could afford and nothing more. The whole deal was wrapped up in about an hour or so. Since the terms were exactly specified on the website in the lease special I was able to get a reasonable deal with almost no hassle--otherwise it would have been more difficult and expensive.

Hope I like the car as much as I think I will.

[Ever Victorious]

Hope I like the car as much as I think I will.

This will probably be the most hassle-free part of your experience, actually. the V is easy to love.