Infiniti Lease

[machine1970]

Has anyone leased their G35 or any other Infiniti? How is your lease? Are they good with their lease end option pricing?

Y-Not?

[miscreant]

Infiniti is as good as any other manufacturer when it comes to end of lease options, but they're residuals are so high, you get an affordable lease payment but an expensive buyout residual (especially the G35 coupe). IMHO, anyone concerned with end-of-lease options should NOT be leasing. If you buy out at the end of your lease, you'll end up paying 150% or more for the vehicle.

example: a $36,000 G35. Say you buy at $35,000. Lease for 48 months, $0 down, not counting any fees, base rate of $485 (without tax!). That's $23,380 you pay to lease it at base rate. This is based on a 52% residual. So buyout is $18720. You finance the residual at lease end for 36 months at 4.9% (probably will be higher - it's 4 years old now) at $561 a month - times 36 months = $20,196 including interest for a total of $43,182 paid to own a $35,000 sale price vehicle. That's the equivalent of a 8.6%+ interest rate.

My point - never go into a lease planning to buy the lease at the end. It's not wise. That's not to say a lease is not for someone, but I think personally the only option one should worry about is only the "turn-in" option on a lease.

[DTsG]

I leased my coupe and did a cost comparison of buying versus leasing and found that I would end up not paying much more leasing than buying.

According to the leasing advice sites on the internet, I received a fair deal with Infiniti. The money rate was good, the residual fair, didn't get charged any unreasonable fees, etc.

For me, it's better to lease because I tend to change cars every 2-3 years. I did not lease my last 2 cars and wish I had because I sold each within 2 years, and it's not smart paying all that sales tax upfront.

[aseager]

I'm a bond trader, and so I beat this topic to death when I was deciding whether to lease or buy my G. First off, Infiniti's residuals aren't as high as BMW's, so there's a big difference there (whether or not this is accurately priced remains to be seen, as nobody has a 3 year old G35 yet). The economics of a lease are such that you're essentially choosing to lock in the car's depreciation ahead of time. When you compare the cash flows of leasing vs. buying, you'll save 50-100 bucks a month with the lease. But then after 3 years, you don't get compensated for any equity, whereas if you buy the car you'll typically have several grand in equity (principal paid less accumulated depreciation and interest expense). When you reconcile these two effects, you get a stream of cash flow differences, and you can easily determine your "cost of capital" for tying up your money.

The bright side of leasing is that, with purchasing outright, you're "behind the curve" during the first year or so-- that is, you owe more than the instantly depreciated car is worth-- unless you've paid cash or have put a hefty sum down. Leasing spreads this effect over the term, although this means that you can't get out of the committment without getting completely bent over.

Essentially, if you think you may end up driving the car gingerly and putting very few miles on it, it's probably not worth it to lease, because you'll have less depreciation and a much better salvage value. Also, if you think the G35 will depreciate less than what is priced into the lenders' models, it's not worth it to lease. If you're the type to drive cars for 10 years / 120k miles, you shouldn't lease. I ended up leasing because I have a feeling this car will go the way of most muscle cars and depreciate faster than is currently anticipated. Plus, like DTsG, I know I'll want a shiny new car in 3 years.

Sorry about the rant...