Lease trade in experiences

So after a recent trip I’ve come to the realization that I might need something with more interior room. Possibly looking at a Tundra or 4Runner.

Now I’m about 17 months into a 3 year lease. Have any of you guys had experience trading in a lease early? I know I need to talk to the dealership but I figured I could go in armed with some knowledge in case they try and stick it to me.

 

Talk to the bank who the dealership used for the lease. Get ALL the fine print

 

I was in the same boat as you about 2 months ago. I was leasing a 2018 Subaru Forester XT and I was fed up with leasing after having it for 16 months on a 3 1/2 year lease. I traded in my lease early for my current '19 tacoma with about $5k in negative equity on the forester. It made sense trading it in for the tacoma due to the tacoma's great resale value. As for advice, I would first check the negative equity on the trade and if you could swallow that balance being added to the Tundra or 4runner. Next, when you find the Tundra or 4runner you really want, negotiate the price of it first before letting them know you will be trading in a leased vehicle. This will give you more leverage in having a monthly payment that you will feel most comfortable with. If payoff for the lease is too high and compared to the trade in value, I would suggest waiting a few more months to bring down the payoff balance. Lastly, shop around to find the best dealership that will give you the most for your trade-in.

 

Thanks for sharing. My lease buyout is currently $32,700. NADA clean trade in is $34,450 so hopefully I’m good on that. Depending on what they say I may pull the suspension (my wife convinced me to save all the stock stuff) and the shell and sell them separate. I doubt the dealer will add any value for them. Maybe though, they sell spacer lift trucks at a premium.

 

You have nothing to barter with as you can’t “trade in” a vehicle that you don’t own...the question is how much are they gonna charge you to take over your lease.

 

Actually you can. I “own” my lease to say it simply. There is a lot of misunderstanding on how a lease works. A lease has a buy out amount that goes down every month, the same as a loan has a payoff amount. Contrary to what many people believe you can still have positive or negative equity on a lease. I’m no more at the mercy of the bank than someone with a loan.

 

I would take off the shell and lift & sell separately. The dealer has a different book than we do and will do everything in their power to take money from us! Why give them your mods? How about sell your truck outright as is or go to a Carmax?

 

I’m thinking about that too. When I get home next week I’ll probably run by carmax and see what they offer. With a lease trade there’s no tax benefits so selling it privately may get me the best deal.

 

Great idea! I hope you get the vehicle you want. The 4Runners are very nice too. Wish you the best!

 

try Vroom, Shift and Carvana. Sold two vehicles to Vroom and it was fairly painless.

 

Plus 1 to this. You could also try leasetrader or swapalease and ask for cash on top, not sure what your monthly is.

 

Stay out of leasing threads, it never ends well for you.

 

Was a long time ago...way back in 2002, but I leased an Acura that I traded in on a Subaru a year before the lease was over. Had positive equity for a down payment towards the new car after they paid off the lease.

 

I was in a leased Camary and the dealer treated it like a trade in. I got $1,000 over what I owed on the lease. It helped with the down payment. Try going to CarMax and see what they will offer, then take that offer to the Toyota dealer and see if they will bet it.

 

Caravana offer was pretty close to buyout without the shell or suspension so that’s encouraging.

The Toyota lease transfer fee is only $200. So if I go private that might be a way to get me out and allow someone get into a nice truck without a big payment right off the bat.

 

Mods like shells and suspension have little value as a trade. Most dealers would pull most mods off and try to get as close to stock as possible. Even tow hitches often get removed, unless it’s just the receiver.

Typically trading in a lease early is a bad idea, the penalties just get added to the new vehicle. If it’s within 6 months of the end of the lease the penalties are pretty minimal, but 17/36 could be excessive.

 

Depends on the lease agreement. We traded out Crosstrek after 18mo of a 36 mo lease. It wasn't quite at a point of equity so we would have had some additional money added to a new loan if we didnt pay that difference at financing. Otherwise, our lease had no penalties and we traded it like you would trade any other vehicle.

Only thing that went awry for us was the sales tax issue. Typically when you have sales tax and you loan the entirety on the tax is collected up front. With a lease its collect over the payments. When trading sales tax is figured by the delta of the cost of your trade and your purchase. If you trade a vehicle for 20k and buy one for 35k you would pay tax on the 15k difference, not 35k. Anyway, the dealer said we had no tax credit because it was a lease and wasn't collected up front. So unfortunately the whole tax amount was added into the loan amount for the new vehicle, not the delta. I felt this was incorrect, since we had paid sales tax to the 18mo point, but they wouldnt budge. Fast forward 2 weeks later, when the DMV send the plates, we get a nice check for the over paid sales tax for a couple thousand.

 

This is what I did with my 2017 CR-V. OP I first had the deal I wanted on the Taco. Then I told them i'd be trading in my CR-V that had 2 years left on the lease. The Buyout was $23K and KBB was saying $24k. Dealership came back and told me they can only give me $19k. This is what we haggled on at the end until they matched the buy out price leaving no negative equity. That was a win imo.

The process was easy though, nothing out of the ordinary trading in a leased vehicle.

 

I’m happy so many had ok experiences getting out of a lease early, but from my years of experiences it wasn’t the norm.
Dealers prefer leases because they can keep the conversation on monthly payments, rather than the overall price of the vehicle.
But just crunch the numbers. Doesn’t cost much to visit a few reputable dealers and see what they can do. I would strongly discourage rolling too much from the old vehicle to the new, though. I’ve seen some horrendous snowballing.

 

So I looked into this. Lease buyout fees are the same from day one all the way up to the last day of the lease.