Do you lease or buy?

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Just curious to see what people's car-acquiring habits are, and why.

Personally, I used to think that leasing was the devil, but I'm not so sure anymore. If you don't plan on keeping a new car for more than 5 years, leasing probably makes more sense. I probably lost more money on my 2012 Mazda 2 that I bought outright and sold in 2018 than I would have spent in lease payments on a Mazda 3 even. Granted, a Mazda 2 was never going to have a stellar resale value and arguably it would have made more financial sense to keep it for something like 10 years. In any case, I'm contemplating leasing my next daily driver....but I'll probably impulse buy an old Miata instead.

 

[Fastcarguy]

If I were to be looking at a new model car, I would most likely buy or make payments until I own. My family always keeps cars for 10-15 years before a replacement is even considered. If Im buying a used car, I wont buy it unless I can go to the bank and get enough cash into my pocket to buy it.

 

[homeforsummer]

Buy.

I can certainly see the value in leasing - if you have no intent to keep a vehicle for too long and no intent to modify or whatever, there are some great lease deals around which really make it an affordable way of "owning" a car.

For me it's a little too much like renting an apartment though, and I'm currently saving up so I can buy a house and no longer need to rent... essentially you're paying for the convenience, rather than to have any equity in something.

In general I'll always try and buy with cash too. I've done the bank loan thing in the past - it was the right thing to do at the time after I'd had a car stolen and wanted to get something newer and more secure, thus more expensive - but that also only works if you're keeping a car for a long-ish time. I sold the car in question after maybe 2.5 years or so and got very bored of paying back a loan for something I no longer owned.

Ultimately it's why I've never owned anything that was worth very much. I think the most I've ever spent on a car from cash I already had in the bank is about £4200 or so. I'd like to be able to spend more and own something newer, but I try very hard to avoid living beyond my means.

 

[McLaren]

Done both. Used to lease BMWs because maintenance was always covered under warranty and I turned the cars in long before a major issue came up; really only had to pay for new run flats because I'd swap 'em out. Acura used to be a lease and was bought out/financed for a few years, and now I own the title. Z06 was financed because leasing wasn't an option due to age & I didn't have that much cash on hand. Sold a year later and came out no deeper than I was originally.

Looking for another car now that will just depend on the car itself. I'd like another toy which will have to be financed. But, I am also considering a new Lexus as my commute car to take ease off the Acura now (154,000 miles), and that will be leased because my employee benefits are far better on that end than financing.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Buy, most of my cars have come from eBay.

edit:
Just thinkin' back...

Bought from a dealer 2nd hand, finance agreement.
Bought cash from Auto Trader.
Bought from a Farmers Barn, a little cash and a hand shake.
Bought from my Dad, cash
Bought from a friend of a friend, took cash from credit card(!)
Bought from eBay, cash
Given in payment for work done
Bought from eBay, cash(ish)
Bought from eBay, bank loan
Bought from eBay, bank loan

Total spent on cars for 23 years of Motoring: £16,625. Only ever sold ONE of them , the rest were scrapped, stolen, crushed or died on track!

 

[Robin]

I only buy, never lease, hire purchase, pay monthly or anything like that.

 

[kikie]

Private lease of business lease?

I have never leased a car, always bought cars, second hand or new. I think it depends on what car you want. If it is a simple daily driver, lease could be cheaper but if you want a specific luxurious or sports car being a petrol head and all, it is cheaper to buy it.

 

[Joey D]

I buy cars, but probably shouldn't. For the most part, I just do a 7-year loan on a car so the payments are low and it typically works out by the time I trade it in for something else.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

I buy cars, but will consider leasing for daily driver purposes. That's probably a few years out. Main benefits would be the convenience and not having to worry about rust caused by the salt.

 

[Danoff]

I used to think of car leases as being something that only people who could not afford anything else would do - or someone who needed something temporary. Then I met a bunch of multi-millionaires who only leased and I thought twice about it. One guy even hated getting locked in to a lease for 3 years, so he would buy a used lease off of someone else with 1 year left on it so that he could switch cars every year.

It's very hard to make a lease work out financially over buying, and you're always comparing to buying new (which is almost always a bad move to begin with). There are lease calculators that will help you keep track of everything and determine how much the lease actually costs and whether or not it's a good deal. If you can get all the right parameters in the right spot, especially for certain brands like mercedes or BMW that tend to lose a lot of value right away, you can come out ahead on a lease vs. buying new and selling in 3 years.

But it's always vs. buying new and selling in 3 years, which you have to want to do independently of the lease in order for the lease to make sense. The types of people that I saw leasing were the type of person (this was in LA) who never wants to be in a car more than 3 years old, never wants to be in a used car, never wants to be responsible for taking a car to a mechanic (only the dealership will do), never wants to change the oil themselves or take it to a dirty jiffy lube type place... it's a lifestyle choice. It's an expensive choice at that, but once you've decided you're going to do a bunch of that stuff anyway, leases can work out.

I basically only buy used cars, outright, with cash. Anything else is just too much money out the door for too little return in my estimation. Give me about 3 million dollars and I might change my mind on that. 2 million would not be enough.

I should say, sometimes a used car loan is a screaming deal. I tend to not like the strings attached (how new the car has to be, etc.), so I don't generally pursue those. It's too hard to figure out how much money you lost on the bank constraining your purchase.