Tesla Is Starting a Certified Preowned Program 126
cartechboy writes Most luxury automakers have a Certified Previously Owned (CPO) program. Tesla isn't like a normal luxury automakers, in fact, it's not really like any automaker out there. It doesn't have franchises and it sells its own vehicles through its network of galleries. Now, it plans to create its own CPO program. There are a great deal of Model S sedans out there currently under lease contracts. When those cars are ready to come back, Tesla has guaranteed that it will purchase them for a figure that falls somewhere between 43 and 50 percent of the original purchase price. This is exactly how Tesla's going to create its CPO fleet. Tesla seems to do everything in an unconventional manner, so we'll have to see if its CPO program behaves like every other automaker's, or if it's different somehow as well.
A lease on a CPO might be interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have not found the Tesla S to be all that interesting due to price. For what you pay, it is expensive, in my opinion.
That being said, if they do a lease on a 3 year old copy for half the price of a new one, the monthly payment might get into an area that I'd be interested in.
I would expect a 3 year old Tesla S to be in better shape than your average 3 year old car, the early buyers are going to likely have taken good care of it and if it comes with another 3 year warranty, then no worries.
I actually wouldn't mind owning an electric, price is the primary issue right now.
Re:A lease on a CPO might be interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously regular wear items like interior parts, tires/suspension/alignment, and such will still be the same, but I'm used to driving cars up close to 200,000 miles anyway, so that's not such a big deal.
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Additionally to fluids, electric cars are subject to much less vibration than combustion engines, which is one of the main causes of wear and tear in automotive parts.
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Powerplants of every kind take a certain amount of mass, and as they rotate they induce a certain amount of vibration. Electric motors over certain sizes or power levels are often isolated with their own shock-absorbing motor mounts, even if they're not much more than bushings or pillow-blocks. Even devices as lowly and underpowered as squirrel-cage fans in evap coolers and air handlers have bushings.
With an electric car, you're deciding between usi
Re:A lease on a CPO might be interesting... (Score:5, Informative)
Powerplants of every kind take a certain amount of mass, and as they rotate they induce a certain amount of vibration.
Wrong: a free spinning wheel creates no vibration.
Combustion engines create a lot of vibration by their very design with a crankshaft and four strokes pistons. Have you been on an electric car? the reduced vibration is notable. Other readers might have been on a dual diesel/electric train while traveling in Europe? One can tell when they switch to the diesel power plant on the station at the end of the electric line because of the increase in carriage vibration.
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Wrong: a free spinning wheel creates no vibration.
An ideally balanced spinning wheel creates no vibration might be more accurate, but I agree that electric cars vibrate less (kind of eerie for the first little while really, especially combined with less noise).
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Lets not ignore road vibration.
No worries around here.... From Pot Hole city..
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While an electric vehicle won't be zero vibration it will likely be much better than a vehicle based around a reciprocating internal combustion engine for serveral reasons.
1: IC engine vehicles need to "idle". That is run the engine with no load as part of the startup process and during short stops. Mechanisms running unloaded are much worse from a vibration point of view than the same ones running under load. Electric cars can simply turn the main motors off when stopped (accessories can use their own moto
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It depends on the car and where you take it to be serviced. Even basic maintenance like oil changes can be expensive on luxury vehicles at the dealer or specialty shop. The mid-tier service plan on the Tesla is $500/year. I could get half-way to that just on oil changes alone...if I were dumb enough to take it to a dealer. The local foreign auto shop is a bit less, but I don't think $500/year is crazy. Certainly not any crazier than spending $80k on a car when you can buy other brands and models for $20k. Y
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My 2015 Yukon XL Denali requires semi-synthetic oil...
I have to change the oil at most twice a year...
The cost at the GMC dealership? $40 a change, and they wash it for me... Better yet, they offer no-charge valet service, they'll come drop off a loaner truck, pickup mine, then return it a few hours later clean and done...
Beyond that, it'll require tires every few years, but so will a Tesla... The transmission fluid and all other fluids are good for 100,000 miles, so frankly I'll probably never change th
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Help me out, cause that wooshed over my head...
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Of course smog is an issue, there really isn't anything "good" that comes out of the back of a ICE engine...
The problem is, getting an electric truck doesn't help much when the power from the wall is produced from a coal fired power plant...
You're just moving the pollution from one place to another, not removing it...
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No, you're not just moving the pollution.
A central power plant can/does have far better air scrubbing technology than your ICE. It can also run more efficiently, putting out less pollution for the same amount of power.
Also, it _could_ (I'm not saying this is actually the case) be in a more remote location, where fewer people are as directly affected, even after the above benefits are still in place. (No, I am not meaning this to be a NIMBY argument, it's an "around fewer people in general" argument.)
Vague
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No, you're not just moving the pollution.
A central power plant can/does have far better air scrubbing technology than your ICE. It can also run more efficiently, putting out less pollution for the same amount of power.
While that is all true, it still puts out a bunch of pollution, a bunch of CO2, and doesn't really address the core problem, which is to stop burning dead dinos.
If I'm going to spend more money on transportation, deal with range issues, etc. then it needs to be on more than just moving from burning oil to burning coal. If my power was nuclear supplied, I'd be much more inclined to do it.
I would rather a nuclear plant was built 10 miles away from my home than a coal plant 100 miles away. Nuclear, run prope
Re: A lease on a CPO might be interesting... (Score:2)
Maintenance (tires, brake pads, fluid changes, headlight bulbetc) averages $1500/year. On top of that, anything that breaks (so far, windshield washer motor, pumps assorted little things) have fixes that start at $1k and go up real quick.
Your Denali, being a truck, not a lightweight, high performance sports car, is an Apples-to-oranges comparison even amongst ICE vehicles, let alone the Tesla.
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Tires will be the biggest single expense on my truck... A nice set of Michelin M/S tires will run about a thousand dollars for my truck, but will last 5 years. So that is about $200 a year, but that cost is there for any high end vehicle.
How old is your car that you're changing brake pads, headlight bulbs, etc? I guess if it is 10 years old, that stuff starts to add up, but you also haven't had a payment in awhile, so it is still cheap. :)
My truck costs me about a thousand dollars a month, so "free maint
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:) I rather think of my Denali as a luxury vehicle. It should be for a nearly $80k sticker price.
Considering all that is in it, it is actually nicer than many so-called "luxury brands".
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I'm taking it you don't own a Tesla? Either you don't know or you're hiding the truth behind exactly how expensive their maintenance [teslamotors.com] plans are. Funny, I never spent that much on my ICE to keep it on the road.
Uh, that "expensive" pre-paid multi-year plan works out to $450/year.
For an $80,000 vehicle.
From Acura to Volvo and every premium brand in between, you honestly think you can find a stealership that will charge that little of an amount to support any of their luxury vehicles for a year?
Yeah, good luck with that. You'll find out very quickly why we call them stealerships.
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I dont see where their plan is required?
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I was curious, so I followed your link. What I quickly discovered is that your link goes to entirely optional service plans that include WAY more than typical maintenance, and even if it were only maintenance, it'd actually be significantly better than what I'm paying out-of-pocket now. If my auto manufacturer offered a plan that covered those same features at that same cost, I would have saved $825 in the last three years alone!
Specifically, I just pulled up the numbers, and in the last three years I've sp
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You're comparing the cost of repairs on an older car out of warranty with a brand new car, hardly comparable...
To get Tesla's coverage for that long, you have to pay for it from day one and for every year.
Most new cars also come with roadside coverage, my current truck has it for 5 years from date of purchase.
While it is true that the yearly running costs of an electric car are lower than for a ICE car, that battery will be expensive to replace. All the oil changes in the world don't compete with that.
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You're comparing the cost of repairs on an older car out of warranty with a brand new car, hardly comparable...
A fair point, to be sure. Even so, my vehicle only has 70,000 miles on it, and Tesla offers an 8-year warranty, so I'd still be under their warranty and would have saved a substantial amount over the last three years (I don't have numbers older than that readily available, else I'd cite them so we could get a clearer picture).
Either way, it really doesn't matter too much what the particulars are, since my point was simply that A) those plans weren't as bad a deal as the AC was painting them to be, and B) th
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Fair enough...
Keep in mind that for FAR less than the cost of the Tesla plan, my new Yukon is covered for 7 years or 84,000 miles, whichever comes first.
All I have to do is oil changes and tires, everything else is covered.
So were I in your shoes, I'd have paid about $2K total for all that coverage and not paid a dime in repairs, plus had free loaner cars, free roadside assistance (included in the warranty), and paid a LOT less than Tesla charges for 8 years of coverage.
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While it is true that the yearly running costs of an electric car are lower than for a ICE car, that battery will be expensive to replace. All the oil changes in the world don't compete with that.
exxon and Russia just found an oil field in the Russian arctic ocean that's about the size of the gulf of mexico. So when you want to make comparisons to all the oil in the world, be ware that there's more out there than we realized!
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:) I worked for awhile in the Gulf of Mexico as a helicopter pilot... There is tons and tons of oil yet to be extracted from there, including from fields they once thought were done.
10 years ago companies like Apache and Baker were buying up "old spent" fields from the big boys and employing new technology to get more out of them.
One platform I flew to was built in the 70s, it still produces about a million dollars a day in oil, long after the "experts" predicted it would run dry.
Colorado is swimming on t
You sound really manly. Do you fly helicopters? (Score:1)
and you seem to be so wise about energy issues, but you're not a greenie. Wow, the complete package. How much does your SUV weigh?
Re: A lease on a CPO might be interesting... (Score:1)
I own one. It's not a lease program, it's a guaranteed buy back program. To qualify you have to purchase a service plan and take the car in every 5,000 miles. (So they can rotate the tires and grease the door hinges. Maybe they change the spark plugs periodically, too :-)
Re: A lease on a CPO might be interesting... (Score:1)
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OK, you're admittedly talking about Teslas here, so you're likely looking for luxury and/or the very long range of Teslas.
However, if price really is the primary issue, and you *don't* need the huge range or luxury, some of the lowest end electric cars are under $200/month (I think some significantly under) for lease price.
I bought my smart electric, and after fed & state rebates, it was about $16500, including tax.
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If I was in the market for something like a Nissan Leaf, I would give it a serious look. After the tax credits and considering the deals on them, it might well be something to consider.
The irony is that standard cars today are just as nice, if not nicer, than many luxury cars of years gone by. But I'm spoiled (yea, I know that is what it is), so I wouldn't look at such a car.
The issue I'm having with the Tesla is that for what you pay, you're not getting a whole lot. It is missing a lot of things that I
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I have yet to this day see an actual tesla anything on the road that wasn't on a trailer being towed by a GM pickup (Tesla emblems on the pickup so it must be a display car or something). I've seen plenty parked, I seen them on TV, I just have never seen anyone driving one in real life- and I travel about 350 miles a day most days.
I saw about two dozen the last time I was (Score:2)
in California, I see on average one every few days in NYC. Tesla sales are very asymmetric, they have deep penetration in certain markets and almost none in others.
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Battery Life (Score:1)
Are all the owners beginning to sell just prior to the batteries reaching the end of their life?
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Nope, battery warranty is eight years, so you are far off the mark.
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It was a question, not a statement.
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Are all the owners beginning to sell just prior to the batteries reaching the end of their life?
batteries don't expire, they degrade over time. so it's not like there will be a day that is one day away from when the batteries go bad so you better sell by that day or else you'll be stuck with bad batteries.
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On the one hand, Musk is saying [teslamotors.com] all the right things:
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I'm not surprised at all.
If they put it in writing, you can probably sue them on it. If I were operating in the USA, known for having more lawyers than mosquitos, I would avoid absolutely anything that has the slightest chance of landing me in court.
IOW, if I planned to make a promise to my customers, but without giving a free "sue me" card to some asshole who wants to lawyer-abuse me because one i wasn't dotted or one t wasn't crossed, then a public CEO announcement would be exactly what I'd do, especially
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Personally, If it was my company, I'd want the details clearly in writing and not subject myself to trying to explain in court what the CEO means in his public statements. It seems like it would lead to less abuse by lawyers. You can never avoid such abuses though, all you can do is make it as hard as possible to be found liable for more than you intended. Best way to do that is to draft an airtight warranty document.
So that leads one to believe that this whole discussion was more of a bait and switch tec
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Let me know when you've succeeded to sue a company in court for some marketing statements they made to the press.
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It's not yet successful (hearing in 2015), and anyone can bring a lawsuit for any stupid reason. But if they succeed, I'll lose what's left of my faith in humanity.
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She said, "If you've enjoyed a Red Bull since 2002, you can get ten bucks..."
Me: "Enjoyed?"
So... (Score:2)
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This is a new car company engaged in a huge undertaking. If it were me, I'd want to know everything possible about every one of those vehicles on the road to help drive future so I bet there's a ton of useful telemetry that either gets sent in realtime or uploaded whenever the car checks in for a firmware update. As such, I bet a CPO Tesla would be a way better bet than a CPO Honda...
Indeed (Score:2)
With a Tesla I don't see why you couldn't theoretically pull the entire black-box history.
I'd like to buy a Tesla that never exceeded the speed limit and was only driven to church on a Sunday etc etc.
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I'd like to buy a Tesla that never exceeded the speed limit and was only driven to church on a Sunday etc etc.
Here's your new car sir....
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I think in this case it was a mid-level manager at SpaceX who thought they knew more about labor laws than might actually be the case. Even if it was Elon Musk himself who pushed these guys out the door, it really is just a dispute over money and how much is owed to them... based upon a technicality of labor laws and not upon actual hours worked.
My own opinion is that SpaceX screwed up here, but doesn't mean that SpaceX is a slimy company to work for either. If anything, it just shows the growing pains th
It's a "used car", stupid. (Score:3)
"Pre-owned" - come on.
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"Pre-owned" - come on.
C'mon. All luxury vehicles are either new or "pre-owned".
Only peasants drive used shit. The yuppies would never stand for such a moniker.
Oh, and that's Certified Pre-owned to you, buddy. You know, 'cause we need another reason to charge $400/month for some used shit...
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"Pre-owned" - come on.
Yeah .. but it's "Certified Pre-owned". How else are you supposed to know that it was actually pre-owned. They might be lying about that. This way you are 100% guaranteed that it actually is a pre-owned Tesla. And that's good to know. Being able to sleep soundly at night knowing that your car is really pre-owned is well worth the money you pay for it being Certified!
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I know you are joking, but the certified part is that they certify that the car is still 'up to snuff' after being used, not that they are certifying the used-ness of the car.
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Being able to sleep soundly at night knowing that your car is really pre-owned is well worth the money you pay for it being Certified!
Well at least you know you won't end up like this guy [greencarreports.com]...
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Yes, THIS.
A used car is a USED car, not "pre-owned" any more than I am "pre-dead" as long as I'm vertical, or the food in me belly is "pre-deficated."
I bought my current car (a reasonably lux and sporty V8 sedan that originally sold for just under $70k) from a dealer after it came back from a 3-year lease program. I told the sales droid that if he used the phrase "pre-owned" instead of "used" I would have to assume he was concealing or distorting other information about the car too. I'm sure he would ha
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1. Almost all auto dealerships are franchise operations. Tesla owns theirs outright.
2. Most used cars are not sold through a dealership.
Private sales and 3rd party dealerships are common.
Even when somebody trades in used vehicle for a new one it rarely shows up on that dealer's lot. Normally it goes to auction where some other used car dealer buys it up.
Is this a subtle assault on the 1st sale doctrine, keeping the cars within Tesla's system?
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Like all leases, you don't 'sell' the car back or 'trade' the car in. Instead, your lease ends and the car returns to the owner. Despite their propaganda, if you leased a car, that means you never actually owned the car.
This is not a Tesla's assault on 1st sale doctrine. Instead, it is a common practice, which I like to call the ZERO sale doctrine. The cars - in both Tesla's program and more traditional programs never were sold at all.
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You are half right - but that means you kind of misses my point. What happens to leased cars after they are returned?
Technically they revert to the leasing company, not the dealership or manufactory. In practice this means that they get dumped onto the used car market. This means when the lease holder drops off the car at the dealership (which is a franchise) at the end of the lease, they tend to have the same dance as when bringing in a trade in. Not exactly the same – leases throws in some weird qui
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All auto leases have option for you to buy the car at the end of the lease. This puts the leaseholder in the proverbial driver's seat. I have seen people execute the option, buy out the car, then turn around and sell the car for a higher price.
My local GMC dealership is even easier to work with...
If the truck is worth more than the lease end value, they don't make you bother with buying the car and trading it in, they'll buy it and credit you the difference in value and apply it to the next truck, or write you a check.
Saves a transaction and having to have the cash to pay for the buyout value. One of the services they offer.
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So let me ask a follow up question. How do you and your dealer know that your leased car's residual value is less than the market value? Answer – because there is a robust 3rd party market for those vehicles. Compile the national data from the auction sales, extrapolate the differences between sold cars and yours (basically mileage and options) and you have a pretty good idea of what is happening.
But what if Tesla grabs a good portion of that data because they are running the leased cars through thei
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I see your point, and it is a fair one...
The same issue exists of course with any low production item... Try it with a Ferrari for example, some models are made in the hundreds of copies only...
Tesla will have control, until they start building hundreds of thousands of cars a year, then they'll lose it.
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Leases usually overcharge the 'renter'. The renter is pushing off risk from themselves to the leasing company and they pay HIGHLY for that.
Let's face it, those situations where people turn in and buy or buy it back then sell it at a profit mean the company screwed up somehow - or intentionally overpriced things.
Basically, leases are designed by the companies to make THEM money. They throw in added complexity whi
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Are you sure? I thought that GM and Chrysler had to sell their finance division when they slid into bankruptcy.
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Nobody's keeping the owners from selling their cars to somebody else if they so desire, so there's no "assault on the 1st sale doctrine".
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Well, no – not directly – that is why I said subtle. An analogy might be made to Apple's iPhones. Apple can't legally prevent you from going to a 3rd party repair shop. However, they do make things difficult. If you do so you void the warranty, they use special screws, they don't publish repair manuals, etc. I think this might be more akin to a nudge than a full out assault.
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the most important spec that defines a luxury vehicle: $90k.
You don't purchase back leased cars (Score:5, Interesting)
I know corporations like to pretend that lease = own, but they are not the same.
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Meh... I don't own my truck until the last payment is made, the title is in the hands of the finance company. :)
Now a HOUSE you own, even with a mortgage, the deed is in your name...
But a car? Unless you pay cash for it, you don't own it...
That is why a car can be repossessed in 5 minutes, a house can take 60 days to a year to take away from you. (among other reasons)
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When I bought my car I had title in hand in my name. It had a lien on the back, but the title had my name on the front.
And there are some other differences, much like in the home market. I own my home, but the bank has a lien on it. I get to decide what colors I paint the walls, any upgrades or additions I want to do, if pets or guests are allowed, etc. The bank doesn't make those decisions like the landlord did for my apartment or rental house.
Similarly, a leased car has many restrictions. Usually som
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Perhaps your state or country works differently...
I don't get the title to my truck until the last payment is made, then the finance company mails it to me...
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I'm sure that is true, but some dealers have more desire to negotiate, some feel the number listed is the only number. It's the same reason it's sometimes worth driving a couple hundred miles to buy a new car, even when sales tax is the same. You'd think they'd lose business by never negotiating, but based on the number of people I know that actually paid sticker for their new cars, I guess it works for them.
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You my dear sir, get a cookie for a great answer. :)
Yea, that is it exactly... Still, one downside to leasing is that the penalties to break it can be expensive in the first year or two. Worse than for a loan. Yes, the value is the value, but they often can stick you for worse if you have to break it.
One huge mistake that people make with leases is that they focus on the payment, not the other numbers. The purchase price does affect payment, but so much can be done to mess around with the deal and arriv
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I know you were talking about leasing, but it's been in the news recently about people with cars that were shut off remotely for late payment of car loans have been threatening to sue due to laws in some states about a loan not being delinquent for 30 days, yet the car would be remotely turned off within a few days of the "due date" on the monthly payment.
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Fair enough... And I agree with you, until the loan is actually delinquent, the car should be yours to use peacefully.
So if they are taking action before it is legally delinquent, then that would be wrong.
The point I was trying to make is that 5 minutes AFTER it becomes delinquent, you can take the car. You CANNOT do that with a house. There are all sorts of notices you must send, you have to file with the court, provide time to the owner to catch up, etc. Then you have to file for foreclosure and that
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Well, the 43%-50% guarantee price is for Tesla Financing, which is not actually a lease. It's a 60-90% loan financed purchase with a buyback guarantee from Tesla where you may sell it back after 3 years, you must exercise that option within 3 months or the offer is no longer valid. So in that case, it's a lease-like arrangement with an actual purchase back price. Apparently they also have a real lease program, under financing there's three options with cash being the third of course. I don't think many will
So... A glorified personal contract purchase? (Score:2)
Opportunity (Score:3)
Who's going to be the first to open "Stan's Previously Used Teslas"?
Re:Opportunity (Score:4, Funny)
Stan.
Foamy the Squirrel had it right. (Score:2)
Leasing a car... (Score:3)
I never understoof the fascination of leasing a car for an individual. I can understand for a company, but most cars are worth something at the time the lease is over. Why give it back or have to go through more tortuous negotiating to buy the car then?
If you can't afford to buy a car, perhaps you should look into a cheaper car.
(I'm discounting those that lease $15K cars, since most leases are for more expensive models.)
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As a CPO buyer, I don't care why they do it, but do like that I can get a 2 or 3 year old car at a substantial discount, while facing a much shallower depreciation curve. A BMW dealer mentioned to me that about 1/2 of their business is leases and about 1/2 is CPO & Used sales. Relatively few people buy outright new.
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A car is a depreciating asset, it never goes up in value.
In that sense, it doesn't make sense to want to "own the car". If you get, say, a TrueCars.com price on a lease, as an example, the cost of leasing versus the cost of owning is razor thin.
But with leasing, you can always get out of the car and into another one with full warranty, a fixed turn-in value and security against unknown events like the car gets wrecks or damaged in a
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The dealer asked if I wanted to trade it in for a newer model year "for the same or lower monthly payment." They lost interest when I asked if the payment would be lower than 0.
I don't thi
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