I leased a 2015 F-Type R in 2015. The 3 year lease is coming up soon, and I'd like to buy it at the end of the lease. Normally I'm ready to move on with any car after a year or 2, but...the F-Type is my 2nd car, doesn't get driven much, and honestly I don't see any other vehicle I'd like to replace it with. Plus, it's got all the makings of a possible future collector, so I'm thinking about buying it and just holding onto it for the long run.

Anyway, does anyone have any experience or tips buying the lease out? Any room to negotiate? MMR on the car is about $55k, so what I could expect a dealer to give me on trade-in. Buy out at the end of the lease is $61k. It's a 2015 with just about 15k miles on it.

Is there any room/flexibility with Jaguar on the buyout price? I haven't looked at pricing recently, but from past threads it looks like I could pick up a 2015 R for less than $61k, so essentially would be over paying if I bought it. Though buying my car, knowing how it has been treated and been pretty much problem free, has value in it anyway vs. buying a strangers car for cheaper but not knowing it's history.

 

The lease buyout residual was set by the finance company (Chase not Jaguar) when you signed the paperwork. I haven’t heard of anybody being able to renegotiate that. You honestly may be better off buying a 16 or 17 with the extra warranty. I agree that you can’t always put a value on knowing the provenance of the car. You can ask and I guess they can only say no....

 

If you do want to continue with F Type ownership - I would think you would be better off buying your car rather than another used example. As you say, you know how you have treated your car. You won't be sure with a used pre owned model. The difference in price will be negligible.

 

The very nature of a lease is that the dealership has LOCKED you into what the purchase price would be at the end of the contract so changing that is highly unlikely but you may be able to work out some type of deal with the leasing company to buy it from them after turn-in. I do know that some people have sold their cars privately for a price that was higher than their lease buyout and were able to make some money but those are unusual instances as most residuals are set quite high so that the monthly payments are as low as possible.

PS - This is the first lease I have done and the above statement is based on my research before I agreed to a lease. I am already planning on the possibility of buying mine out at the end of my 39 month term so am planning to have my residual, $57K available in Feb 2021 in the event I want to buy mine out at that time.

 

I only leased a car once, and had every intention of buying it at the end. I did buy it, but as noted, the price is set at the time the lease is signed. The depreciation wasn't as brutal though, so I knew it'd be worth more than that price given my care of it.

You know the history of the car. You are correct that this knowledge has value. You're under mileage, so if you can afford the difference it seems worthwhile to go with what you know.

 

My experience at lease end is that the residual is never discounted to current market, even tho they usually go to auction with fees etc.

 

Thanks folks.

I understand the buyout is "negotiated/set" up front. I was wondering if there was any trick to getting it cheaper. As others stated, the bank owns the car at the end, and they need to do something with it. If market value is less than buyout, I would think they'd want to easily sell it back to you and be done with it. Manufacturers and banks need to flip the cars again, and could take a loss at auction, so figure maybe you can negotiate it down to take it off their hands.

The dealers have no say in it, so was just curious if anyone knew any trade secrets on if it was possible to "deal" at the end. From my own experience and from what I gather online I didn't think it was possible. But it never hurts to ask and see if specific to Jaguar/Chase someone has had some luck.

 

I’m leasing as well, and will be going through the same decision in a couple years.....or maybe sooner. I have found this website to have allot of good lease information with a bunch of “lease gurus” who can help you out in the forum.

https://leasehackr.com

CRS

 

I am in exactly opposite situation. I got a smashing deal on my F-type and dealer decided that they will play games with residual value and attempt to claw back some of it on the other end. Residual is about 5K under trade-in, and 12K under market price. I want to step into new F-type at the end of the lease, but I will not leave that much money on the table. So unless dealer splits market price difference with me I will buy it out instead of getting into a new F-type.

 

I suggest making a dealer an offer to buy your car as-is at $58K. So they don't have to list it, detail it, service it and so on. You can't change buy out value, but you don't have to necessary give up your car.

 

We already went through this. That is not how this works. He asked if he could "negotiate" a buyout at a lower price than his residual. Myself and EVERYBODY told him... Nope, you can NOT negotiate it down. Many on here even outlined how they had attempted and failed to do that. Here are his options and yours:

1) Buy it out at the end for the residual
2) Turn it in and walk away
3) Turn it in and request the opportunity to make an offer AFTER it has already been turned in and the dealer has had a chance to review it and determine if they can get more by selling it on the open market. This seems to be the path you are recommending that he pursue which essentially is trying to buy it back before anyone else can make an offer. Unless the market has "gone to crap" or if the actuary really screwed up, this number is ALWAYS going to be more than the residual value.

You stated that your perception is that your residual would be lower than market but that's extremely unlikely as you can't "buy down" a residual upfront. You CAN put down additional security deposits (in the form of MSDs) but they don't have any affect on your buyout at the end unless you choose to use those original $s to buy it as those will "most likely" be returned to you as long as there's no significant damage (like a wreck) but the residual itself is static. Perhaps that is what you meant?

No matter the deal you got on your lease, your residual at the end is FIXED. That number comes from years & years of study and extensive accounting practices. Your great deal is on the lease itself and THAT is where you save $'s. A number of us also got "near-zero" money factors (like .00003). The upfront discounts of $27K off MSRP when combined with the near-zero money factors reduces the normal monthly lease costs from over $1K to under $800 including taxes and all fees in my case for a '17 R Coupe with an MSRP of $112K

Current average wholesale for a pristine 2016 F-Type S Coupe RWD with average ODO of 19K is $44,600 as of today. Retail is $48K. Ragged out with 34K miles is $37K WHOLESALE. If you have the AWD version, simply add $3K to each option ($40K in poor condition, $47,600 average condition with low miles, $51K perfect low miles retail). These values are only current numbers through the end of this week. Next week they will naturally be lower. Contrary to a few comments on this forum, the manual transmission doesn't help this end value.

Note: All figures are estimates and are in USD

 

Can you provide 2016R coupe 11k miles, numbers? Do options have any impact?

 

Sent in PM. Options are not listed on auctions.

 

Yes, it is fixed to a number that leasing company in combination with dealership established. In my case market value of the car is X, but a buyout lease price is X - 10K. This means that by turning in car I would be leaving money on the table.

It is still just an estimate. Plus, just like interest rates, they are not obligated to give you their best offer.

Yes, but....

I got huge MSRP discount (JLR incentive plus dealer incentive) to take a car off the lot. It was a result of competitive bidding for my business from multiple dealerships. I structured bidding based on all-in price and not a lease monthly payment. To attempt to make some of that money back my dealership deflated residual. I know that because a) I did comparison to other lease quote b) I recently run Black Book numbers on 2015 models to see what my car will be valued at next year.


Unfortunately, cars cost a lot more in Canada. Black Book for trade-in on my car right now is 65.4K low and 69.5K high. CAD.

 

More on auction numbers. Lease returns don't generally make it to auction unless a narrow set of circumstances.

A. The car has issues, like a wreck, and the dealer decided it was too damaging to their reputation to attempt to sell it as used

B. The car was traded in early to a different brand, and that dealer decided that they don't want to/are not allowed to offer them along with their brand

Good lease returns go into dealer's pool of CPO cars and sold at a substantial profit. Generally, dealers make more money on selling good lease returns than selling new cars. Lease returns are not generally auctioned but sold by the dealer.

Auction values only make sense for 6 years or older cars.

 

Good for you but could you please elaborate? Are you doing this via MSDs as originally speculated or perhaps you are using some other leasing company other than Jaguar & that particular leasing company allowed you to formulate this anomalous lease structure? Although an official JLR lease does not have such a clause (at least in the USA), it is plausible that other leasing agencies could show such flexibility but naturally such a structure will also drive up the monthly payment and I don't think that is your case. Leases can be built in any manner a leasing company may want to offer & in some cases, a $1 buyout at the end of the lease. We used to offer that years ago when personal computers were first coming out as the companies always wanted to have the "latest & greatest" computers. We would take back the original computers and sell them for about 50% of their original value pocketing the proceeds and everyone was happy.

We all did that. Well, most all of us. For example I saved $27K off the MSRP my '17 R AND I got an aggressive lease rate (under 1% interest) so was able to get the "best of both worlds" also via negotiation & what I learned from others like you were able to accomplish.

Perhaps a mis-understanding in what I posted. Running your numbers through a standard monetary conversion tool on the web which provides the following after the exchange rate is taken into consideration.
$65,400 CAD = $51,840 USD currently
$69,500 CAD = $55,090 USD currently
* Take note that these USD numbers are almost SPOT ON the numbers I provided above IF your car is the AWD variant so your Black Book numbers are pretty darned close (within $1K USD).

This is my point above that states that "normally" dealerships make profit reselling cars rather than taking them to market so unless you put down multiple MSDs, there is not "normally" a way for you to get a "buyout of residual MINUS $10K" unless... you negotiated a non-JLR private lease.

Nonsense. If that was the case then the 2016 F-Types being shown on the most recent Manheim MMR would not be there. Your contention that most of the cars at auction are wrecked or otherwise unmarketable cars is "stretching reality". Auction numbers ARE a viable tool when trying to determine current value should an individual be interested in selling because a 4.0+ condition auction listing is a TRUE representations of wholesale value for "perfect, no-accident, no-issue cars".

 

I think the general lesson is that leasing is only good if you want a cheep deal and you do not want to keep the car.

Need to go in to the deal with eyes wide open.

J

 

Leasing does have some benefits for a limited group of individuals such as the ability of a QUALIFYING business owner* to write off the lease payments as an expense to a business. That is a HUGE benefit to a private business owner with the ability to write off it as an expense to that business.

However, for most people it is simply a way for them to "get into" a car they could not otherwise afford aka The American Way...LOL. For example, Mr. X needs a new car but he has no cash down payment & therefore can only "afford" a $700/month car payment. He could buy a $40K car for $700/month and that car will be paid off after 72 months or Mr. X can lease/rent an $75K car for 39 months for $700/month at which time he turns it in and the leasing company owns any intrinsic value. All Mr. X cares about is being able to drive a nicer car (nearly twice as expensive) than he could otherwise afford to buy and leasing is that financial vehicle for about 80% of lease buyers. They care more about their ride than they do equity. Essentially placing pride & appearance over fiscal responsibility.

Leasing is really renting pure and simple. You have a set price at the end of that rental period and that is what this particular thread is about so some could also see this as an investment where they are "betting against the bank" that the value at the end of that term will be higher than the pre-determined buy-back price which is also known as the residual.

SinF's arrangement appears to be VERY, very, very different than a typical lease from JLR so his particular one-off (betting) situation may be different.

If Jaguar decides to halt the R models, those of us with them may also benefit with a limited-availability product that could also result in a higher value at the end of the term (but highly unlikely).

Individuals who drive their vehicles rarely may also benefit from buying at the end of the term simply due to the mechanics of the lease contract (as JLR does not give the person lesaing back any $'s for un-used miles) so their particular car could well be worth far more than the residual (e.g. Someone who bought an SVR and left it in the garage driving only 500 total miles would have a LOT of intrinsic value in that "nearly new" car's value that they would be surrendering upon lease turn in so they might buy out the lease for that residual value and then sell it to a private person, perhaps a collector, for $10K more than their residual)

* By "QUALIFYING business owner" I mean a business that has sufficient profits AND that the vehicle is used EXCLUSIVELY for that particular business. A business owner that runs a transportation company can write off the expenses of the leases associated with those truck but he/she can't write off the lease expenses of their F-Type "toy" car even if they use it for driving back and forth to the office because they also likely use it for personal use and that "personal" use likely outweighs their perceived business use. There are a number of reasons why that is determined as fraud but it seems that many do this illegally as they feel they won't get caught or they have gotten questionable advice from their "tax guy" but it happens EVERY DAY. I cautioned a friend about one such use. He ignored that advise as well as a number of other suggestions and when his "tax guy" got audited due to another client, he got pulled into that mix and many, many, many of the "deductions" he was using based on his "tax guys" advice were reversed and he ended up owing around $100K in penalties & back taxes.

I no longer own any of my companies so I can't write mine off. When I did have my businesses I chose to take advantage of section 179 of the tax code to write of vehicles I owned in that business rather than paying rent via a lease so this is the first car I have leased. I considered buying the car outright as I could have done so with a 2.25% interest loan (through private financing via a brokerage account) or a number of other options. I decided to try a lease simply because I am able to essentially "rent" this car for less than 1% interest and the bank assumes all the "risk" at the end of the lease term. If the value at the end of my lease does warrant me buying it to keep or flip, I can make that decision at that time and the only thing it costs me is that tiny 1% of the lease interest costs (e.g. Money Factor of .00006)

 

I think I created confusion by avoiding actual numbers.

2015 F-type V6S is $56K low $60K high CAD for trade in and $65K private sale. My lease residual is $48K. No way I will gift my F-type to the dealer at that price point. They will have to contribute even more than the last time for me to get into a new F-type at the end of my lease. I prefer paying with cash for my cars, but lease incentives (and questions on reliability) pushed me toward a lease.

Hopefully actual numbers clear this confusion up.

 

Ah! Good on ya. I'd keep her as well.
Cheers!