Originally posted by Bullet:
I'm pretty sure that I'm going to buy the car at the end of the lease because I'm going to be putting alot of kms on it. I'm going with leasing because the monthly payments are lower and by the time the lease period is over I will be in a position to buy the car outright. I'm not sure why the lease periods are so long, maybe to keep the payments low?
I think I would like to go with the Mazda but I'm not sure I can justify the extra money per month to get all the extra options, $420 vs $480.
Bad idea. You will be paying a residual value for a car with high mileage on it. You have to ask yourself if you could turn the car around for what you paid to buy it at the end of the lease. If not, you will be getting hosed.
For example, Honda had a nice lease rate on the Civic SiR in 2003. It was roughly $298/month for four years, $3K down. If you bought at the end of the lease, you had spent nearly $35K in total on a car that listed for $26K. Even if one would sell it, they wouldn't get all of that extra money back.
Trust me, go on the Mazda website, and use their calculators. Total up how much the car will cost you in total, buying vs leasing. When calculating the lease, include the down payment, the monthly payment, and the residual. You will see that it is NOT in your best interest to buy the car at the end of the lease.
I know a nurse who drives a ton for work. She buys a little four-banger, negotiates extra kms at the beginning of the lease (she drives over 50K kms a year) and then hands it back to the dealer and gets a new one.
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