I'm planning to buy a Fit in a few months and I'm wondering how you guys are paying for your cars. I'm considering doing a lease so that I'll have low monthly payments so I can pay off a few other debts more quickly and then after the lease expires, maybe get a loan to pay off the rest (is that even possible?).

What are some of the pros and cons of leasing vs. buying?

If you leased, why?

How much of a monthly payment are you paying?

Do leases generally require less money up front?

Are there usually restrictions on modding a leased car due to warranty?

 

Cash up front cause my ho's had a good past few months.

 

I ain't got no hos so that's out.

 

Cash,

They wanted me to finance it but in no means did I want to give them any extra cash.

 

My friend did that with his Matrix. He went to 3 Toyota dealers with 14k on him in cash and bought it fromt he one that would give him the fully loaded one flat out for the cash up front.

 

wtf a matrix for 14k?? what year was this?
I was doing some price checks on them in late 07 and they were like 18-22

 

Cash money here too. The financial person at the dealership was smokin' hot. If I only had a few extra thousand I'd have asked for her to come with the car. haha.

 

Well my wife was still in college so it was a good 3-4 years ago and probably during the clearout of the old models for the new ones.

 

your best leases are the ones with minimal down payment,
short term, and low rate.

for me, i bought both. can't get cheaper than this.

 

I put 10K down and took a loan out for the rest at 5%. Being how hard the economy is right now I didn't want to clean the savings out totally. As for if your leasing I wouldn't recommend doing much modding. Just simple bolt on's are your best bet. I know dealers around my area frown on aftermarket toys on leased cars.

Save a couple grand and take a loan...then mod away my 2 cents.

 

I wouldnt Suggest you lease it ur throwing away money just to drive something ya no? Just buy it and make it ur own thats just my honest opinion unless ur not planning to keep it for a while ya no? Somone i use to know had a lease and it was so hard for her to go any wear cuz she had to watch her miles,.. so yea..

 

I have the associate lease so it is a great deal for a 2 year lease. Can't really say how much though. ;-)

 

i have trouble loving a car for more than a few years.
i leased mines.
i will probably do minimal mods.

 

Financed my whip because I want to supercharged my credit score, so by the time my payments is over I'm ready for my next car or maybe trade it in 1-2 years.

 

Yea i mean thats true if ur the type that gets tired of cars fast then lease is the way to go haha i wish i had cash shoot i hada finance mines, but let me know how much that lease is if u do decide to do a lease. cuz i mean if its a good deal dont pass it up.

 

I financed mine. I wanted to build my credit so i can buy a house. I put 5k down payment+my nissan xterra, I pay 195 a month. But now my insurance doubled because its full coverage. LOL. I dont think leasing is worth it, you end up paying way too much if you decide to buy it in the end. And the dealership taxes your ass if theres any scratches on the car. LOL

 

yea, if you plan on buying it at the end, don't lease.
you probably want to decide if you want to buy it or not within the first few months.
i generally start hating my cars after a couple years (car gets soooo boring), so I figure leasing is the way to go.
On my RSX, I did the math on it and basically paid almost $18k to keep it for 6 years. Into the 4th year, I was bored as hell with it and wanted a new car.

BTW, leasing also builds your credit.

 

From the sounds of it, you don't know much about leasing. The first thing you should do is go over to Edmunds and read how to calculate a lease from scratch with all the figures. It'll give you a starting point to understanding it.

I have leased 2 cars before and bought 3 others. I purchased the Fit.

Saying that leasing is more expensive than buying is false. It all depends on the rates you get but for the most part it is unless you know what you are doing. For example, I leased a RX350 for my Mom 2 years ago because Lexus was having special lease rates where the Money Factor was equivalent to a 1% APR. The best purchase finance rate that I could get at that time was 5%, so I leased the car and now will purchase it at the end of the lease. This is saving me about a thousand in interest as long as I don't finance the the residual at some crazy rate but I plan on paying the residual as a lump sum so a lease did save me money.

Currently with the financial markets in turmoil. Lease rates are high. You get the MF and mulitply it by 3600 to get the equivalent APR%. I doubt there are any special lease rate on the FIT meaning you will be paying a high APR on your lease. These special lease MF rates are the reason you can go get a BMW, MB etc. for so cheap on a lease because BMW would subsidize the lease with a low MF and high residual.

Bottomline, without any special lease rates from Honda you will be paying a lot for the car. And remember you negotiate the price of the car for a lease just as you would for a purchase, there is no difference.

 

Thats interesting. But i guess it really comes down to whether you want to keep the car or just drive it around a few years and get rid of it. I had a friend who had a DC5 Type-S and he modded it all sick, but when the lease was over he had to strip it down. LOL

 

I have leased mine, but in Australia the tax rules for this are weird. The more you drive your car, the less you pay, because the ATO assume you are using it for business if you drive it a lot.

Also you get things like service, fuel, etc without paying the 10% GST. so you get a saving there.

The stupid part about it is that the structure of the system encourages wasteful car use, just to keep your km up, so thousands of people drive through the traffic to work to get the tax concessions, instead of getting the train.

Me, I ride my bicycle to work, but I still use my car enough for leasing to be worthwhile (just).

Of course all of this will only apply to you if you live in Oz. For other countries, YMMV.

If you intend to rice up your car, definitely buy it outright. Then you have no-one to answer to for the depreciation hit you will take when you sell it.