Correct.

Turn it back to stock like i said as that's turning it in with the same general condition it was bought. Same can also be said for buying a car. You think flàshing the ECU on buying a car cash, lease or buy will get you a new motor if it goes POP? Moddings modding, you gotta pay to play and you take risks with it.

Also you don't have to turn it in to nissan. If it's modded to hell you don't have to go back to nissan. Again it's your car. Go trade it in on a Prius and maybe the toyota dealer will love all the mods and pay you for them.

Something about leasing just feels weird to me. I just wont feel like it is "My" car but at the same time people try and argue that renting an apartment is pointless because you arent paying to own, but I have zero issues renting an apartment over buying a home because I dont wanna be "stuck" with a mortgage or tons of debt.

With leasing is it an option to "give up" on a car? Say you cant afford the lease payments anymore, your sick of the car etc. can you simply return it and stop payments and not have to own any money to anyone without messing up your credit? I know you will have basically "wasted" the money you spent up until this point, but its better than getting a repo on a loan.

usually the only thing they will let you do is swap the rims. but you need to return to stock rims after. it also depends on the company...

they take back their car and then your credit score goes down the drain. it's like defaulting... and depending on your assets may try to make a claim. either way you're screwed!

although there are 'lease busters' that could be an option

So then in reality leasing is no different than buying because your credit will get screwed either way if you cant pay for the car anymore. Accept with leasing your not paying to own.

Sounds like buying is the better option...

Leasing a car at first does sound very similar to renting vs buying a home. But it's really different. It's better to buy a home, because you're building credit and you will have something to show for it. Renting really is throwing lots of money away, and only makes sense (similar to leasing a car) if you plan to move every few years.

Tons of debt is, unfortunately, just part of the way to go when it comes to home-owning and building credit. :) Not so much with a car...unless you get super lucky, a car is never an investment, but a home can be.

True, if you miss payments and a collection agency is called in to collect, that's going to tank your credit very fast.

In the end, don't buy or lease beyond what you can afford.

With a lease, you're tied in (moreorless) for the lease term, but with a bought car, you're tied in with the loan as well.

You can break a lease and pay penalties up the wazoo, but you can't easily break a loan or purchase; you're going to be out a lot of money.

Best case, you sell the car to someone else who takes over the loan and you pay them the difference between what you owe on the car and what it's worth. Google "upside-down car loan" for more information on that. Basically, when you buy and drive a car off the lot, it immediately depreciates quite a bit. It's not worth what you owe on the car loan. This means if you want someone else to take the car off your hands, you're going to actually have to PAY them (or pay a huge chunk of the loan right away to get it in line with the value of the car).

For a couple years, you'll likely be upside-down on a purchase car loan. This is why a lease makes more sense on short term new car acquisitions. Eventually, you'll pay down the loan and owe far less, but the car will then be worth more than what you owe. For instance, 6 years into your loan in 2020, your Z may be worth $16,000, but you only owe $1000 left on it. That's good! :)

Yes, it takes time to wrap your head around all of this. ;) At the end of the day, don't commit to more than you know you can afford.

But you can't buy your appartment. The owner isn't going to sell you part of his building. Until a cars paid off its really owned by whoever has the title and who it's financed through. Both a lease and a buy are like a house you're renting to own. Soon as you come with the sellers money the home becomes yours. Till then you can change the carpet if need be because you're under contract that it's yours when you hit a certain dollar amount.

Yes, you can lease turn in or go to any dealer in the world and trade it in at any time you'd like. Hell the dealer you're trading in to doesn't even have to know its leased, they just need the payoff companies info to see your equity or negative equity for the value of the car based on year and miles.

You can't however just turn in a lease and walk. The cars value dropped and you'll still owe something unless the car all of a sudden became a collectors item and the value skyrocketed which would never happen. Whether a lease or a buy it will still be hard to sell as soon as you bought it cause the value just plummeted.

i agree yet disagree to your statement.... i rather not get into detail but i could use numbers to illustrate how renting (+investing the difference) will make you more financially secure. houses are not liquid assets and are by nature very volatile. plus overhead costs that you have to include in home ownership. anyways i'm not against home ownership i just want to dispel the myth that owning a home is always the best option because i can make an argument that i'd rather have 1m in cash (free to do whatever) than a 1m house.

although the renting vs owning is very similiar to leasing vs financing a car. either way at the start you own zilch. at the end of a lease you still own zilch.

with a finance you start with zilch and you owe more than the car's worth on longer term financing (queue interest) but as you pay off the loan you 'build equity' (i really hate using that term) until its paid off and the car's residual value is an asset you now have. depreciating asset albeit.

friken math and azn's...


all in all the first few comments hit the nail on the head. lease if you planon switching in a few years, finance if you wish to keep for longer terms. but always lease a german car :tup:

Only if you can't give what's still owed. Whether a lease or a buy, if you walk into a dealer and say I can't afford the payments, will you buy it off me? If you owe XXXXX on the car and the dealer will give you XXXXX you need to either come up with the difference to pay it off or maybe some how your ahead and they give you a check.

Worst case in a lease or a buy if you can't afford the car anymore and you're worried about credit, go trade it in on a car that's way cheaper and for what you can afford. You'll probably have a bunch of negative equity but getting a cheaper car for way more than it's worth but you can afford it, is better than faulting on a loan.