Advice from people who ended a lease early

[jdogg2000]

Hi all,

I was anticipating waiting for an '09 M3 to buy or lease once my current lease ends in March, but I started to check into things and I don't think I can pass up on the ~$400/month savings on a lease right now on an '08. I do want the new navi but I figured I'll just lease this '08 M3 and then switch cars again in 3 years.

I've just got a question for those of you who were in a similar situation with three months left in a lease. I have an offer on an almost fully loaded '08 M3 convertible for invoice, with the base MF of 0.00025 and the residual 53% for 10k/yr. Payments come out to ~$830+tax with $0 down. I'm trying to find out if any of the dealers I contacted will be able to do something about my current lease. I remember someone here saying that the dealer paid off two of the three remaining payments on his lease to get him to sign a new M3 lease now. The dealer has said he can't do anything like that, but he does say something about the possibility of the dealer buying the car outright. Has anyone had the dealer do this for them?

[nasa60]

I'm the one whose dealer paid 2 of my remaining 3 payments. They were going to buy my car but they didn't think they could sell my car for the payoff BMWFS quoted them, even though the payoff was $13k below my contracted residual price. I think the biggest problem was my 5 series is a manual transmission. Just not alot of people wanting a manual 5 series. My car was loaded with almost all options also.

I was negotiating with two other dealers in Atlanta and neither of them offered to pay my payments. My local dealer was apparently very motivated and offered to pay 2 of the payments. What I did was tell my salesman that the deal was contingent on them getting me out of my current lease. This was true because I didn't need a new car. If they had not offered to pay at least 2 of my payments, I would not have leased the M3.

Let them appraise your car and get the buyout from BMWFS. But you have to make sure they know you won't do the deal unless they can get you out of your current lease. You can also just get them to knock more off the negotiated price (e.g., the equivalent of your remaining lease payments). The 08's are costing them money sitting on their lot.

[DarthDingo]

I would like to know more too. I leased a 2006 X5 4.8is two years ago for a three year lease ending Nov 09. I got the last loaded version of the E53 sport X5. But would love to get into a new E90 four door ///M3, either 08 or 09, but sure an 08 would be the best deal to be had ?

Is there a way for me to trade in the X5 with almost one year left on the lease and get a deal on a close out 08 ?

Thank you

[jdogg2000]

Darth, I have a feeling that the best thing for you would be to post your lease on something like swapalease and have someone take it over. That's actually what I did for my last lease since I had a really narrow window of when I could take time off to go to Europe to do my European Delivery. Someone took over my lease with about 9 months left on the lease and I was able to get my new car then. I could be wrong, but I don't think the dealers will be able to help you out when there is so much time left on your current lease.

As for my lease, I feel like I'm in kind of a weird situation this time. There are "only" three months left of lease payments on my current vehicle. It would still be significantly cheaper for me to lease an '08 now over the long run, even if I had to make those three remaining payments... compared to waiting until my current lease ends and then leasing an '09. That is, assuming the 09s don't get cheaper to lease in a few months. Hmmmm....

[nasa60]

Yeh, if you were planning on getting an 09 M3 anyway, I would definitely jump early and get an 08. I don't think we will see lease rates this low on M3's again. From what I have read, BMW is going to cut the number of vehicles they produce and ship to the US in 09 to avoid this oversupply issue. In my case, M3 wasn't even on my list of cars I was considering until BMWFS came out with those rates. I decided if I could get one on my terms I would do it. Otherwise, I would just wait and pick up something else in 09 with good lease rates.