webster2007

My wife and I will be moving to the US next summer. Her employers will provide a rental car at discounted price, but was wondering for myself is it a better option to lease a car long-term or buy used car?

Cheers

Dogbyte

It is a personal preference I think. If you are able check out 'International Autosource' web site.A very good company if you can do business with them for both leasing and buying. A number of us on here have been very happy with them.

Bill_S

This topic has been discussed many times. There is no clear answer, because nobody can decide what YOU will prefer.
Some thoughts:

Leasing can get you a more expensive car for the same monthly price. The drawback is that at the end of the lease you don't own anything. Either you buy the car or lease another one. If you end up buying it, you probably should have bought it in the first place.

Be careful about the mileage allowance associated with a lease. You don't say where you will be living and working. If you have a long commute and have kids that need to be ferried around to various activities all the time, you will rack up miles quickly. If your lease limits you to 12,000 mi/year (or less!) you will be hit with big charges for going over.

It's really nice to not have a car payment. The most economical choice would be to outright buy an older car and keep it as long as possible.

AdobePinon

Yep, 12,000 miles doesn't get you very far in the US. If you are in the city, and use a rental car for long trips, a lease could work out.

Patrick Hasler

You don't have to accept 12,000 miles

One thing I learned from working as a car leasing agent when I first came here was that the customer can demand what ever annual mileage they want, it just costs a llirrle extra a month but there is no limit

md95065

One thing to consider is the fact that, depending on exactly where you are in the US, you may find that the car "lasts" a lot longer than you would have expected in the UK.

Admittedly I am somewhat out of date with regard to how new cars in the UK "age", but in the past it always seemed that the damp climate meant that most vehicles would start to suffer various bodywork problems long before the power train was anywhere near the end of its life,

In California, unless you park your car near the beach and get it sand blasted it will last a long time and still look good. I have always bought rather than leased and have been quite happy keeping the cars for about 8 years and well over 100,000 miles.

If, on the other hand., you would want to buy a new car every 3 years or so then leasing could be a better bet.

RoadWarriorFromLP

There are plenty of lease vs. buy purchase calculators available from legitimate sources online. A couple to get your started:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/m...-or-buy-ov.htm
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/leasin...6/article.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/pfg/e16buylease/

That being said, leasing really does not make financial sense for most people. The tendency to overpay is greater, because many consumers don't know to negotiate the purchase price and interest rate that are inherent to determining the payment. Car dealers love "payment buyers", and leases make it easy for even informed consumers to focus on payments instead of on the transaction.

There are also a lot of pitfalls built into leases. Be careful that you understand all of the fine print before you sign one.

Leasing can make financial sense in a few basic situations.

-If the car is used for business, then leasing can be a plus, because lease payments are deductible, while writing off a car purchase is more complicated.

-Some leases are heavily subsidized by the manufacturer, which can make a lease cheaper than buying. Some brands such as BMW tend to have leases that are relatively attractive in this respect.

-If you have a taste for unreliable brands or undesirable cars or cars with steep levels of depreciation, leasing can be a better way to keep them (although you might better off questioning why you'd want such a car in the first place.) When you are done with it, you hand it back in, and don't need to concern yourself with all of the difficulty associated with unloading an unwanted orphan.

One aspect about buying a used car is that if you finance it, the interest rate tends to be higher than it would be a for a new car loan (assuming that you qualify for either.)

Some posters here could address this, but I'm guessing that you might have an easier time qualifying for a lease than for a car loan. If this is the case, leasing might be an easier way to establish credit.

Bob

Plenty of threads on the subject, as mentioned...

Though unless you won't be driving much, it generally doesn't make sense to lease, you end up with no asset at the end and there's a lot of small print to do you over on a lease...I suppose it's alright if you want to get something in the drive way that's more expensive than you can afford, but then that's just being a bit of a dill...

Plus, getting a loan on a car is a great way to start building up credit history, which a lease won't get you...and credit history will help you reduce cost of insurance etc.

Tarkak9

True. everything is negotiable too!

FlatDog

Too true, I got my leased car with 18,000 mile allowance.