yeah, its different for everyone. for many, leasings a bad idea. my buddy has a VW Eurovan, last model year they made them. we were talking about leasing and he was like "the thing i don't like about it is I beat the shit out of the interior of my van, hauling lumber, concrete, etc. utility. i don't want to turn the car back in and get penalized for usage/damage etc. In his case, buying a used car, like he did, is ideal. This girl at my work on the other hand the other day had the typical response: "leasing is SO stupid! you just pay a bunch of money and have nothing to show for it! (this coming from the girl who drives a shit 2005 Mazda3 w/the broken windshield and 50 parking tickets). I said, "oh really? how about you lay out the way a typical lease works for me. Go ahead and tell me what leasing a car actually is.." she knew nothing. Less than nothing. Zero.
my wife is an ideal candidate. she goes and runs errands, back and forth the store. the gym and YMCA for the kid/preschool is a mile away. she'll be taking the baby here and there in the car. we'll put some kind of yoga mat down or something over the back seat in case she makes a mess.. thats it. the car will be pristine when her lease is up.
you have to really take a close look at your situation and go from there. if you mod and customize a lot, its also not for you. so yes, theres a lot of criteria for it to be a good deal. as i said before, if you are just leasing to have a lower monthly payment you can run into a LOT of problems with it. otherwise though, it could be a great option. one guy a few pages back mentioned that it was a good move for him because he had bad credit... not exactly sure how that makes it a good deal considering they just rail you on the money factor if you have bad credit and then those payments really balloon. with us, its essentially free money from VW credit.. well, .035% apr.. We actually overhead one guy an office over, going over his lease and the salesmen was like "you qualify for a money factor of .0039" and the guy was like "uh, ok" having no clue that that equates to 9.36% APR, for 42 months, on a lease. BRUTAL