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Thinking of leasing

mlatner

Passed Driver's Ed
That's very true. Honestly I make 13.50/hr. Got all my bills paid off besides $400 on a credit card and my student loans...that are almost $500 a month. Luckily I live with my fiance and she makes a ton more than I do haha. But you didn't burst my bubble, you just put it in perspective for me. I'm young so I've still got a lot of my life to get cars that I "want" like an R, maybe the next gen R. But I do need a car and still want something fun so I should go with the lower GTI for now.
 

4DcWMk6

Ready to race!
That's very true. Honestly I make 13.50/hr. Got all my bills paid off besides $400 on a credit card and my student loans...that are almost $500 a month. Luckily I live with my fiance and she makes a ton more than I do haha. But you didn't burst my bubble, you just put it in perspective for me. I'm young so I've still got a lot of my life to get cars that I "want" like an R, maybe the next gen R. But I do need a car and still want something fun so I should go with the lower GTI for now.

dude u got a wedding to pay for lol.... good luck! thats an arm and a leg right there...haha
 

mlatner

Passed Driver's Ed
It's more like the "5 year or more engagement" lol We don't plan on doing anything in the near or future. She wants to finish a second degree first before we even start planning, and she just started lol.
 

4DcWMk6

Ready to race!
haha ooo ok then u have time....
 

troyguitar

Go Kart Champion
That's very true. Honestly I make 13.50/hr. Got all my bills paid off besides $400 on a credit card and my student loans...that are almost $500 a month. Luckily I live with my fiance and she makes a ton more than I do haha. But you didn't burst my bubble, you just put it in perspective for me. I'm young so I've still got a lot of my life to get cars that I "want" like an R, maybe the next gen R. But I do need a car and still want something fun so I should go with the lower GTI for now.

I make way more than that, have less debt, and still only drive a GTI. I'd be surprised if you could even get a loan for an R with that salary to be honest.
 

ExpiredRice

New member
^Agree

When I bought my TDI it was fully loaded and just shy of 30k OTD. I was 20 and stupid, had a credit score range in the high 700s but I couldn't get a loan to save my life, not even high rates were offered, just a straight up denial since I hadn't had any big ticket items on my credit just many many minor bills. Had my father co-sign for me and I got a rate from Capital One a about 3%@60mo I was ecstatic at the time. The biggest mistake financially I made up to that point. I still love driving the thing but I keep on thinking if I'd gotten a beater instead I could have saved so freaking much. I had an option to buy my co-worker's 2002 Toyota Echo with less than 30k miles at the time driven only in rural CT roads for 3k (he was leaving the country). If I realized what I do now then I would have bought that in a heartbeat. So much that I could have outright bought a base model GTI with all the costs associated with fees, insurance, financing, modding my TDI in the two years I've owned it. More if you include the ridiculous deal the Echo was at the time.

Pride made me get the Golf new and after 2 years of rethinking I don't think I'd buy a new car again. My next car will probably be a used GTI or R, just have find a good used one and it'll be no different visually than a new one.

I'd say get a used car if you really want it and use the saved the money towards something like a house (if you don't already have one), your wedding or hell even your Fiance's education. It always helps to sit down and put all your finances into perspective. It's not always wise to get something simply because you can afford it.
 

ElectricEye

Autocross Newbie
I used to say it was dumb to lease until i really sat down and started crunching numbers. People seem to forget all the out of pocket expenses associating with the joys of car ownership as well. For instance, my car is still well under powertrain waranty, is only 3 yrs old and i just dropped 900 bucks on tires. My wife had her last car for ten years. When we added up total cost to purchase the car, down payment, repairs, taxes, fees, maintenance, finance charges etc. it basically cost her about 50 bucks less a month to own that car (which was just a bummer of a car after about five years) vs. the cost of leasing her current brand new car, or comparable, every 36mos. So YES, it was about five grand cheaper over ten years for her to own and operate the same, very reliable, car than if she leased. She also cursed that car for the last three years and we had to shell some serious coin towards the end for maintenance and repairs.

Whoopie. If its worth it to you have five grand more after a decade the trade off being that you had to drive the same shitbox for 1/7th of your entire life, then ok. Otherwise......


Great posts on leasing.
My GTI is a lease, 0 down zero first months payment 365 a month.
Had I brought, I would have had to take a couple of thousand out of the bank - which I didn't want to do, and still have higher monthly payments.
Not what I wanted to do at the time.
I preferred relatively small monthly payments (and that's it) on a car that is warrantied for as long as I have it.
 

maxtdi

Go Kart Champion
It all depends on the deal you get... McQueen has a connection at a dealership and in his case his deal was better than purchasing new. Most ppl can't get that good of a deal.

But as with everything focus on the overall cost of everything and not just the single montly payment.

There are many variables:
1. APR specials
2. Dealer discounts on car
3. miles driven
4. options
5. credit
6. trade in tax benefit
7. lease specials
etc etc etc
 

McQueen77

Banned
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
 
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troyguitar

Go Kart Champion
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

Didn't say bad credit, I said mediocre. I was offered 8% APR on purchasing (with a $5k down payment) and the equivalent of around 5% APR on a lease (with zero down), so I took the lease. By the time the lease is over my credit will be better and I'll buy the car out.
 

Frosty631

Ready to race!
I just leased my 13 gti 2 door manual 12k a year taxes and everything rolled in no money out of pocket beside DMV and they cover first month and I pay 301 a month I got 12 as a cushion cause now that I love driving my car ill probably drive a little more but I like to think I got a really good deal
 

Frosty631

Ready to race!
And btw I'm only 21 I had tier 1 credit but not enough "credit history" but they called vw credit and pulled for me and got approved no cosigner
 

McQueen77

Banned
And btw I'm only 21 I had tier 1 credit but not enough "credit history" but they called vw credit and pulled for me and got approved no cosigner

nice work. as long as you don't miss a payment and aren't late w/the lease, you're credit will be in great shape after the lease is up. Timely management of installment loans is real good for your credit.
 

McQueen77

Banned
I'd say get a used car if you really want it and use the saved the money towards something like a house (if you don't already have one), your wedding or hell even your Fiance's education. It always helps to sit down and put all your finances into perspective. It's not always wise to get something simply because you can afford it.

You make great points in your post. We looked at used Tiguan's but for us, unless we got an '09 with 50-60k miles (60k VW miles is like 100k honda miles, no? haha), it was still cheaper to lease unless we got the '09 Tiguan and kept it for a really long time. After factoring in down payment, finance charges and taxes, its still a grip of cash buying 'slightly used' (like how I bought my '10 GTI) vs. really buying 'used'. But then you roll the dice on reliability. Thats fine when you are a kid and yeah, you should have gotten the Echo.. But there comes a point when you just want nice things that you don't have to worry about, like when you are 35 with a kid on the way.

Like so many 'middle class' people in southern CA, we rent and don't own, but her driving her 10 year old beater that needed work for 5 more years wasn't going to bring us much closer to buying a house. Would we have saved more money vs. her getting a great deal on a Tiguan lease? Certainly. A lot more? No. Enough for us to justify driving the beater for years longer? NO.

Average price for a decent single family home in our area that doesn't require at least $35-50k in renovations is easily $500k. For 1099'ers like us, that requires 20-30% down, so you know.. do the math. But that'd sure be a neat thing to do one day.. buy a house I mean. In the meantime, thanks to her business, the lease is a tax deduction, as is home office, etc.. Just gotta like, do the best you can with what you got.
 

Frosty631

Ready to race!
nice work. as long as you don't miss a payment and aren't late w/the lease, you're credit will be in great shape after the lease is up. Timely management of installment loans is real good for your credit.

Yea that's one thing I'm super OCD about is late payments and stuff haha I guess that's why I was tier 1 it deff pays off and I set my buy out in the lease agreement and also that the car would be bought as a cpo if I buy it out so that cpo warranty should cover belts and stuff if I do keep it
 
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