GD

I am contemplating getting out of my current lease with AOA in order to buy a TT next summer. My lease expires November 2001, so I would be getting out of the lease about 15 months before it is up. What am I looking at in terms of penalties, etc? What are my options? Would I have to pay the remaining months on the lease PLUS the residual in order to get out? Any advice would be appreciated.

FYI, here are my lease terms (pretty close, but not exact...paperwork at home):

$490/month
15k/year
~$18,000 residual

GD
99 1.8TQMS

Roy S.

Add the remaining payments, plus the residual value, subtract what the car is worth (i.e. what you can sell it for) the difference is what it will cost you to get out early. Unlke a conventional loan, there is no reduction in interest by paying early.

DrBimmer

I didn't do any math, but do this for me: What will your car be worth when you want to end the lease, and how much will you owe?? If you owe less than the resale value, consider this:

Go to your Audi dealer. Explain to them that you would like to try out a different Audi product (this is the sound of profit to them) but you are stuck in the lease of your current Audi. After going through the numbes with them, ask one of the managers if he could buy the car from Audi Financial Services, and get you out of the lease. The buy out the car at what you owe at that point, then they sell it for more money. Then you buy the new car. Be prepeared to get a worse deal than you would expect, but at least you aren't paying huge buyout fees or cancelation penalties!! At the end, you win.

RossH

Two options:

(1) Pay of all the remaining payments as Roy states. You pay both the remaining interest and the capital here.

(2) Pay an early termination fee. Audi will then auction your car. You agree to accept the price, irrespective of how low that might be. The remmaining capital owed to Audi is then calculated.

Eg.

Cap cost: $30K
Cap payments: 12@$300 = $3.6K
Auction price: $20K
You owe: $30-20-3.6 = $6.4K

You would need to work out the interest and capital components of your $490/mo. I think that the termination fee was in the range of 1-2K.

I do agree that it would be best to deal with the dealer rather than AFS. The dealer has more a statke and a nice used A4 is always good for profits!

Good luck!

PHOTO 64

I have found if you finish 3/4 of the lease on an Audi or a VW the dealer can get you out of the car due to it's resale value. No penalties.

The only time I had a problem is with my wifes Rodeo. The resale value wasn't there and it cost me $1,800 to get out early.

I gave a friend this advice and he ignored and finished his lease on his Taurus wagon. He ended up paying close to 1,200 for "excessive wear and milage"

My usual lease is 4 years with 12,000 miles per year. I keep the cars 3 to 3.5 years and I put on close to 18,000 miles per year. I do however pay $1500 to $1800 for TT&L everey time I get a new lease.

Good luck. Hope you get the TT.

DavidG

The back of your lease describes the cost of
buying the car from AFS and this may be a good option for you. When you buy out the lease, the cost is approximately the residual plus remaining payments MINUS a calculated rebate for the finance charges on those remaining payments. They use a different algorithm to calculate the finance charges compared with how they usually calculate the money factor on a lease payment, so the rebate is not exactly the sum of the money factor portions of all your remaining lease payments. It is usually a bit less.

For example, I am only 10 months into a lease on a '99 1.8TQMS, which I leased based on a negotiated price of $26K even (MSRP was $28,320). I also folded the $1146 NY state tax into the lease, so AFS had to pay out $27146 to the dealer and NY state upon lease inception. A call to AFS reveals that I'd have to pay them $25850 to buy out my lease now.