Emulator

So, my 2010 P+ Sports 6M A4 has under a year left on the lease, and I'm considering buying the car out.

Vital information:
My lease mileage is 15000 a year (which at my current rate, I'm going to go over)
3 year lease, so it ends Feb 2013
*At about 32k miles, my engine started making a funny noise when accelerating, audi of america told the dealership to replace the entire engine, so my car has a relatively new engine even though I'm in the tail end of my lease.

This is my first time leasing, and I LOVE my car (and regret not having bought it initially a little). I would like to approach my dealer about buying the car out and I'm hoping someone else has experience doing this or can offer advice.

#1. I know the listed 'buy-out' price of my car which I agreed on when I signed the lease agreement, is this actually negotiable? I've heard of people making an offer price under the agreed upon price, however lease insurance taken out by the dealer negates the possibility of them taking any loss, and might remove any incentive they have to negotiate at all on the price.

#2. Will they extend the warranty? I'm aware that people who purchase previously owned Audis sometimes get extended warranty to 100k miles, to be honest this alone makes the concept of buying it out much more agreeable, however I'm not sure if this would apply to lease buy-outs.

fender4645

I'm actually in almost the exact same situation (same car, mileage, even month when the lease is up) -- although I still have the original motor. At the rate I'm going, I'll probably be ~7000 miles over the allotment. The limited research I've done is that my buyback price will be significantly lower then what I could turn around and sell it for (especially if you add on the money I would need to pay for mileage). So for me, it's pretty much a no brainer, regardless if I buy and keep or buy and sell. I know it really doesn't answer your questions...but it sounds like we're in a very similar boat.

eire42

Having bought an Audi Q7 off lease last year...

1) AoA owns the car and won't negotiate on the price. They would rather sell at auction and pick up the gap insurance on any loss than discount on the agreed buy out price. The dealership in my case offered little help.

2) The dealership can CPO the car for you... for a fee. I paid $2k for the extended warranty (6 years/100k mile) but it was worth the peace of mind as I'll be holding on to the car for at that period.

Good luck.

Emulator

Good information so far, looking for opinion in addition to fact though.

Is anyone else considering buying out their lease? Are you all planning on moving on to a 2013/2014 A4 and think I'm nuts for wanting to keep mine? Is anyone else (I really hate to admit it..) considering the new 3series?

dht34

Bring up an old thread. My lease is up in 2 months. Called the leasing department where I bought the A4. The leasing advisor said that Audi doesn't negotiate on the buyout price. Bummer really, as I had no problems with negotiating lease buyouts with Lexus.

Since the KBB of my A4 is a few grand higher than the buyout, I may just buyout the lease and sell the car for a small profit. My other options is to give it to my folks.

Decisions....

bigdadi

If it is a keeper, you buy it out when the lease expires, and no need to do it earlier.

SFV A4

By all means, if you like the car, keep it. What I did when my IS lease ended was contact a few credit unions, who had lower rates than what Lexus was offering. They paid off the car to Lexus and now I'm making affordable payments.

SFMike

That was my experience. No negotiating on the lease price and they will only sell to the lessee. I tried to have a dealer buy the car as part of a new car purchase and no dice. Since my car's market value was 2k more than the lease buyout, I bought it myself and resold for profit. But I had to do the whole thing in ten days to avoid paying sales tax.

Complete pain in the *** and why I would never lease another Audi. Too inflexible. Other makers are much more flexible on the lease buyout terms.

Moviela

You were lucky to be upright when you bought and sold the car. You did not, however, make a profit. Audi made the profit. First they took 5K from you over the term of the lease, they made the profit on selling the unit in the first place (to the leasing company) and then again when they sold the unit to you.

You would have been up 7K if you had purchased the car new and then sold it at the end of the lease term. (5K that went to the (f)lease and 2K over lease end pricing.

The only people that should be leasing are those that can deduct the lease from their tax return because they use the car for business, and can earn a better return than the interest on the lease by investing the money elsewhere. You are hurting your own bottom line otherwise.

SFMike

Obviously I didn't make a true profit. There's no profit in buying or leasing, its always a cost. However, they would have taken more money from me had I bought. I leased rather than bought because the money factor at the time provided a better interest rate that the lowest financing rate. (Money factor was .0004, equating to less than 1% interest rate) This was in 2004 when Audi really supported their leases with low money factors.

I only paid tax on the depreciation, rather than the full purchase price, which I would have done if I purchased the car at inception and later resold. When I bought and resold at the conclusion of the lease term, I paid no additional tax and pulled 2k out of it, thereby decreasing the three year cost.

I was also able to keep the car cost in savings. Savings rates at the time were 5%, so figure 40,000 at 5% for three years and deduct that as well, further reducing the three year cost.

If you know you want to buy the car at the end, and the lease rate is below the finance rate, it may make sense to lease rather than buy, and then buy the car out of the lease. Of course your options are limited if you lease in terms of flexibility.