"Calif Bill" wrote in message
nk.net...

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 01:27:34 GMT, "NOYB" wrote:

Let's talk again after 100,000 miles.

I'll be out of it before 40,000 miles. ;-)

Fair enough but have you ever calculated your cost per mile?

Let me help, using your numbers:

"I leased the car. 39 months, $422/mo (includes tax), $1850 out of
pocket."

That comes to $18,308, divided by 40,000 miles = 45.8 cents/mile
before insurance, fuel and maintenance.

If you purchased a Lexus for about $45,000 and drove it 100,000 miles
you'd get about the same numbers but the Lexus would still be worth
somewhere between $5 and $10K, possibly more.

The advantage of leasing is getting a new car every 3 or 4 years with
minimal transaction costs, but it is still cheaper to purchase and
hold if you buy quality.

Using my numbers, the second 100,000 miles is almost free!



Not completely true. If you lease the car, and use the car for business,
you can write off the percentage of the lease vs. the percentage of milage
used for business. If you own the car, you can take depreciation. But
the depreciation is set by the IRS, and for expensive cars, does not cover
the costs. So business owners can write off more of the car expenses with
a lease. Other than the fact, you will need to drive the car a lot for
business, and commute to the office is not part of the cost. Leasing in
just buying with no down payment. NOYB's really high residual value
lease, is a thing of the past. The companies took a huge bath on the
residual value, as well as the sales of new cars. When you had the market
flooded with 2 and 3 year old cars at a discount, a lot of the new buyers,
bought used.

Nobody was advertising the deal I got. It was on Cadillac's website, and
not very easy to find. I printed it out, took it the dealer, and they said
it was the first that they had heard of it (despite the fact that it was
the last week of a 5 week ad campaign).

My dealer's "deal" included an additional $2500 down, and another $50/month.
I told them I'd call all the Cadillac dealers from Tampa south to Miami,
until someone honored the advertised deal on Caddy's website. They of
course wrote the deal.