"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.