Leasing a Car Has Advantages and Disadvantages

By: Charles Essmeier

Buying a car is expensive; there is no getting around that. It's
easy to pay as much for a new car today as one might have paid
for a house a generation ago. But they are more complicated than
they used to be and they are safer, too. Still, there is the
matter of the money, and if you don't have a lot to spend you
may be considering leasing instead of buying. The low monthly
payments offered with leases can be appealing, particularly if
you are on a budget.

But there is more to leasing a car than just the low payment
advertised in the commercial on TV. Anyone who is in the market
for a new automobile should consider the pros and cons of
leasing a car as opposed to buying one.

Here are some of the good points about leasing a car:

The payments are lower - Sure, the payments are lower; you are
only paying for the portion of the car's value that you are
actually using, and not the car itself. The lower payments could
help budget-minded shoppers, or they could allow the consumer to
make a deal on a more expensive car than he or she might have
otherwise purchased.

Less cash outlay - It's possible in many cases to lease a car
with less out of pocket cash than a purchase requires. This
could help some shoppers who don't have a lot of cash for a
large down payment.

The drawbacks to leasing include:

Excess mileage fees - The lease spells out how many miles you
may drive per year; if you exceed the total over the life of the
lease you will have to pay extra. That extra fee could be as
much as 25 cents per mile and some leases permit as few as
10,000 miles per year. If you drive a lot and you fail to
consider this, you could be paying a lot of extra cash at the
end of the contract.

Early termination fee - If you have to end the lease early, the
fee charged could be huge. How large? You might have to pay
everything owed on the remainder of the contract. Even if you
don't plan to end the contract early, it sometimes happens in
the form of auto theft or an accident.

You don't have a car - This one seems obvious, but with a lease,
you don't actually own a car. When the contract is up, you give
it back and you have nothing tangible to show for the money you
have paid. You may, of course, purchase the vehicle for an
agreed-upon price, but otherwise you will find yourself, once
again, without a car to drive.

For some people, the advantages of having a fairly new car all
the time makes leasing a good choice. For people who drive a lot
or who want to get the most car for their money, buying is
probably a better options. Consider the pros and cons carefully
in order to decide which method of acquiring transportation
works best for you.

©Copyright 2006 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the
owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational
Websites, including LemonLawHelp.net, a site devoted to
information regarding lemon laws for
automobiles.