waydown

Curious to see what percentage of lessors to owners are on this board.

extassy

Changed my mind the last 5 minutes before signing the paper from lease to buy... The Money Factor was .00270 = 6.48% APR. Financing was 6.99%... More monthly payments... but at least I have more flexibility to sell/trade the car and mileage.

blastit

this is a good poll. personally i chose to lease the car. there was more incentive for me from a pure tax perspective. i opted for 36 months and 24k KM (or for my friends down south 15,000 miles) a year. i put 0 down and payments are roughly 935 before taxes.

extassy

How much better of tax incentive than depreciating the car as an asset?

blastit

well if you are a consultant in canada by law you are allowed to right off 850 dollars of your lease. this comes straight off your gross income thus lowering the amount of taxes you pay.

extassy

Good choice to lease...

tanktube67

I choose to purchase because I'm lease out, the last new car I purchased was my 87 VW GTI on witch I still have, is nice to trade cars every 3 years.

JRAMGV8

I drive the cars about 2-3 years so I lease.

KHill

I bought this one. I drive about 20,000 miles a year and the apr was less on the finance route.

blastit

these days with the options there are for lease and finance its hard to say whats right or whats wrong. i think if you are one of those people (and we all know who we are) that loves a new ride every couple of years, it makes more sense to lease the vehicle. if you are a person that will keep the car for 10yrs or so or feels that you will keep it forever then you should probably buy.

norcal5

I am working for an employer and have no tax incentives to lease, so I bought my C.

blastit

as long as your in your car and driving it. either way you made a good choice.

oblu

Lease; first Mercedes for me, wasn't sure I'd like it and didn't like what I was seeing for the auction values on 2-3yr old w203s. Didn't want to get stuck with a car I couldn't give away.

First lease too and I'm wishing they did a shorter lease, like 6mo, because I already want to dump this car for something more exciting.

blastit

6 months would be crazy. imagine the payments on that? 18-24 months maybe possible but still very expensive. i know how you feel though i get bored of cars pretty fast. i just hope the novelty sticks for at least 12 months. not likely but hoping.

Derspeed

Renting to own

blastit

looks like way more people have chosen the option to purchase not lease. do alot of you intend on keeping the car for more than 8 yrs? if so good call. all the cars that i have had in my time i have owned with the exception of this. when i look back at the situation purchasing has saved me some money but factor in pulling cash out of pocket vs paying what i use, and that money seems to disappear fast.

i guess the perception in the market is still own what you drive.

oblu

It's most likely because MBF lease rates suck.

mac911

Yeah, leasing still has a bad connotation for many.

I leased, but who knows I could end up buying it too, which I know wasn't the smartest way, but it was my first Merc, so I wanted to be able to explore it first and make sure I love it.

It would be so nice to get a a fresh one in 3 years though with new gizmos.

oblu

Not only that, but if the price of gas keeps going up a $1 per gallon every year, things could look much different by then.

We'll probably all be wanting diesels and then in 10yrs we'll wonder why it's so smoggy again all of a sudden.

blastit

ok guys sorry to jack the thread but i have to say this. there is no shortage of gas. the media and our government is feeding us crap. Saudi Arabia and the middle east has been pumping more than ever and next to them Canada has been supplying almost 40% of the US daily consumption. Which leads me to wonder WTF is going on at the pump?!?!? we the consumer are being raped by these *** wipes for no reason. ok sorry to vent i had to get that out.

tanktube67

Diesel is more expensive than unleaded

The new regulations for Diesel engines for 2008 and newer are zero emissions.

It's just about the rich getting richer

vcruiser

lease.
cuz i know i will be fed up with the same car after 3 years!!

oblu

Off topic time.

Diesel is more expensive, but you get more MPG. Just have to sit down and do the math to see if it works out.

Cero? Zero? There no such thing as truly zero emission; conservation of matter, you can't destroy or create, just change. There are emissions, just lower C02 which is the compound of the minute. Back in the 80's it was smog emissions that they lessened with better catalytic converters. Diesel puts out different emissions.

Right getting richer is right on. All you have to check out are the record quarterly profits from the refining companies to know that. Hopefully the regime change in the whitehouse will have a bit of an impact on that. However, being the center of the universe that we are, we forget India, China and other countries that we think of as 3rd world are all coming online and using fuel. For India and China, imagine two more countries out there both using more gas per day than the U.S. does.

I don't buy into the shortage of fuel scenario. I do suspect it's going to get more expensive to get at though.

tanktube67

You mean oil (petroleum)
Of course those countries are manufacturing mostly everything
But politics and religion always ends on an disagreement.

blastit

yup we really took this thing off topic and i apologize since i am the one to blame. tanktube is bang on about china and india. i recently heard that they are planning on releasing a 2500 dollar vehicle over there. not quite sure if nissan was the manufacturer behind this. if and when this thing launches it will really change the landscape of who is consuming oil and the rate its being consumed at. China too, with our large demand for consumer goods in North America we have basically helped them build a middle class economy. Guys believe it or not even a fraction of indias and chinas population having cars is really going to mess things up. the media and governments are already having a field day with this. the stupid thing is there really is no shortage. we have all bought into this concept of FOSSIL Fuel, leading us to think that the pool is about to dry. Here is the reality Dubai is supposedly one of the lowest producing oil fields in the middle east and they are pumping more than ever. SUPPOSEDLY if they go at this rate they will last for another 15-20 yrs. We have not even touched on whats in Saudi Arabia, Canada and the rest of the middle east. Every day that passes the technology for drilling and extracting just keeps getting better. if we really wanted there are untapped resources we could pull from the ocean. but with all the tree huggers that will not happen any time soon. THE WHOLE SITUATION JUST MAKES ME MAD