Miken12

Hi All,

Hate to say it, but this COVID has put a real hit on my business and I need to start saving on expenses. My question is what are my options as far as getting out of my lease? Has anyone here ever broken a lease through Mercedes Financial? What did it cost you? My car is still in perfect condition...less than 2k miles put on it and I've had it for 5 months. My lease is 36 month, 15k miles/year. Thanks

mike

Wolfman

Breaking a lease will be difficult financially. You will be up for the total amount of the lease duration minus any extra Dollars the car will bring when MBFS gets rid of it above residual.
The easiest thing to do is to log into the MBFS website and ask for a payment deferral which they will be happy to do. Go and repeat this every month. You can stop paying for the car for at least 3 months but likely longer. No harm to your credit...

Of course you can get rid of the car via swapalease.com but chances are that your payment is not very attractive the given price, MF and residual 5 months ago. You can sweeten the pie by throwing some money at the potential taker, effective lowering his lease payment. Even with big bucks this will be cheaper than breaking the lease.

You’ll owe quite a bit. IMO payment deferral is the quick and easy thing to do. Then reevaluate a few months down the line...

Good luck!

absent

As Wolfman already mentioned, it will cost you a lot no matter what.
Turning it back to MB would be the most expensive, ridiculously so, Swapalease is best bet but prepare to offer a significant cash incentive to make your lease attractive.
My most recent lease was on a 2018 Bentley Supersports, was gone (Swapalease)within days but only because my payment was exceptionally low ($20k Cap reduction, low money factor and $80k discount from dealer.
Considering that the market is a total "unknown" today, it may be difficult to find a buyer, you should consider it again, in my opinion it could be less expensive overall to keep the lease instead.
I assume it is your daily so you still need a car after all, right?

Vic55

All great replies above.

In the regular world you would be responsible for any monies owed after MBFS would sell the car at the auction.

EG:

36 month term but you walk away at 17 months and leave the car at the dealer. Since you didnt complete the obligation of the lease you would owe any remaining payments minus tax and interest plus the residual which is basically the lease payoff. MBFS normally will pick up the car and sell it at the auction as an early term and then apply the proceeds to your balance and you WILL definitely owe considering the "softness" of any MBZ. If you dont pay that deficiency balance it will hit your credit as a chargeoff for the dollars owed and they can collect on you (IE sue, garnish, etc). But the auto chargeoff is the worse thing as your credit is fawked.

This is basically called a voluntary early termination. Now in the current times, MBFS might have forgiveness but I havent heard of any such thing... yet. More than likely they will offer extensions or deferments first.

Miken12

Thank you guys for your help. Really appreciate it.

pghc63

I think your cheapest way out , but will still be expensive , is to put it here on the forum and swap a lease and offer a reasonable incentive
how much incentive depends on
how good is your deal in comparison with current deals that are available in the market place
also check with MBFS if they are allowing lease transfers at this time .. BMW did stop lease transfer for 4 weeks because of the pandemic , but they just opened that back up
also incentive can be financial and or equipment . I transferred an M3 lease and the incentive was a winter wheel and tire set that I bought for the car at a cost of 3 k
you can start with a certain incentive offer and adjust accordingly,. If someone if genuine and interested, I am sure you can negotiate a deal
unfortunately for you , it is a buyers market and you you have to adjust incentive accordingly
good luck with everything and hope your business will rebound soon

usaviking

I got out of my C63s lease 2 years ago... I tried swap lease but there were no takers even with some incentives thrown in.

In the end I wound up buying out the lease and then selling it privately. The dealership who bought it out actually sent the payment directly to MB which was helpful. I don’t remember exactly how much I lost but it was a lot. I don’t think you’ll save much over keeping the car and paying the remaining lease payments tbh.

pghc63

someone will take it, again it depends on incentive
you have to put your self in the buyer's shoes
Car A you are offering for lease transfer with 8 k miles on it and payment is 1200/month, and you are offering to pay transfer fee plus 1500 incentive which is let's say 75 dollars a month so net payment is 1125
buyer can get same car brand new for 1200 a month with zero down
so would you take that deal and assume the risk of wear and tear that seller did not disclose properly, tread life on tires , smoker, pet in the car etc
but if the incentive is 300 dollars a month so net payment is 900/month, I am sure that will motivate more people to assume a lease
I had several cars that I transferred leases on and not a single time I was not able to ….. it all depends on the overall offer
obviously the better your initial lease is , the less incentive you have to provide
whether this makes financial sense or not, only op can answer that , but trying to help him with options

Wolfman

The big question is how good or bad the lease deal is. The OP posted no info related to model, config and the actual deal so everything is a guess.
Some of these GT4 door lease deals have dropped $1k a month, so his lease could be unattractive. Takes a lot of money to incentivize that kind of a lease...

I mention the payment deferral again because it's an overlooked low hanging fruit. Many people may just need more time. MBFS supports it and there is no negative credit repercussion. Likely a 3 months break and hopefully it's enough time for some improvement in the OP's situation (provided the account is in good standing)...

pghc63

agree

19E63s

Hey! I'll take it off your hands. Give you thousand bucks more than the dealer will.
Jokes aside, if you call them you can easily get payments differed for a few months. Things are going to start going back to normal this month. Hang in there.

jamesszzz

Sell it. Get the payoff quote from Mercedes, list it on Autotrader and pay off the lease. Expensive, and you’ll undoubtedly lose money but maybe the easiest way if you can’t get anyone to assume your lease.

AMGBEASTMODE

Swapalease or leasetrader are the way to go, I'd post it on here and on those websites and you'll probably be some takers. Not much used inventory on those cars right now. I got crushed on my trade at the end of last year....

mcho3

So what is the specs on your car?

Archangel60

I feel your pain. I was into an AMG GLE43 (purchase, not a lease) for about 2 months with a pretty high payment (long story). Then my company laid me and 100 of my coworkers off. I could have kept the car, but I felt that with the climate being what it is, I'm better off trimming my monthly budget until I'm in a more positive cash flow situation. Traded down for a non-AMG C Class Coupe, cut my payments in half and wound up liking the car better. When I called my sales guy at the MB Dealership I felt a little sheepish until he said that I was the fourth person in the last 2 weeks wanting to trade down.

Hope things work out for you.

places

Swapalease is really the only option to get out. I used it once on an MB product. Had to throw several thousand at it to make it attractive but in the end it was worth it as I didn't really connect with the car anymore. It did however take several weeks with MBFS to process the transfer, that part was a real pain. They were really slow.

places

Curious, were you upside down or had you put down enough?

Archangel60

I didn't put down enough. It was a bit unplanned as my son's truck gave up its engine after 130K miles over the Christmas holiday. He had to get back to college in Arkansas soon and I couldn't free up enough cash fast enough, so I only put down 5K on a 60K vehicle. That's about $1000 a month. Didn't want that much cash going to a payment so I swapped. Now I'm at a much more manageable $440/month.

Wolfman

Not anymore. Swapalease for Mercedes leases is more or less dead as MBFS stopped processing lease transfers permanently. That may change post COVID-19...