Davide22

anyone leasing the SL? what is the price range for the lease?

ibanez

Thats a pretty easy one as lease payments are not specific to the SL. Your payments are just based on how much you put down and the rate (MB credit is very high, third party specialty companies are lower). I am not going to do the math for you, but check out some of the leasing companies web sites for an idea of what they are advertising.

Davide22

anyone reccomend a specific lease company?
are these 3rd party lease companies stricter than MB when checking the car during the lease-end check?

Tezta

Lineback in texas has some okay rates, the SL rates are still high because they get their SL's from dealers at a premium, i think from MBCC, the lease rate was around $1,700 for 48 months with 10% cap down. Line back quoted about $2,300, with 0 down. Maybe if you wait till the market settles down and supply meets demand, i think you could get a good rate from 3rd party leasing companies.

LineBack

Doody

don't lease from the company getting you the car. you'll pay up the wazoo.

find the car and then set up your financing - whatever it be.

your dealer wants to sell you the car. if mb's lease deals aren't to your liking i'm sure they'll be able to suggest another alternative or two. there are a lot of leasing companies out there.

doody.

hwt1964

I was quoted $1512.85 a month

48 month lease
10K miles a year
$1397.55 base payment + 115.30 taxes
$2227.85 up front (1st payment + plates)
residual of 58372
on a car costing $94K

Still seems more expensive than buying it.

Doody

a 62% residual in four years is a very reasonable. this was through MBUSA?

people who lease cars 'cuz they can't afford the payments if they had purchased the car are almost always making bad financial decisions. unfortunately, this is what most leases are about.

if you are leasing a car like this hopefully it's a business transaction with substantial tax savings or you're investing the delta between the down payment and monthly payments for the four years.

leasing is largely a sales gimmick now in the car business. very few people do the "financially smart" thing - they just acquire the most expensive car they can afford the monthly payments on - and those payments are therefore lease payments.

doody.

hwt1964

Yeah, this was thru MB USA.

Basically, I wanted the figures so that I could decide what was the best move--lease it and invest the $100K, put money down and finance the difference between $100K and the down, or just buy it outright.

I don't run my own business, so I can't take advantage of the tax writeoffs.

Under almost every scenario (unless the stock market makes some major turnarounds), leasing seems to be a bad idea. The only possibly interesting one would be to prepay the lease in its entirety (about $50K)

I'm almost certain to get rid of the car before the lease would be up, and I don't know what the ramifications of trying to get out of a lease would be. I'm hoping to get an SL55 through a friend later this year, or if that doesn't work out, I'm on the SL55 wait list for next summer/fall.

ibanez

Actually Leasing is definitely not a gimmick. It makes a lot more sense than buying if you own your own company (depreciation limits vs lease write offs). It is also a lot easier than selling your car if you change cars every two or three years.

hwt1964

have a question for someone here who understands leases. I've always just bought the car.

If I lease the car, say for 48 months, and 6 months into the lease, I decide I want to get rid of it, what are my options? Can I just sell the car to someone? Will I get raped by some sort of "exit clause" in the contract?

Doody

ibanez - for 90% of the people who do leases, it is most definitely a gimmick. for the 10% who can achieve the proper financial benefit, it is obviously not a gimmick - but the ratio really must be that out of whack. the car companies use it as a sales tool to move people into more expensive, higher-cost, generally higher-profit vehicles.

hwt1964 - i've terminated two leases early in my day. if they set the residual very high at the outset, you generally will do "okay" on them. if they set the residual "realistically" at the outset it'll be expensive.

some leases will allow you to transfer the lease, but that'll involve serious hurdles on your end, and you might end up still having to guarantee the payments during the term.

leases definitely don't work out if you get the term wrong.

it sounds like you should not be leasing this car :-)

there are lease companies that specialize in expensive cars and allow you to flip your lease into a more expensive car anytime (restarting the clock, no doubt). you might consider these folks, but you'll pay for the privilege.

doody.

uag

Yes I am leasing my SL500 thru MB credit. Look at the 39 mo lease --same residual as 36 mo. but lower payment. With my trade in which equated roughly to 10K cap reduction and 15k miles per year my payments are $1680 per month. My car has everything on it except distronic so it was around 104K sticker. For me leasing is the only way to go since I used my cars for business. Have been leasing from MB Credit for the last 15 years. No problems!