Car Leasing: Introduction

As with many things in life, there are both advantages and disadvantages to car leasing. Choosing whether or not to lease a vehicle is a highly individual decision and depends on your financial and life circumstances at the time. With that said, let's first explore the advantages of leasing a vehicle.

Car Leasing: Advantages

One of the key advantages of a car lease is that you have access to a new vehicle more often. Car leasing also has very low down payment requirements and sometimes even requires no down payment at all, like they do at LeaseTrader.com. Another plus of leasing cars is that the monthly lease payments are usually substantially less than buying and financing the car. Thus, a consumer can afford to drive a more expensive car or a car with more features when they have a Car Leasing Deal. Additionally, a consumer can use the money that they saved on car payments to pay off higher interest credit card debt or even invest this money in higher yielding investments. Another advantage of an auto lease is the security of knowing that major repairs will be covered under the manufacturer's warranty. By the time the car needs expensive repairs, the lease will have ended. Also, another positive is that US tax laws consider most of the expenses involved with leasing a car for business purposes to be tax deductible. Last but not least, when the lease term is up one does not have to worry about the hassle of a vehicle trade-in, as you simply would give the vehicle back to the dealership and pay the required fees.

Car Leasing: Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of automobile leasing is the fact that you will not own the vehicle, and thus, you are essentially paying monthly payments forever with nothing to show for these payments in the end. Additionally, the general long term costs of auto leases are always greater than buying a vehicle. By using a car lease calculator, you can determine the cost of your lease before you sign an agreement, making this auto lease calculator a very important tool in deciding whether to buy or lease. (An auto lease calculator can be found at LeaseTrader.com.) Another disadvantage of leasing is that the cost of insurance is generally much more expensive (you can get online quotes at ElectricInsurance.com) than the cost associated with buying and financing a vehicle. If a lease runs longer than the vehicle's warranty, you may have to pay for repairs that would have been covered, but there are lease-specific warranties that you can purchase such as those available at WarrantyDirect.com. There may additionally be annual mileage limits on your leased vehicle and anything over this amount will be billed to you at the end of all car leases. Along the same lines, you can be charged with extra "wear and tear" charges on your vehicle at this time as well. Thus, it is important to have your vehicle regularly maintained and that accurate records of this maintenance are kept. You, of course, have to pay to upkeep the vehicle. Other problems that may arise occur if you may want to terminate your lease early. In this situation, you would be financially responsible for the penalties incurred with this termination or you can get someone to take over your lease by utilizing a service such as the one offered at LeaseTrader.com. Along similar lines, if the leased vehicle is involved in a major accident, the lease ends, but you must pay off the vehicle lease. Thus, when you are involved in automobile leasing, another insurance called "gap insurance" is required so that you are not left in this type of situation. Finally, if at the end of a lease, you decide to purchase the vehicle, the price that it is offered to you is generally the expensive MRSP price. Thus, it is important to barter the price of the car before you express your desire to lease the vehicle and get a quote from Autobytel.com, Autoweb.com, CarSmart.com or Cars.com. Or, you can get a Car Leasing Quote at Autos.yahoo.com. Overall, once again, vehicle leasing has both its merits and demerits and the decision to lease a car depends on your particular financial and lifestyle factors.