GMC Dealers In Utah Help With Leasing Versus Buying Decisions
Written by Scott Jones   
Thursday, 11 March 2010 08:18
Utah Buick dealers are ready to help you make the right choice between your buying and leasing options, not always an easy job. One segment of your choosing will have to do with your personal priorities, preferences, values, and feelings. How crucial to you is driving new cars every two or three years? How valuable is keeping your risk of repairs low? How important is keeping your monthly payment down? How badly do you want to have a debt-free, payment-free car as soon as possible? Making decisions on such personal priorities helps sort out the non-financial issues, but it's also really important to comprehend the financial differences between buying and leasing.
by ScottJones


Utah Buick dealers are ready to help you make the right choice between your buying and leasing options, not always an easy job. One segment of your choosing will have to do with your personal priorities, preferences, values, and feelings. How crucial to you is driving new cars every two or three years? How valuable is keeping your risk of repairs low? How important is keeping your monthly payment down? How badly do you want to have a debt-free, payment-free car as soon as possible? Making decisions on such personal priorities helps sort out the non-financial issues, but it's also really important to comprehend the financial differences between buying and leasing.

Through a six-year comparison of the three-year consecutive leases of two new $20,000 vehicles, with the purchase of a new $20,000 vehicle, there appears to be lots of difference in the amounts spent on down payments, insurance, monthly payments, taxes, maintenance, and DMV costs. The purchased vehicle (bought on a five-year loan) totaled $34,228 in costs over the six years and retained maybe a few thousand dollars of value at the end. The leased auto totaled $38,176 in the six years of costs and had no retained equity. That is a $4948 bigger cost for the leased cars, without adjusting for the purchased car's retained value. The purchased vehicle did have one payment-free year out of the six. So, buying provides a vehicle with partial equity and higher monthly payments, for a lower overall cost. And leasing provides an auto for lower payments, no equity, and higher overall costs.

For this six-year comparison, then, buying a vehicle winds up being cheaper, but has bigger monthly payments that can extend over the complete six years. This purchaser would drive the same vehicle for six years as opposed to leasing a new one every three, but also would have the option to keep using the old car until it died, for possibly a good long time. Conversely, the second leased car is returned to the dealer the instant the lease is up, rendering the driver vehicle-less.

Leasing has the advantage of nonexistent or low down payments and low sales taxes, but generally higher insurance costs than purchasing has. Leased vehicles, however, often have the advantage of built-in gap coverage and purchased vehicles almost never have it. So, if a financed car is destroyed or stolen, the debtor could have to pay thousands of dollars to clear the loan after the insurance has paid what it deems fair.

Leasing a car is somewhat more complicated than buying one is, and it gives more opportunities to misinterpret and misunderstand the process and make mistakes. So, it's prudent to be as informed and careful as possible when new to leasing. One thing to be aware of with leasing is that when it's over and you turn in your vehicle, if you've exceeded your allowed miles, you will pay a penalty. To get more leasing and buying information, visit your GMC, Buick, or Pontiac dealers in Utah.

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Looking to find the best Utah Buick dealers, then visit www.gregorymotors.com for the best advice on Utah Buick dealers and leasing versus buying.