End of lease buyout question

[tpm17]

I know it's a little early for me to be asking this question but I thought it might help others who are closer to their lease ending date.

I'm 15 months away from my lease termination date but I have been thinking about my options now so I know what to start planning for in 12 months. I have a '14 X1 35i Xline with 21,000 miles currently. With BMW ending their current maintenance and warranty program I'm highly considering a '17 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk next year approximately $32,000 MSRP. My lease buyout on my X1 is kind of high if you ask me at $27K plus. Please don't kill me on the Jeep, I'm looking to cut my vehicle expenses by a significant about due to a house I recently purchased and the Renegade Trailhawk provides a ton of kit for the money. I'm hoping the '17 models will have Apple CarPlay and I'll be sold.

Now my question is if the buyout amount on my X1 is negotiable at lease termination or is there no wiggle room whatsoever because it's a signed contract amount. I'm not afraid to walk away because no way will the car be worth $27K next March with another 10K more miles on it. Thank you for your time.

[shoelessj]

Originally Posted by tpm17

I know it's a little early for me to be asking this question but I thought it might help others who are closer to their lease ending date.

I'm 15 months away from my lease termination date but I have been thinking about my options now so I know what to start planning for in 12 months. I have a '14 X1 35i Xline with 21,000 miles currently. With BMW ending their current maintenance and warranty program I'm highly considering a '17 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk next year approximately $32,000 MSRP. My lease buyout on my X1 is kind of high if you ask me at $27K plus. Please don't kill me on the Jeep, I'm looking to cut my vehicle expenses by a significant about due to a house I recently purchased and the Renegade Trailhawk provides a ton of kit for the money. I'm hoping the '17 models will have Apple CarPlay and I'll be sold.

Now my question is if the buyout amount on my X1 is negotiable at lease termination or is there no wiggle room whatsoever because it's a signed contract amount. I'm not afraid to walk away because no way will the car be worth $27K next March with another 10K more miles on it. Thank you for your time.

We faced a similar situation with my wife's C Class MB. The MB buyout was crazy and I spoke to the financial people and they would not negotiate. This is SOP for manufacturer leases (diff story for bank lease) I would not hesitate to ask the question to them but would anticipate a strong "NO'. That said our MB dealer did offer to act as a middle man ie. buy the car at the dealer price and sell it back to us for a small mark up. To give you some idea of nos 2014 MB C300 was 28,000 contract buy out dealer could buy for 23,500 and resell with COPO for 24,300.
These are approx numbers. While we considered this option we opted to lease a 2015 X1. We were in your boat in that my wife doesn't drive much and we felt spending a bundle on a vehicle was crazy. Please keep in mind that even if this works for you (and the numbers are reasonable) you will only be able to get hard numbers 30-60 days from lease end. When I told my BMW dealer about this he said the practice is strictly forbidden and the dealer can be punished for same. The fact that my MB guy said he does it all the time would make me believe that it can also happen with BMW. I would make sure to speak to used car manager as he is the guy who is involved and is not looking to sell you a new car. Just tell him you like the car would be interested in buying it but not for BMW buyout.He has to contact BMW to get a buyout number -in MB case firm number only within 30 days of lease end according to him I have heard stories where a dealer will do this but insist on adding a COPO warranty which may or may not be a good deal.

As an aside we were all set to buy our next car- it probably made sense for us with the few miles the wife puts on. That said, leasing has been just too convenient for us. With the strong BMW residuals and in our case a good purchase price we opted for this. When looking to buy a SUV we just did not find anything that we thought we would live with for 5 or more years where the advantage of a purchase really start to shine.
Good luck.

[tpm17]

Thank you sir! Very very helpful information!