Quote:
Originally Posted by Croatian test driver
I don't know the situation in the USA, but here in Switzerland and I guess in most european countries it's always more expensive to lease (unless you have your own company and buy the car through the company), regardless of whether you only keep the car only for 3 years or longer.
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In America, as long as you drive less than 15,000 miles per year, leasing can often be cheaper. This is especially true with BMWs as BMW has been known to artificially inflate the residual values on their cars to advertise low lease rates.
Even if that weren't the case, though, leasing is barely much more money as you're essentially just paying for the depreciation plus a small percentage (essentially like a loan).
The only valid criticism against leasing is that you're constantly "buying" a new car every 3 years which is wasteful. You're essentially paying for the depreciation of a car when it's at the absolute highest levels of depreciation. Then you do it all over when the curve starts to flatten out. Whether you lease or buy, it's the same thing, your payments are just a little different. After three years, you'll more or less be in the same place financially IF you sell your car for proper market rates. However, if you simply trade in a used car at a dealership, you will do worse. Dealerships offer you less money for trade in. So if you are the type of person to get a new car every 3 years and don't know how to sell the car yourself, you should almost always lease.