Greetings all. You folks are the go-to people for all car related things and have provided solid advice in the past so I’m coming back for more.
I recently posted for some advice on a next car and got some great advice there. Unfortunately, the answer to that question came too late in the sense that if I had waited a month the answer would have been obvious but since the car didn’t exist at the time I posted the question no one, including me, could have known about it. It’s the new Jetta GLI. It’s almost like VW has been reading my thoughts. It has some equipment from the GTI and a bit from the R in a three-box sedan with a manual transmission. And it’s actually cheaper than the GTI. I think the chance of this being the next car in my garage is high.
But… my MKZ lease is in place until December 2019. One problem I have is that when I ordered the car in August ’16 it didn’t arrive until mid-December. That meant I took delivery of it right in the middle of winter. My thought this time is to let the lease run out and then rent something small for a few months and aim to take delivery of whatever is next in spring 2020 which would then hit the ‘reset’ button on my usual 36 month buying cycle.
My plans were somewhat complicated by the fact that I had given a friend a right of first refusal to buy out the MKZ lease at the end of it. That tied my hands to the full 36 months of the lease. But this friend recently changed his mind on this and it’s left me with an opportunity.
My thought is this: find someone who wants to take over the lease and the take delivery of a GLI this spring. But since this is the first (and probably last) time I’ve leased I really know nothing about the process. If someone is interested in taking over the lease how would I go about this? I presume there are costs involved. How would I advertise this? Is it something I’d put on Kijjii or Auto Trader?
I think finding someone to take over the lease should be fairly easy. That’s based on the fact that I put a substantial down-payment on the car so the lease payments, taxes in, are only $260 bi-weekly. On top of that, with the car being 26 months old I’ve only used half the allowable kilometres. On the downside, there are only 10 months left in the lease so that may deter some people. On the other hand, if someone takes over the lease that sets them up to buy a low-mileage 400HP entry luxury car for $26K in December.
You’ll note that there is one question that I haven’t asked and that’s whether or not this is a smart move. Trust me, I know it isn’t a smart move. But I also suspect that since everyone here is a certified car nut that you’ll at least empathize with me when I say I need to fix some car boredom.
As usual, your sage advice will be most welcome and appreciated.
