A question re auto leasing

[izzy_here]

Hi guys and gals!

What better place to ask for advice on any matter than the TERB?

Friends of mine are 1 year into a 4 year lease of a Jeep Cherokee Limited. A fully loaded beast.

The male of the couple has serious hip problems and finds it next to impossible to negotiate the climb up into the cab. Plus they've probably bitten off more than they can chew at over $800 per month for the lease.

They visited the dealership to discuss their options as to terminating the lease. They were advised that the penalty for early return would be astronomical at this point. I didn't get the exact figure. The other option was to try to find someone willing to pick up the lease for the duration. Fat chance (my gut feeling) at the above mentioned rate.

Does anyone have any other suggestions I could pass along. Short of hiring someone to torch or steal it!

Regards,

Izzy

 

[kooley]

TRY leasebusters they chrge a feee but I am not sure how much

 

[Berlin]

leasebusters

kooley, do they have a web site ? any contact info ?

 

[xarir]

Trade

Presumably your friends would want to trade the Jeep in for something else. If the Chrysler guy won't take the Jeep as a trade-in for something else (don't see why he wouldn't), why not trade it in for something else?

Or are your friends only interested in selling the vehicle at this point?

 

[Berlin]

leasebusters

http://www.leasebusters.com/

 

[izzy_here]

Berlin,

Thanks for the tip on Leasebusters! Who ya gonna call?

 

[Berlin]

izzy, don't thank me. The tip was originally from kooely. I just did some search on the web. V useful info I must say.

Now we know who we gonna call for sure, cheers.

 

[SDFeuerzauber]

The Cherokee was not produced in N America after 2001 model year (replaced here with Liberty model) so I am inclined to think this is a Grand Cherokee, which is a different model.

If this vehicle was leased through Chrysler Financial, then your friend could call the bank for a payment closeout. This is an amount your friend could pay to terminate the lease and not own the vehicle as a result.

The second option is to find out how much to buy the car. This is definitely going to be more than the actual value of the car but your friend would then be able to refinance for a longer term and have a lower payment or sell the car in the form of a trade-in when he or she replaces it with something cheaper.

Here's the reason why it's going to be ugly in either case:
0% financing and strong lease incentives on new Jeeps make a new Jeep cost far less than $800/Mo. And a 1 Yr old Jeep has to cost less than a new one right? So when you consider the used car factory won't have 0% for the 1 yr old car, but the new car factory in Auburn Hills, MI has high-powered incentives...well, it's just plain painful.

Best case scenario: trade the Jeep for inexpensive Chrysler car or minivan so you can use lease loyalty incentives to bury some of the negative equity.

Or...just add running boards to the Jeep.

 

[papasmerf]

Tell you fiends that they are victums of the eyewantit syndrom

They need to realize that leases are designed to sell you a payment, because that is what you have. Always PURCHASE a car you can afford not the one you want to have, unlees you can afford it. if the 800 is tight how did it look a year ago??

I was in car sales when leases frist hit the showrooms. They still are there to sucker the consumer and inflate the prices