The numbers don't add up.
The numbers don't add up. I'm sad to say this article is a shameless plug for swapalease. I love torque news, in fact I read it daily, but this article is less of a review and more of an ad than anything else.
Lets say the purchase price for the car in question is 35k. Over a three year period the leasee will pay 21k ($326 a month was the payment, notice there was no mention of down payment or damage coverage or other fees in the article). Let's say the owner decides to pay $326 a month to be comparable. Over 3 years an owner would have paid $11,736 towards the vehicle and would have driven 45,000 or fewer KM (to be comparable with the lease). After three years the leasee returns the vehicle and has nothing to show for it and no problems. The owner still owes approximately $23k (again because we decided to do the exact same payment which is usually not the case for financing). A quick search of autotrader sees 3 year old camry's with an average of 30-50K selling between $14500-20500. Arguably our camry with fewer than 45xxx should sell in the $18k range. Subtract that from our $23k owing on the vehicle and we have $5k, divided over 3 years is $1600 and that is paying the EXACT same payment as the lease NOT $2K more annually.
The numbers don't seem to make sense. Most warranty's last up to 5 years or 100,000 KM so keeping a car another 1-2 years won't see extreme increases in maintenance, especially if you preform regular maintenance. Not to mention in the event that the owner drives the car 17k in a year there is $0 increase in cost...unlike the leasee who will have completely burned through any savings they might have thought they were getting.
Imagine the owner did decide to increase monthly payments to make up the annual 2k difference then by keeping the car another 2 years the owner would be the one with a smile on their face owing nothing on the car, at which point insurance could be changed to further reduce cost.
Not saying there isn't a benefit, or market, for leasing but I just think this article is a bit one sided and doesn't make an effort to compare leasing to owning as much as it should.