Phew, disaster adverted! Repair bill came out to $23. I can keep this car a little longer and probably look into getting something new later next year. Thanks for the replies guys - I appreciate it!
If you know the leasing game, it's not a bad way to go. I did it for 10 years. My mileage now exceeds the typical 12,000-mile yearly mileage restriction, so it was more cost-effective to purchase the vehicle rather than pay for more miles. But anyway, tack on about $35 to any price they give you for rolling in state taxes, title, registration, and other misc. fees. So that $266 would really be around $301/mo. Plus most companies have a "return fee" called a disposition fee of around $400, which is more than a monthly car payment on lease.
The nice thing about doing a trade-in, other than the fact that they will manipulate the numbers and give you far less than it's worth, is that you can simply trade keys & be done with it. No dealing with weirdos from Craigslist, no sitting for sale for weeks or months waiting for someone to bite, no paperwork hassles. I didn't get squat on my Volvo trade-in, but it was having transmission problems & had nearly 200k miles on it, so I was happy to just get it off my back.
I will say that other than Saturn, Honda has actually been my favorite place to lease from. They handle GAP insurance, you can do no down payment, no first month's payment (35 months), no return fee, and several hundred dollars of minor damage coverage included. And if you do have more damage or go over miles (which is typically between 10 to 25 cents per mile, which can kill you on a lease turn-in), they usually wave it if you lease another Honda. Our Honda Fit had 40k miles on a 36k lease plus tons of unremovable stains from baby formula & juice and they said no problem since we got a new lease on a Civic. Cake.
Never, ever, ever put a down payment on a lease. It's just insta-money for the dealership. Calculate your monthly rate if you don't do a down payment. There's some good eBooks on how all the dealership garbage works; also be sure to check out Carwoo & Truecar if you're every looking again, as well as USAA & AAA's car-buying services, the Swapalease & Leasetrader websites, etc. Lots of resources out there.
And if you're not tied to brand, check out other lease deals. Like heymrdj said, Ford has some really good deals going on (with AWD available). Lease deals on similar cars can vary by as much as $100 a month based on the incentives available. That's the deal I worked with my first Kia Soul - they wanted $330 a month for a lease on a fully-loaded model; my wife had just picked up a Honda Fit for like $234/mo, so I showed them the numbers and they were able to match it. There's a lot of leeway if you're willing to play the game, but certain places like Subaru might be a little harder to work with.
And even from dealer to dealer it changes - I was really interested in a Nissan Altima and the first dealer wouldn't budge below $300, so I walked, and the second dealer dropped it by like $70 a month. Ridiculous. But after looking at my mileage requirements, I ended up picking up the car I really wanted (stick-shift Kia Soul) for a better monthly price on a basic bank loan. Also, there's plenty of great ebooks out on there on leasing & buying and how the dealerships work on the inside - the little shell games they play and whatnot, so if you're armed going in, you won't be in for any surprises, you know?
Glad you got your car fixed for cheap too, that's always a bonus :biggrin:
