[TimeFor]

I've never bought out a car at the end of a lease before but has anyone heard if BMW is doing anything special with buying out i3? I've heard Nissan was giving people super discounted buyout offers on the Leaf because they didn't want them back. The new 2017 i3 with the bigger battery is obviously going to be much more desirable like the newer Leaf is over at Nissan. Has anyone heard of any such incentives to buy out the i3 leases? I have about a year remaining on my 24 month lease. My residual is $34,867 so there's 0% chance of me buying out the car at that overly inflated price.

Thanks,
- Time

[TimeFor]

I should also note that I have CA HOV stickers on my i3. I had the same thing with my 2nd gen Prius back in '05 and Toyota was offering high trade-ins for used cars with those since you couldn't get them anymore. The green HOV stickers are now also all gone so do you think that would make BMW less willing to offer a deal?

[afadeev]

Originally Posted by TimeFor

I've never bought out a car at the end of a lease before but has anyone heard if BMW is doing anything special with buying out i3?

No, not officially, but you can always call and ask!

There is a gigantic gap between the market value of an i3, and the residual value. My i3-REX with MSRP of $47K and 63% residual has residual buy-out value of $29.6K. I went window shopping for Model S earlier this year, and with 10 months left of my 2 year lease, the buy out quotes on the i3 were in the ~$18-19K range.

If you go inquiring about lease buying, consider aiming for a $10+K discount!

Originally Posted by TimeFor

I've heard Nissan was giving people super discounted buyout offers on the Leaf because they didn't want them back. The new 2017 i3 with the bigger battery is obviously going to be much more desirable like the newer Leaf is over at Nissan. Has anyone heard of any such incentives to buy out the i3 leases? I have about a year remaining on my 24 month lease. My residual is $34,867 so there's 0% chance of me buying out the car at that overly inflated price.

Indeed.
BMW subsidizes the @#$% out of i3 leases, more so than with any other model. Buying out a lease is always an unprofitable proposition (buyout value is calculated on residual * MSRP, no residual * actual price paid), so doing that with an i3 would require a major hair cut to be taken by someone.

Dealer wont do it, they will just pass the car to BMW FS balance sheet.
BMW FS may, or may not, consider doing something, so it wont hurt to call them up and ask.

a

[-c-]

I talked to my dealer about this and In fact they will, mine is a customers choice which is lease like payments only I own it with the option of returning it after the 3 years.

when mine is up I will have a balloon payment of 27k dollars, I can return it and get another or choose to buy the car.

4 months before my end they will take the car back and certify it and resell it to me at the new market value which their saying will save me over 10k considering that 2014 i3 with 15k miles are selling around 19k right now. So a 2014 with 30k will be even better a year from now.

They said BMW is giving them discounts to help this work out for everybody and to move product.

[jjj240]

Leaf buy-out offer from NMAC varies month-to-month and model yr to model yr, currently 2013 model has $4500 offer and 2015 model has $3k offer, FYI. Typically Leaf residuals were set near 41-46% at that time, so i3 to be competitive in customer buying out, the discount shall be much more, which may be difficult to swallow by BMW FS.

Originally Posted by TimeFor

I've never bought out a car at the end of a lease before but has anyone heard if BMW is doing anything special with buying out i3? I've heard Nissan was giving people super discounted buyout offers on the Leaf because they didn't want them back. The new 2017 i3 with the bigger battery is obviously going to be much more desirable like the newer Leaf is over at Nissan. Has anyone heard of any such incentives to buy out the i3 leases? I have about a year remaining on my 24 month lease. My residual is $34,867 so there's 0% chance of me buying out the car at that overly inflated price.

Thanks,
- Time