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      09-22-2021, 02:27 AM   #1
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Anyone planning to buy out their i3 at end of lease?

As the i3 has ended production and no replacement planned, anyone thinking of buying out their i3 lease at the end of the contract?

What's the experience doing that? On paper it is a pretty bad deal knowing the market value is way less than our contract residuals. Not sure I would without a significant price reduction.
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      09-23-2021, 10:50 AM   #2
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We're probably going to buy our 2019 i3s BEV in Apr 22. As you mentioned, it will depend on the discount they offer on the residual. When we returned our last i3 REX in Apr 19, they offered $6k off of the original lease residual if we purchased (instead of returning).

I plan to check the my payoff relative to the price of other 2019 CPO i3s BEVs to see if it makes sense to buy vs return. We're very happy with the i3 (after 5 years of usage experience) - not sure if we'd jump to another brand EV.
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      09-23-2021, 11:42 PM   #3
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Originally Posted by bayarea328xit View Post
We're probably going to buy our 2019 i3s BEV in Apr 22. As you mentioned, it will depend on the discount they offer on the residual. When we returned our last i3 REX in Apr 19, they offered $6k off of the original lease residual if we purchased (instead of returning).

I plan to check the my payoff relative to the price of other 2019 CPO i3s BEVs to see if it makes sense to buy vs return. We're very happy with the i3 (after 5 years of usage experience) - not sure if we'd jump to another brand EV.
I love this car, but I was told no discounts on residuals by my dealer. Did you go through the dealer or BMWNA? Did they CPO the car for you?
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      09-24-2021, 01:55 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jmg View Post
I love this car, but I was told no discounts on residuals by my dealer. Did you go through the dealer or BMWNA? Did they CPO the car for you?
We're still more than 6 months from the end of our lease - April 2022. Last time (back in 2019), the buyout quote from BMWFS showed a $6,000 credit which lowered the residual if we were to buy that i3. We passed and leased the one we currently have.
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      09-24-2021, 03:36 PM   #5
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Our i3 lease on a 2018 rex ends in December. I was hoping a discount from BMWFS, but no discount is listed on the buyout page.
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      09-25-2021, 06:04 AM   #6
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No residual value discount was offered when we returned a 2018 i3S back in July. The difference between the residual value and the dealer price (BMWNA sales price to dealer) was more than $14000. Dealer cannot give us any discount either, this was a straight residual value sale.

This is an extremely poor vehicle to buy out at the end of the lease.
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      09-27-2021, 01:42 PM   #7
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Based on comments from musiccitybugs and Encanto, it looks like we will likely end up returning the 2019 i3s BEV in April (assuming no discount from BMWFS).

It doesn't quite make sense -- there are ~ 200 i3 available at BMW dealers, of which, ~ 75 are 2019 or newer model year. The pre-owned market for i3 should cool down rapidly given that it is now out of production for the US (and many other EVs are now in the market). Chip shortage and hot used car market may be to blame.

We'll see where we are in 6 more months.
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      09-30-2021, 08:21 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bayarea328xit View Post
Based on comments from musiccitybugs and Encanto, it looks like we will likely end up returning the 2019 i3s BEV in April (assuming no discount from BMWFS).

It doesn't quite make sense -- there are ~ 200 i3 available at BMW dealers, of which, ~ 75 are 2019 or newer model year. The pre-owned market for i3 should cool down rapidly given that it is now out of production for the US (and many other EVs are now in the market).
Or heat up, since you can no longer buy it new and no new EV offers what makes the i3 the i3. Decreased supply, demand... TBD.

Maybe my opinion is just jaded from all my other cars more than doubling in value in the last decade, as I continue to add miles
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      09-30-2021, 11:26 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Obioban View Post
Or heat up, since you can no longer buy it new and no new EV offers what makes the i3 the i3. Decreased supply, demand... TBD.

Maybe my opinion is just jaded from all my other cars more than doubling in value in the last decade, as I continue to add miles
Good points. I don't think the i3 would attract new buyers - I suspect the market would be previous i3 owners who sold it. We'll see...
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      09-30-2021, 03:07 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bayarea328xit View Post
Good points. I don't think the i3 would attract new buyers - I suspect the market would be previous i3 owners who sold it. We'll see...
I never had an i3 before, but I am buying a new one next week.
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      09-30-2021, 03:21 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ovekvam View Post
I never had an i3 before, but I am buying a new one next week.
Are there local incentives for you to buy an i3? Are you buying a new one or a previously owned i3?

In the US, there are no incentives that I am aware of for buying a previously owned i3. There aren't many new i3s left for purchase - certainly don't expect to have any new units available for sale in the US 6 mo from now.
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      09-30-2021, 03:55 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Obioban View Post
Or heat up, since you can no longer buy it new and no new EV offers what makes the i3 the i3. Decreased supply, demand... TBD.

Maybe my opinion is just jaded from all my other cars more than doubling in value in the last decade, as I continue to add miles
For now... chips on automobiles are easy to make, and supply will recover sooner than other sectors which need harder to make smaller chips. Next year most buyers this year will be upside down on all their loans because of all the inflated prices. Expect to see an increase in repos and an increase in inventory and drop in price mid to late next year.
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      09-30-2021, 04:26 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jmg View Post
For now... chips on automobiles are easy to make, and supply will recover sooner than other sectors which need harder to make smaller chips.
That logic is backwards from what I have heard from my sources with connections to the automotive ECU industry. The easy-to-make chips used in cars are 10-20 year-old technology, and were so easy/cheap to make that no fab wants to keep the tooling around because there is no profit in them. There's way more money to be made by building new fabs to make the latest and greatest tiny chips on thinner wafers. When the auto manufacturers cancelled their chip orders at the start of COVID-geddon, the chip companies tore down the lines for the old non-profitable stuff and started converting them to make the new/profitable stuff.

I would not expect to see the automotive chip crisis resolve itself until the automakers re-design their ECUs to use more modern processors.....
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      09-30-2021, 05:04 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vreihen16 View Post
That logic is backwards from what I have heard from my sources with connections to the automotive ECU industry. The easy-to-make chips used in cars are 10-20 year-old technology, and were so easy/cheap to make that no fab wants to keep the tooling around because there is no profit in them. There's way more money to be made by building new fabs to make the latest and greatest tiny chips on thinner wafers. When the auto manufacturers cancelled their chip orders at the start of COVID-geddon, the chip companies tore down the lines for the old non-profitable stuff and started converting them to make the new/profitable stuff.

I would not expect to see the automotive chip crisis resolve itself until the automakers re-design their ECUs to use more modern processors.....
Lol that's kind of what happened to the agave farms in Mexico. Tequila companies didn't want to pay more for the agave, so farms switched to more profitable crops and now there is an agave shortage. That's why even high end Tequila doesn't taste the same this year.

We are both looking at the same problem: cheap easy to make chips. What will happen is that eventually these chips will get made simply because car manufacturers have cars sitting around WAITING for them. The demand is there, so chip manufacturers are at an advantage to increase the price of these chips and car manufacturers will have little choice but to pay up. What happens then is a flood of new cars that were already made that now have chips and can be sold. That sucks for the manufacturers because they are going to pay for more chips, but the inventory will actually cause a drop in prices after a short time.
Granted, dealers will try and mark-up for as long as they can until their inventory will just force them to sell cars.

Prices will stabilize and all these people who thought paying $10k over on a new Kia will start to feel the hurt when they owe double that over what it's worth. Then, you will see an influx of lease returns and reduction of lease buyouts because residuals will be much higher than market value. The secondary market will take a huge hit and cars will be dirt cheap.

My new plan is to get rid of as many cars as I can now, and buy at the end of next year when prices plummet.
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      09-30-2021, 07:33 PM   #15
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jmg and Obioban

I've listened and watched both of you thru my e46 and f8x days, now again here in i3 world.

I look forward to seeing how your predictions play out over the next year or so.

Let's all buckle up, my gut tells me it will be a hell of a ride 😎
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      10-01-2021, 12:41 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bayarea328xit View Post
Are there local incentives for you to buy an i3? Are you buying a new one or a previously owned i3?

In the US, there are no incentives that I am aware of for buying a previously owned i3. There aren't many new i3s left for purchase - certainly don't expect to have any new units available for sale in the US 6 mo from now.
I am buying a brand new one. There are no taxes on electric cars in Norway, and other cars are quite expensive, so almost all new cars sold are electric. Since newer previously owned petrol and diesel cars are quite rare, the demand is higher than the supply, and they get extra expensive.
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      12-19-2021, 03:03 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Encanto View Post
This is an extremely poor vehicle to buy out at the end of the lease.
As with many things, it depends on timing.

I lucked out in June 2020 when BMWFS offered $10K off the residual of a 2018 Sport (my third i3 lease) if I purchased it. I took them up on the deal.

The auto market was very different ~18 months ago, when there was a lot of i3 supply and little demand. Today, you're likely to pay full RV at lease-end if you want to buy.
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      12-19-2021, 10:15 PM   #18
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A few years back, BMW changed the buyout process at lease end. I had an Individual Manufaktur 2016 M4 I spent 19 months designing and having built. It came to just shy of $110,000. I leased it, due to an incredible lease option at the time. When I tried to buy at lease end, September 2019, it was a shitshow. BMWFS wouldn't sell the car to the dealer for the market value, so dealer couldn't offer me anything near market value. I'd have had to pay nearly $20k over market value to keep it. This is now how buyouts work. The dealer can't get a market value purchase from BMWFS to pass on to the client. It's incredibly stupid, if you ask me. So, don't expect a discount, closer to market value, from what your contracted residual is. I handed BMW my M4 keys and walked. That car sat on their lot for 4+ months before someone was stupid enough to pay way over market value for it. The dealer lost thousands dropping the price to less than they paid for it, and someone still overpaid for it. Stupid stupid stupid system they adopted now.

I'm a 25+ year BMW customer, and owned an $116,000 2015 X5M when I tried to buy the M4. Made no difference. Whomever is making these changes is an idiot. We leased two 2021 i3s cars this spring when the orders came in, because we like the cars, but they may be our last BMWs with their new policies with buyouts and maintenance, etc..

Last edited by UrbanExtant; 12-19-2021 at 10:20 PM..
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      01-31-2022, 06:10 PM   #19
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I'm starting to face this question now. My lease runs out in November 2022, and if I want a replacement car I probably need to get something ordered sooner rather than later, given supply chain issues.

My contractual residual is $32K on a 2019 i3s with Tera World, Tech+DAP, H/K, 20" wheels, and heat pump.

Just looking at edmunds.com on a 2018 MY (i.e., roughly as old as my car will be when my lease is up in close to a year from now), the FMV seems relatively close to the contractual residual.

I like the car and its small size (great for parking). Nothing in the current BMW lineup is sending me, since they are all too long. Maybe could put in an order for a Mini Cooper SE....

Decisions, decisions.
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      01-31-2022, 11:26 PM   #20
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The electric Mini has a rather short range compared to other modern cars.
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      02-01-2022, 07:42 PM   #21
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Quote:
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The electric Mini has a rather short range compared to other modern cars.
What else is out there for a small, EV city car that fits into tight parking spaces? I'm not finding anything besides the Mini, but maybe I'm missing it.
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      02-01-2022, 10:46 PM   #22
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What else is out there for a small, EV city car that fits into tight parking spaces? I'm not finding anything besides the Mini, but maybe I'm missing it.
I guess it depends on which cars are offered in your market. The small ones I can think of are Peugeot e-208, Opel Corsa-e, VW e-Up, Skoda Citygo e, Smart EQ Fortwo, Renault Zoe and Fiat 500 e.
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