Way over mileage limit

[brad]

Hi all. I am midway into my 3 year lease and it's looking like I will be about 10,000 miles over my limit by the time the lease is over (I commute 70 miles a day). I notice that Ford has lowered the price of these cars and is even offering $6000 factory rebates. So basically it would cost more for me to buy out my current car than to buy a new one (factoring in fed and cali rebates).

I was considering talking to the dealer to see if they would help me out if I leased a new FFE, but I don't see this happening without me taking a pocket hit either way. Thoughts? :?:

 

[hybridbear]

Hi all. I am midway into my 3 year lease and it's looking like I will be about 10,000 miles over my limit by the time the lease is over (I commute 70 miles a day). I notice that Ford has lowered the price of these cars and is even offering $6000 factory rebates. So basically it would cost more for me to buy out my current car than to buy a new one (factoring in fed and cali rebates).

I was considering talking to the dealer to see if they would help me out if I leased a new FFE, but I don't see this happening without me taking a pocket hit either way. Thoughts? :?:

What's the residual at the end of your lease? You can avoid mileage overage payments if you buy out the car at the end of the lease or if the dealer buys it for their used inventory. It might be possible to convince a dealer to buy out your car at the end of the lease as part of your agreement to buy a new car from them. But depending on the residual value it might be hard to find a dealer willing to do that.

 

[brad]

My residual is $19.5k. In March 2016 with 45k miles, I think this car will wholesale in the low teens. At $0.20 per mile, I could just pay the penalty of $3k but since Ford pretty much killed the value of these cars, I am hoping that they will offer to sell the car to me at a much lower price.

 

[jachady]

With about 4 month left on your lease get ahold of someone at Ford Credit and explain that you would like to buy the car out at the end but that the res value is way too high for the current market. You may be able to get them to lower the purchase price some. It will probably take a bunch of phone calls to get to the right person and get them to get you a decision. Be armed with many different sources of values (although Ford will know what the car is really worth). They don't want to lose anymore than you do but they know that if you turn it in and pay the mileage penalty they still won't get it's value at the auction.

 

[v_traveller]

My residual is $19.5k. In March 2016 with 45k miles, I think this car will wholesale in the low teens. At $0.20 per mile, I could just pay the penalty of $3k but since Ford pretty much killed the value of these cars, I am hoping that they will offer to sell the car to me at a much lower price.

Assuming you have a 36K mile lease, you will be 9K miles over, correct?

$0.20/mi * 9000mi = $1800... $2K if you go over by 10K miles.

My $0.02... just pay the penalty in Mar 2016, then lease/buy a new one. If you opted for a 15K mi/yr lease last year, I think you would have effectively paid $0.10 for each extra mile with the higher monthly payment (that was the case for my lease). So really, you are only out about $1K, not $2K. Perhaps that makes the penalty more palatable? Also, it might help to take comfort in the fact that you've probably saved way more than $1K by staying away from a gas pump for 3 years.

Or, perhaps you're as nuts as I am, and would consider picking up another plug-in to share commuting duties with the FFE. I made the same mistake with my 80-mile RT commute, loved my FFE so much that I almost never drove the backup vehicle, was on my way to a $3600 penalty. I should have gotten an 18K mile/yr lease instead of 12K. My solution was to lease a Volt to serve as a backup vehicle to the FFE at a net $0.26/mi rather than pay Ford $0.20/mi for the overage. The way I see it, I'm renting a Volt for $600 a year for the next two years since it's saving me $3600 in penalties on the FFE.

Food for thought...