Do you lease or buy?

[anna_66]

At the moment we are doing both.

We have a lease on the Durango and are buying the van (which I think must have been a lease it was so well taken care of).

In my personal opinion leasing is good if you don't have a long lease and don't have to drive a lot.
Case in point...
Our last lease was a Dodge Intrepid. We only had a 3 yr lease on it and were allowed 12,000 miles/yr. At the end of the 3 years it only had 26,000 miles so it was way below the mile limit. So because there wasn't a lot of miles on it we didn't have to replace the tires and there was no damage or motor problems so at the end we didn't owe anything when we turned it back in.

Now with the Durango we went a little crazy (pretty much a top of the line Durango) so we could have a vehicle we both could agree on and could afford, so it's a 5 yr lease with 12,000 miles/yr also. Not very smart on our part as the payments are more and for longer. If we would have tried to buy it at the time we started our lease it would have costed us almost twice as much in monthly payments as we are paying now. I know the tires will need replaced for sure which will cost quite a bit and who knows what else we will have to have done in the next year and a half.

I can't say I regret leasing, I like having a new car that I don't have to worry about (besides car values decrease sooo much) but if I did it again, it would only be for a max of 3 years.

[mruffruff]

I've never leased. I can't see paying for something that will never be yours at the end of the contract.

I bought my used '96 Toyota pickup 8 years ago. I paid cash, but I could have financed it for three years at a reasonable payment. That still would give me 5 years of use for NO payments.

The only repairs I've made have been a new battery (this month) and a set of tires last year, as well as semi-regular oil changes. I did have it repainted, but that wasn't necessary. The southern sun had faded the finish.