First time leaser into final year - Advice

[Mwalker52]

Hi all,

I’m a first time car leaser, into my third year with the lease contract due to end March 2025. Please excuse my ignorance…..

Planning on moving to another lease vehicle, can anyone advise on next steps? Given the variable delivery times, what’s the best way to ensure I have a new vehicle lined up to avoid me a) having a period without a car or b) having an overlap where I’m paying months for two vehicles at the same time.

[Nelson1j]

I am nearing the end of my 4th lease deal.... All replacements have been factory orders and pre covid it was pretty straightforwards as lead times were stable and there were plenty off good offers around. I tended to order the replacement 4 months before the current lease finished. During and after covid factory lead times went up to 12 months, and the good offer disappeared. The marked is a bit better now and you can either; lock into a factory order due for delivery end December (prob the longest lead time available) and hand the car back early (sometimes the lender will offer you a favourable early settlement), or order in November for a delivery in March (u can normally get the timings within a day of return/new delivery), or wait it out and go for an offer in March for same month delivery.. I have used leaseloco to keep an eye on offers and have been lucky with 90+ rated deals.

[MR2 Steve]

Most leases allow for 12 months of informal extension with 28 days notice to send back (ask yours). So you can normally line up a new car without too much overlap if you do it during that informal extension period. You probably want to start looking 6 months before you send back.

Also ask lease provider to send you a list of damage charges. In my experience it’s always cheaper to take the charge than try to get it fixed.

Another tip is to send it back a couple of weeks early if a service is due to avoid the service cost. It can’t be overdue though.

[Mwalker52]

Really helpful, thanks both of you for the advice.

[chunkyjh]

Yeh as above, I would order your new car with the intention of it arriving at the end of your final year and if it hasn't arrived, let your current lease run over in to the informal stage where you will be billed monthly. My finance company Black Horse were very good and I was able to book a collection within a few days at which point my lease ended, leaving only a few days of overlap. Not sure if all providers are the same but the downside to going monthly is they charged me the amortised amount so it was a bit more pricey than the normal montlies