The vessel carrying my 6MT base Cooper went through Panama Canal yesterday and is on its way to Port Hueneme in California. Hopefully, I will be able to finally take my baby home in about 10 days. In the meantime, I am contemplating whether to do a lease or outright purchase it.


I usually keep cars for a long time (7-10 years) so purchase makes sense in those situation. However, for European cars, the main concern is the cost of maintenance and repairs after the warranty. A secondary consideration is the resell value after, say, 6 years, especially in Southern California market where there is little demand for manual tranny cars. (To be honest, I would not buy one myself.)


So, I am very interest to know from members of this board --

• If you leased your MINI, did you purchase, or considered to purchase, the car at the lease end? Was the buy-out price (the pre-determined residual value) higher or lower than its actual market value then?
• Is certifying the car to CPO (certified pre-owned) status and thus extend the warranty to 6-year/100,000 miles an option offered by your dealer? At what cost?
• If you purchased the car new, how much did it cost you for scheduled maintenance and out-of-warranty repairs? How old was your MINI when you sold or traded it in? How much were you able to get relative to the price you originally paid (i.e. in percentage)?
• What other factors played a role in your decision?

Your thoughts and experience will be very helpful and much appreciated. Thank you in advance!

 

36 month lease which I will probably trade out of at 30months.

 

Until it becomes too expensive to maintain....or the next gen model comes out and I just have to have it.

 

I am (well really was) in a similar situation. I was seriously considering a 4 yr lease to coincide with the MINI warranty expiration. That way I wouldn't have to pay the spread between the buy and sell value if I wanted to trade in my MINI...and also would be placing a floor under the value of my MINI at the end of those 4 years. This is what I found...

In general, the rates BMW/MINI offers on leases are quite high - nowhere near the interest rates they offer on loans right now. They are also picky about the term of the lease - they offer better terms on a 36 or 39 month lease then any other length (including the 48 month term I desired).

The residual for a 36 month lease (at least on an S) was 61%. Also, BMW/MINI charges a fee ($395) at the end of the lease to return the vehicle - which is waved if a new MINI (BMW?) is leased. The end result was that it would have cost me just over an extra 8% to lease my MINI for 36 months instead of buying it outright. In the end I decided to buy...your mileage may vary.

 

I had planned to keep my last MINI for as long as possible, which turned out to be 6 1/2 years until the accident. The previous car was an Acura I had for about 11 years.

This new MINI I only plan to have until the MINI Minor/Rocketman is released. If that doesn't get done, or it sucks*, I'm not sure. I was pretty close to buying a Roadster, it's about that time in my life, vintage convertibles are irresistible.

*It could suck if there is no sports suspension, they make it ugly, I can't fit in it.

 

the PLAN is to keep it for 6 years minimum but I have a bad habit of paying a car off early and selling it to get something else. The way most new cars are going I lose more and more interest in them. There are only a handful of NEW cars that still have my attention, for example F-type Jag with MANUAL trans, Miata, focus RS, and the mustang GT350R

 

Your thought process was exactly like mine. 4-year lease would be ideal for consumers, but not so much for manufacturers/dealers. I reckon that it is not an easy sell for a car with <2 years warranty (assuming CPO with 6-yr/100k miles, sitting in dealer lot for a couple months after lease ends).

I also like the idea of "placing a floor" of the resell (or trade in) value. Dealers are notorious low-balling trade-in estimates.

Between acquisition fee and disposition fee, the additional $1,200 cost pretty much eats up the saving on sales tax for cars in the $30,000 range, at least for us in California. I guess that's a not-so-small price to pay for peace of mind and/or the luxury of getting a new car every 3 years.

 

I plan to keep mine as long as possible! I just traded in my 2 year old VW for one because i got sick of driving stick shift on my morning commute. I hate clutching on hills!

 

Thank you to all who have commented. I would also be interested to hear from those long-term owners what to expect in terms of (1) maintenance/repair costs beyond freebie/warranty periods; and (2) resell value beyond 6 years-old, especially manual ones. Thanks!

 

I was in a thread like this about 5 years ago. At the time I was driving my beloved El Kabong, an R53. My plan was to keep that car forever. At that time the car was entering it's 6th year with me. I had just bought a bunch of new goodies for him, but alas he was murdered on a drive to Nashville. I've been driving Mozart, my R56 since March of '11. I'm about to trade it in on an F56 which I plan to keep indefinitely. Hoping I don't jinx myself with that statement :D.

 

I can give you some figures on two recent trades/purchases.
#1- traded in a 13 Justa hardtop with 32k miles purchased in 4/13 (list approx $24k, trade in value 13.2K) on a 15 Justa hardtop (list 26.9K) in Jan of this year. Paid cash for the negotiated difference
#2- attempted to trade in said 15 Justa with 11K miles on the clock for a 15 Roadster. The trade in value was 17K!!! Nearly 10K off sticker in less than 6months! No deal, bought the roadster outright. Glad I did.
My take, used MINIs are not worth much! Apparently the bad vibes from the disastrous problems, real or perceived, of the early gen 2 cars are coming home to roost & dump on resale values
Seems that long term ownership would the best option financially
As for me,I will trade every 30K/3years. The Roadster I will keep longer, a really unique car in my book. Ownership sure gives you more options than leasing
Good luck and all the best!

 

As much as I love it, my Mini will be gone before the new car warranty runs out.

 

I had my E46 for nearly 14yrs with remarkable reliability, so I'm hoping this will last me at least half that.

 

I purchased vs lease as it was cheaper. When the car gets close to the end of the new car warranty I will be looking for a new big boy toy. I really want a new Corvette

 

Leasing really depends on timing. The standard leases are nothing special but when Minu bumps the residual and does a incentive on the rate its very attractive. I am Mini employee so leasing us the only way for us to buy IMO. Mini/BMW takes good car of its people on leases.

 

Not past the warranty. I tend to go through cars faster than women go through shoes unfortunately. I'm already eyeing the F54 Clubman and will likely trade my F56 in shortly after they're released.

 

Hi JamesDean,

Since you work at MINI, do you happen to know, roughly:
(1) How many % of customers buy their leased cars at the end of lease?
(2) Excluding lease returns, what is the average age of MINI's being traded in?

Would you also comment on the trade-in value in general of MINI's that are 4 years or older? For example, 40% original MSRP for a 5 years old. I know it depends on many factors, but perhaps there is some kind of rule of thumb for a typical trade (clean body and interior, no mechanical problem, no accident, <60,000 miles)?

The reason why I am interested in all these information is that, if the depreciation of the second 3-year is roughly the same as (or worse, higher than) the first 3-year, I might as well put myself in a new car every 3 years, not be mention the maintenance costs and uncertainty of out-of-warranty repairs. Make sense?

 

I tend to keep cars forever. I still have my first car, purchased at age 17. it is currently undergoing a frame up restoration. I currently have six cars four are road worthy.

I do all my own work on my cars, unless it is free dealer maintenance or warranty work.

It was kind of a relief when my MINI went out of warranty. I feel better that no one else will be wrenching on it.

My MINI has only had it's free maintenance and a couple of recalls done by the dealer otherwise, it has not cost me a dime for maintenance.

Dave

 

I'll keep mine 7 years or so.

 

Our plan is to keep the car as long as the factory warranty is active. After 4 years we will either buy another (this is our first so all depends on our experience with this one) or trade for something else.

 

You can follow the depreciation of used MINIs on kbb (among other sites). While the following is not an guarantee of future results and MINIs (and packages) do vary year to year it should give you a reasonable estimate of MINI deprecation over time.

2015 Cooper S Hardtop - sport, premium, cold - $29,150 MSRP, $28,202 fair value
2012 Cooper S Hardtop - sport, premium, cold - $17,488 buy (62%), $13,933 sell (49%)
2009 Cooper S Hardtop - sport, premium, cold - $11,538 buy (41%), $8,200 sell (29%)
(%s are off $28,202 fair value)

 

Thank you for taking the time to research on kbb. This data is indeed what I was looking for when I started this thread. It is very much appreciated. My takeaways are:

1. Using "sell" as trade-in value (and understanding the variance which you mentioned), it appears that, if you purchase the car and trade it in 3 years later, the depreciation would be 51%, or 17% per year on average. Ouch!

2. Keep the car for 3 more years, and the additional depreciation would be only 20%, or 6.7% per year, which brings the average depreciation over 6-year of ownership down to just under 12% per year. Very nice!

3. If you keep the car for yet another 3 years, and assuming it depreciates additional 18%, or 6% per year. Under this scenario, the 9 years-old MINI would worth only $2,820 and the average depreciation would be 10% per year. The margin of saving is clearly diminishing.

4. The above 3 scenarios seem consistent with the common sense in that the longer you keep, the lower cost it becomes.

5. On the other hand, a 3-year/36,000 miles lease program usually is based on a residual value of around 60% of MSRP, give or take a few points. Assuming you get 4% off sticker price, that translates to annual depreciation around 12 to 13% per year, which is similar to that of a 6-year ownership.

Of course, there are many other factors to consider, such as interest rate/money factor, acquisition/disposition fees, maintenance/repairs/extended warranty costs, insurance, etc. Everybody's situation/priority is different, so each will draw his/her own conclusion. Nevertheless, the data you provided does paint a general picture which is very helpful. For that I thank you again!

 

You are very welcome. I went back and forth and back and forth myself. For me doing the lease basically meant paying $3,500-$4,000 to guarantee a very good price on a 3-yr trade in.

But in the end I realized that I have never owned a car that I wanted to sell in 3 years. I've had a few that I wanted to sell in the first year. But most of them I wanted to drive until they stopped running (or other circumstances forced their sale). So I am now the full and complete owner of my new MINI.

 

2007 MCS new: $30,000 purchased 4/07
Traded in at Mini 4/14: $7500 with 77k miles. Depreciation: 10.7%/year for 7 years.
Out of warranty expenses: set of nonRF tires: $500. Front brakes/master cylinder: $650. I might have been able to get $9k private sale, but part of the center display was not lighting up correctly, and the rear brakes were getting close to needing replacement. . The rest of the car was fine.

 

Thanks, BigNewt! Great info and very encouraging!