Have any of you used this finance option? Balloon payments scare the crap out of me, but boy were they laying it on thick at the dealership about this plan. Yes it lowers monthly payments to my sweet spot, but again, balloon payment. They said basically the mini's trade in value will take care of that...

 

To go a lil further, they said something like "I'd say probably 40% of our deals go out on this plan."

My answer to that was, "ARM mortgages were real popular too a few years ago..."

 

That's what I think of when someone talks about financing like this. It basically comes down to you, do you feel like you will have the money available to make the balloon payment? I personally would take standard financing, you never know what will happen in the future, that money just might not be there when you need to make the payment.

Oh and that 40% number sounds like bs, I wouldn't pay attention to it.

 

That's why I walked last night without a car. They said they were going to work on it further today and call me back (it's the last day of the month, so you never know).

Anyway, they stressed that though I will owe approx $14k on the Countryman S at the end of the term that the car's trade-in value will be pretty close to that so I would probably not be upside down very much. But that sounds like a lot of finger crossing going on in 5 years.

The thought of paying something to the end of term and not owning it bothers me...

 

I know what you mean, that's why I can never bring myself to lease a car.

I don't know how they can say that, there is no way to really tell what a 5 year old Countryman's trade-in value will be, it's to new of a car. It's like you say, there would be a lot of finger-crossing. That's something I definitely wouldn't feel comfortable with.