My wife's 04 Mini Cooper S is nearing its end of lease. Its due to be turned in July 08. Initially we planned on buying it at the end of lease. Problem is we have an opportunity to purchase a 03 Infiniti QX4 driven by my parents for a price that is way too good to pass up. We're also likely to be having a kid in about a year so the Mini isn't very practical for the wife. So basically the MCS has to go. We can't afford to buy it and the Infiniti (I wish we could). So the question is what to do? I don't want to make $392 monthly payments until July 08. I can purchase the lease out right now for $16,400. The MCS is well equipped (no NAV, cloth seats though) with roughly 38K miles. What do you think the chances are that I could sell this thing privately at a price thats worth the hassle? Is there any chance Carmax would offer a price good enough to make it worth it? Any other ideas?

 

i would definitely try CarMax. make sure your leasing company is
okay with selling the car before the lease ends. some companies have
a lock-down period where you can't sell the car within the 6-12months
from end of lease... so i read.

 

I just bought my 2004 MCS with 24k miles for $16.8k in Chicagoland. You probably could do better but it looks to be a bad time of year to sell in the Ohio/MI/IL area

 

I would check with the lease company. When I leased my MCS the company I leased thru said its pretty standard to get a better price (buyout) than the buyout price in the contract. He told me its not uncommon to get a couple of grand off.

 

If you buy-out the lease in Ohio you must also pay state sales tax on the purchase price. If you are in Franklin County that will be an additional 6.5% of the purchase price. Carmax can buy the car from you but they can not buy the car from the leasing company unless the full term of the lease has been exhausted. Please keep that in mind before you make a contract to purchase the car...then sell it to Carmax or anyone else.