Here is a short, but true story about a new car lease gone bad. My ex-girlfriend’s dad entered a Luxury lease program a few years back. He made the number one mistake.
Taking the cheapest option available on the model vehicle he was interested in. Mr. anonymous we’ll call him, so he doesn’t break down my door in revenge. He’s still very bitter about this chain of events.
Mr A decided to lease instead of buying a new luxury automobile. This was due to the fact he was on a string of trading vehicles in every two or three years as he would grow tired of what he was driving quickly.
He justified getting the cheapest lease by saying it would be used in a secondary support roll and his primary vehicle would be his wife’s Grand Am which they owned outright.
He selected a beautiful luxury car and signed up for the shortest term and also the least amount of miles available being 8,000 miles a year and a total of 24,000 miles in the 3 year period. This is sometimes referred to as a special low mileage lease.
Lease programs will have different mileage caps as in a limit of miles you can drive without penalty. If you go over the mileage cap you can be charged fines for every mile you go over. Note that the lease company may cut you some slack if you are rolling over into a new contract.
Cheap Car Leases
Here is the meat and potatoes of this story. Mr. anonymous and his wife loved this luxury car. They went everywhere in this car. The grand am or the primary car sat in the driveway. They loved to be seen in their brand new luxury car. Well to make a long story short the vehicle had reached the 24,000-mile limit in just one year of driving and 2 full years short of the lease term.
Mr. anonymous then found out about the penalties and fines. He was infuriated by his stupidity and didn’t want to face the loosing proposition of the lost money. He approached me to help him with his problem.
He demanded that I disconnect the speedometer so he could continue to drive and not run up miles on the odometer. I explained that not only was this against the law but it would not work. The car maker has many built in deterrents to stop this type of cheating on the lease contract.
Cheating on a New Car Lease
I tried to explain to him the vehicle used the speedometer and odometer to receive a vehicle speed input for the computer and with no speed input the transmission would not shift out of first gear.
He didn’t believe me and got angry, because I wouldn’t assist in his fraud attempt. Well he figured out how to disconnect the speed sensor on his own and drove the car. Yes it would not shift out of first gear.
So if he wanted to drive this car, with a very low first gear ratio, he would have a top speed of about 15 mph. It would also not be good for the engine to rev that high for long periods of time.
Then Mr. anonymous tried a different approach to foil the new car lease restrictions. He asked me if he ran the car in reverse if the odometer would go backwards. I asked him if he saw the movie Ferris Buelers Day Off. He said no he hadn’t.
Well it didn’t work in the movie and I knew it wouldn’t work on his modern luxury car either. He again got angry with me and could not understand why I couldn’t help him. Yes he jacked the car up and ran it in reverse and no the mileage did not go backwards.
Mr. anonymous was stuck with the new car lease and all the rules that came with it. As a side note, the man was so angry about the whole situation he made his daughter break up with me after I declined.
So I never got to find out how much the penalties added up to at the end of his new car lease. I do know that the luxury car sat in his driveway for the last year of its lease term.
This story is a prime example of why you should gain an education in the art of the new car lease before signing on the dotted line. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the mass of paper work and loads of fine print. The beauty of a luxury car can be intoxicating to the point of hindering your best judgment.
Know what to look for and be knowledgeable about car leasing. If you found this story interesting please give us a share.
This next link takes you to a page I built that discusses what I consider the best information about car leasing on the internet. Plus view another story about a bad new car lease.
The best place to find out more about the information available at here is on the Start page for Auto-Facts.org.