It's often a better decision to lease even if you aren't going to return because you get ~4 years of free insurance should something happen to the vehicle or should your life plans change, you aren't on the hook for anything. Maybe you get into a major accident 2 years in that was $1 away from a write-off so the insurance company decides to repair it, now instead of being stuck with a pile of garbage with a $25K repair bill that nobody wants, you don't have to worry about it at all. I think a lot of people either don't understand how huge of a perk this is or how that works. Or maybe 2 years in you decide you want the new model that just came out. There is just so much flexibility.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Leasing is better in most scenarios IMO. Even if you plan on keeping the vehicle forever, you might as well enjoy the protections of a lease as long as you can, then just buy it out at which point you can either pay cash or finance the balance if you want to continue with payments.
Acceptable wear & tear is also quite generous on most leases. The main things you can't do are return it with tires below 50% or a cracked windshield, everything else is pretty generous in terms of rock ships, scratches, swirl marks, door dings, etc. If you know you have kids and a trailer that are going to be really hard on the vehicle, that is an ideal case for leasing.
The only time a lease really doesn't make any sense is if you are an extremely high KM driver. At the end of the day though it's a TCO calculation, sometimes there are huge incentives that make financing more attractive, but you still get all the risk.