So you’re in the market for a new set of wheels. Deciding on buying or leasing a car can be a difficult decision to come to grips with. Nevertheless an important one because buying a vehicle is an expensive burden for most of us. With that said we need guidelines to help us decide on leasing a vehicle or buying one. We will explore the factors that should come into play with deciding on a leased vehicle or buying a car.

The first thing we want to do is make an evaluation of our current situation in life. What purpose are we getting this car for? Once we have a good picture of that we can move onto the details or checklist of deciding on a lease or not. Before we begin though we’ll warn you that we are not pro-leasing. The opinion of this writer and many others is that leasing a vehicle is something that is no longer practical to do.

Checklist Point 1: Leasing cars make’s most sense for business people. A business person needs a car that is always relatively new looking to drive clients around in. A lease makes it easy to always have a relatively new car. Another advantage for those using the car mainly for business reasons is the tax advantage. You can take a deduction on your taxes with the purchase of a leased vehicle. This will soften the blow of completely losing the vehicle at the end of the lease.

Checklist Point 2: Can you afford to lose later? A lease does have an initial lower price tag than a car you buy outright. However at the end of the lease you lose the car and will need to pay for something if you plan to keep driving. So are you financially in a position to do that? Can you take the hit of losing everything on the investment and buying something new? This is probably not practical for those of us in the low-middle income bracket.

Checklist Point 3: Since leased cars have a maximum amount of miles you are allowed to drive before a penalty will you be driving many miles? If you are planning road trips and putting many miles on the vehicle a lease may not fit for you. Leased cars are best used with heavy city miles. Not many miles put on the highways of the world.

Checklist Point 4: Many dealerships are no longer offering leased cars as an option for taking that new car home. They prefer you finance and buy the vehicle. Especially with a slumping used car market or things just being harder to sell during this economy. So consider this, you may not be able to find that car you want available to be leased at a dealership. It is especially difficult to find leasing options in smaller towns.

These are four checklist points to use in considering a lease. Analyze your current situation and life and weigh that with these checklist points.

Author Bio: Here are two options to consider instead of leasing a car: 1) Car Auctions – A car auction can put you in a relatively new car much cheaper than you would pay anywhere. 2) Free Car – A free car is better yet!

Category: Automotive
Keywords: cars,buying car,car leasing