Looking to Leave Porsche

Well, after less than 12 months of leased ownership, I'm thinking of leaving the Porsche fold. I find myself needing the cargo and people-moving capacity of a larger car or SUV. This is particularly disappointing since I spent numerous trips to the dealer to get every single creak and groan worked out (which was successful!) and installed one helluva great stereo system! If anyone is interested or knows someone who might be interested in taking over my lease, it is a 2003 (bought from Newport Beach Porsche in late December 2002) 996 coupe. Slate grey with black full leather, manual, PSM, 18" wheels and a few other things. Immaculate condition, properly broken in by the book (also had an oil change just 'cause I'm ****) and now with 3600 miles. My lease payments are $1230/month for 36 months. This car is fantastic - I wish I could keep it and get an SUV!!! I'll get killed if I sell it back to the dealer. I'll either go private party or just keep it for the lease term and "suffer" Happy to discuss off-line. Cheers, Eric

$1230/month and you don't even own the car...woah! You caould keep the 996 and buy a "cheap" SUV. If not, at least get a Cayenne

ER996, check out this site: http://www.swapalease.com/ A friend of mine successfully unloaded his Saab when he got called on active duty, and took over someone else's Volvo when he came back.

Silver996 - Thanks for the tip on Swapalease! I'll definitely try it. If it doesn't work out, I guess I'll just have to keep driving it! ER

er996-the problem that you have is that most people would not want to assume your lease. a car similar to yours could be leased new now for under $1000/month, 36-39 months, all taxes included. my suggestion, for what it's worth-keep your car and lease an inexpensive suv. take advantage of any deal that you can find. i would think that in order to make swap-lease work for you, you would have to offer a large cash inducement, almost $10-15,000. for that money, you can lease a cheaper suv, taking advantage of low leasing prices, and have both. obviously, a slightly expensive situation, but maybe your best situation. remember, the resale value of your 996 is not great, so any attempt to terminate the lease will leave you way upside down. just one more peice of advice-next time you lease, be careful. you overpaid significantly for your 996. turbos are now going for 14-1500/month, all taxes paid for 3 years. i hope that you get a chance to enjoy your 996.

Bummer, no matter how you look at it!

that sums it up, don.

Another option would be to refinance your 996 into a much more favorable lease, then take the saved cash and buy something like a used Grand Cherokee. Check out www.leasecompare.com . They have some great rates from national banks. -Paul

ettsn-won't work. he has to break his original lease to do this, hence the large negative equity. if your idea held water, everyone would be refinancing leases as money factors and residuals changed.

Donjackson - Thing is, the original lease wasn't really that bad a deal. The sticker was around $83-84k (car is pretty loaded and the slate grey was expensive!) and the cap cost (what I paid) was around $78k. $5k off seems to be going rate for the West Coast. The lease is through Chase, which is usually the best bank if one's credit is good enough (other than some kind of factory-subsidized lease program which obviously doesn't apply to Porsche!). I put $5k into total drive-offs which because they waived security deposit, ended up being about $3k in cap cost reduction. Result was $1234/month. I don't think the deal istself is bad compared to the market for this car 36 mos, $5k down, etc. I agree with you that I'll be upside down for a while in this one. I've had a number of other leases before and unless one puts a LOT of cash down (never a good idea for a lease in my opinion) you're usually upside down for most if not all of the lease. I expect that towards the end of next year, the net cost of me getting out of this one will be $5-6k which I might be willing to swallow. Either way, if no one is interested in taking it over, I'll be hanging on to it for a while!

Or, I could probably get the original dealer to give me a good enough deal on the trade-in to get a Cayenne...

Unfortunately you got a bad deal, last Aug I leased a brand new 2002 Turbo X50 for $1396 a month (36 months) including sales tax, only upfront was the luxury tax, less than $3K. Car had a MSRP of $144K, and my lease was also through Chase. It sounds like the dealer marked up your financing rate significantly.

The painful truth. Ouch!

May not be that bad a deal and I am not trying to flame you, but to put things into perspective, I put about $2500 down and my tax credit from my previous car was $5600. In other words I only paid tax on the difference between by trade value and agreed price of new car. Anyway, I own a 2003 996 TT and my payment is less than yours on a balloon through Porsche finance. The terms are 48 months, but becuase it is a balloon and not a lease, I can sell or trade at anytime without penalty. I extended it to 48 months it only lowered the payment by $50 but, I won't have the car more than 18-24 months so I will never pay the extra interest. Anyway, just my $.02 -Lou

ER, That sounds like a very high lease to me for a NA 996, I think you will have a tough time getting out of it but in any case good luck.

Leases SUCK Seems like its cost you about $4.33/mi so far You have averaged 450/mi a month or 15mi a day for 8 months It's beyond me why people buy into a car that they do not drive and with the depreciation meter running at its strongest, then squrim to wriggle out of an upside down situation For me the pleasure is in driving!

ARGH!!! The truth will not set you free! I didn't think the lease deal was that bad until I saw some of yours! Please don't tell me about another TT lease for $499/month with no money down. It's killing me! Sounds like I'll be driving this for a while. I put it up on Swapalease (with pictures) just to see what happens. Thankfully, I do love this car (it's just not as practical as I thought I could deal with day to day). Best to "drive it like I stole it" for the remainder of the term - or at least until the end of next year when I'll be less upside down. I can think of worse things than driving a beautiful 996 for another year or so! As a matter of fact, as soon as I realized how upside down I was over last weekend, I immediately drove up to Malibu in the canyon roads and gave it a good workout. That did remind me why I bought this thing to begin with! At least my wife and I have another year to go before we plan to have kids, so I should enjoy this while I can! Maybe I'll go back to thinking about adding a subwoofer. As long as I'm throwing money away, I might as well crank the bass!

while your lease sounds fairly heinous relative to a new one on a new car, are you sure you can even have someone assume your lease? at least one lease company said that a CA lease can't be assumed inside CA, but only in the other states.

er-whether you got a good or bad deal, doesn't now matter. what is true is what you realize-you are way upside down. even with 6 months left to go in the future, you may owe north of $5000, depending on the wording in your lease. you certainly could try a cayenne, especially from a dealer who is loaded with cayennes and extremely motivated to move one. if that doesn't work, and it may not, probably best option is to keep lease to term and pick up suv from some manufacturer at cheep financing/lease. good luck.

ER996, I have a 96 Land Cruiser for sale. Nicely loaded. Drop me an Email if you are interested