Anyone ever purchased a previously leased viper?

ThinkingViper

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Looked at another viper today. Carfax came back clean. Waiting for dodge and my insurance company to open on Monday to run additional background check. The gentleman purchased this car on a 5 year lease. It's two years into the lease, and he's trying to sell it. I was under the assumption that once you signed a 5 year lease you were stuck with the payments for 5 years. Can people actually sell cars off in the middle of a lease (maybe I'm just naive, but I've never heard of such a thing)?

Of course, I would pay the lease company directly and not the seller, but he also mentioned that it would take 10 days for the leasing company (5th-3rd bank) to send me a clean title. Does anyone have experience buying or selling a leased car before the expiration of the lease? What should I beware of? Anyway to temporarily plate the car without a title, but with a bill of sale from 5th-3rd bank (I know, I should call the DMV but it's Saturday lol)?

I realize that a leased car could have the potential of not being taken care of properly. Are there any additional issues I should be aware of because this car was leased? Any difficulty transfering the remainder of the 3/36 max care warranty?

Oh, this was somewhat wierd; The car had expired plates (even though he let me drive it lol). When I asked why, the owner said he hadn't renewed the plates since they expired in November and he stored it over the winter. Now he's selling it and doesn't want to spend the $600.00 bucks to plate it. Any thoughts on this?

Any advice you care to share would be greatly appreciated. I realize I'm paranoid, but I've saved long and hard for this baby and I want to cross my t's and dot my i's.

Thanks in advance,
Cheryl
 

carguy07

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Most of the time there is a way to break a lease and pay it off early. Penalty is usually a good kick in the a$$. From what I remember, the bank will not sell the car direct to you. You would have to send the bank a check (including sales tax), the owner would get a clear title, then you would have to title it in your name, and maybe deal with tax again. Gift??? If it was me, I would try to get a friendly dealer involved to broker the transaction for a small fee. I think leasing company will sell to the dealer and you would avoid the double tax and risk of owner bolting with the car and title.
 

ViperJoe

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Lease and rental = it really aint mine so I'm driving the living shiit out of it, could have been the mantra of the lease holder. Just a thought...... <:)
 

SHADOW

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Re: Anyone ever purchased a previously leased viper?

Well, here is one thought - there are several 'high line' leasing agencies out there, that will lease Vipers and the like. Perhaps your seller is with a company like this, and now wants out of the lease, so they have encouraged him to find a buyer. These companies are less stringent than say leasing from the manufacturer.
 

Vreracing

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Re: Anyone ever purchased a previously leased viper?

I've leased 2 cars before. I have never lasted to the end of the lease. In both cases, there was a payoff which was similar to a car loan. One lease was with Chase Manhattan and one was with Porsche North America. Neither time did I have to pay any type of penalty.

As far as the upkeep of the car. I guess if you're a naturally destructive type of person, you will use the opportunity during the lease to abuse the car. Since in a lease you can get penalized for abuse of the car there actually may be an incentive to keep the car up nicer. Since the individual was originally planning on keeping it for 5 years, then I'm not sure he would abuse it significantly in the first couple of years since he'd have to keep it the whole time.

If he got a lease he had to make almost twice the amount of the lease per year, so he'd have to be making at least 140K a year. In that income range, I'm not sure you'd be a wild and crazy guy. Although from reading some of the postings on this board I'm not sure that's entirely true.

Bottom line in my opinion, its just another form of financing. I wouldn't be any more worried about this than any other 2 year old car. Not saying there won't be a problem and you shouldn't check the car out pretty carefully, but being that its a lease car wouldn't make me worry any more.

I know there are some sites out there which will let you assume leases. I've been tempted to lease a high end car for about a year just to see what it would be like.

Here's one of the sites.

http://www.leasetrader.com/auto/Login/index.aspx
 

ceieio

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Re: Anyone ever purchased a previously leased viper?

Leasing is just another way of financing a car. If you own a business it can be an advantage as you can take the lease payment off 100% as an expense; if you purchase you have to follow a depreciation schedule.

Also when you lease, you know that the vehicle is going to be inspected by an experienced inspector who is looking to make any coin off of you that you can... no trying to pawn it off on a naive buyer... tends to keep people more honest.
 
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ThinkingViper

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Re: Anyone ever purchased a previously leased viper?

Thanks for all who responded :)

My next step is to call the bank who leased the car directly to find out the particulars on the lease pay-off. Thanks for the heads up on the possibility of a double tax, that would be a deal killer.
 

ElDiablo Viper

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Re: Anyone ever purchased a previously leased viper?

First the bank will not talk to you about the lease since the contract is not with you. I broke from a lease on a Corvette to get a Viper. The payoff is the number of months X monthly payment + residual value. If he is selling a lease he most likely has to come up with $ to pay off the lease because 99% of the time the amount is higher than the value of the car. It is different if less than a year left on a lease.
 
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