USA Car Ownership

Conanius

Conanius

Conanius

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
12,904
Hi All,

One of the guys in our office is about to head out to do a tour in the US. He will end up doing 2 years guaranteed, with a chance to extending to 3 years by mutual consent.

He's obviously absolutely head over heels about it all, but isn't sure how best to have a car out there. He really does need one, and 'all' the office does is offer an interest free loan of £5k to go towards a purchase.

Off the top of my head, a 36 month lease seems to make sense, with it being 'easy' (?) to sell on the lease to someone else if he does end up back after 24 months. I don't think he fancies trying to get rid of the car via sale at the end of his tour...It also looks like leasing in the US is a lot bigger than it is in the UK.

He's asked me for my thoughts on cars, but in honesty I know very little about this market... Who knows good places to point him towards to read up on all this? Wondered if there were any good 'look here for great US lease deals !' sites. He'll be based in Washington DC if that makes any difference to anything :)

So, other than LOL MUSTANG, help that I can pass on would be ace :)
 
Contrary to popular belief in this country, the US used market for high end european cars such as V8/12 Mercedes, Range Rover, V8/V12 BMW's is almost as good as ours is.

Given that he is there for a fixed period and the environment will be new to him, i would take full advantage over the relatively low price of petrol compared to that which he is used to, and go for something which he would otherwise struggle to own this side of the Atlantic. The support market of specialists is if anything better than here too, running one will be no bigger deal than it is here.
 
Sorry Jez, are you suggesting buy outright and a nearly new/second hand then ?

He's not going out until June, but wants to work out what is is after now. I guess with that approach (finding the right second hand car) that might be a shade more challenging.
 
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Yeah why not? The used market there is fantastic, almost as good as ours infact. He should take advantage of the temporary relatively low fuel costs which he will feel while he is over there.

Really though, it depends on his attitude towards cars, what he drives here would say a lot about him...
 
Jez said:
Yeah why not? The used market there is fantastic, almost as good as ours infact. He should take advantage of the temporary relatively low fuel costs which he will feel while he is over there.
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From what he was saying to me, the real concern is at the end of it all not having a challenging sale situation. I guess worst case he walks into the main dealer and takes a trade in price for it if it got desperate.

Whats their version of auto trader so he can take a look at what is out there?
 
Auto trader :D

Re the resale, a used car like the above will likely have a lower TCO than a lease agreement even if he slashes the value to shift it quickly.
 
Would he even get credit for a lease, i remember in Canada to get a credit card i had to put $1000 down :eek:
 
Sone said:
Would he even get credit for a lease, i remember in Canada to get a credit card i had to put $1000 down :eek:
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no idea, and a great question really.

He's already decided he will be selling his car here, opposed to leaving it in storage for 2-3 years (I'd imagine he will get about 10k for his current car) so putting down some cash won't be a huge issue to him I recon.

I would have thought everyone would be screaming lease a car, but it doesn't look that way !
 
I think leasing a car will be throwing money away, when he could buy second hand and have money at the end (even with trade in)
 
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