drmarco

OK this is it.........I have made my mind up that I must be driving a 550 by January/Feb. Problem is, my lease on the 2004 530 will still have about 18 months remaining. What options do I have, or better yet, what is this going to cost me in terms of penalties, etc? Any advice is appreciated - the V8 envy is driving me mad!!!!

SergeyM

Wait till lease end. The M-package may become available for 550 in 2007/08. Otherwise it is simple. Lease pay off - trade in value = negative equity. If you did not put any money down originally then your negative equity should be around $5-7K with 18 months remaining on the lease. You will have to either come up with $5-7K to cover the negative equity or roll it into the new lease ($170-$210 per month)..

my530i

I prefer to wait until 2007 for facelifted model which will have more goodies add in like new SMG, tach and gear number on HUD, blah blah blah, maybe?

UPENN545

Theres no facelift untill at least 2009

tcmalibu

You might want to check out www.leasetrader.com
If you have a decent lease and your mileage is OK, you may very well be able to find someone to simply take over your lease and you walk away. If you didn't put $$ down, you can walk away with minimal loss. It all depends on how badly you have to have that 550....We all know how bad that 'New Car Jones' can be!

tcmalibu

teutonictrio

You might want to check out www.leasetrader.com
If you have a decent lease and your mileage is OK, you may very well be able to find someone to simply take over your lease and you walk away. If you didn't put $$ down, you can walk away with minimal loss. It all depends on how badly you have to have that 550....We all know how bad that 'New Car Jones' can be!

tcmalibu
[/quote]

How come I was told by my dealer that the 550i isn't available for another 18 months? Is he off his rocker, or is it available in 'Jan/Feb' in Europe only? I thought I saw on there that it was available in November 05, and mentioned this to him, but he said that it was 18 months, as the 650i has to be sold first.

mclc26

You can also check out www.swapalease.com ...It seems to have a 'bigger audience' than leasetrader... You can also incentivize(sic?) potential 'swappers' by giving them some $ to bring the payment down for them to make it more attractive.

If you do an early lease termination, you can have them roll the negative equity balance into the payment, and maybe your dealer will eat some of the payments(as mine did) to put you in the new car...

MARCUS545

BMW leases are fully assumeable with a $450 fee. The Buyer gets approved or declined within 48 hours by BMWFS. The entire process takes about 3-4 weeks (why so long I have no idea but trust me it does). You should order lease assumption documents from BMWFS in advance and make some copies to give prospective buyers.

Depending on your payments and residual etc you may be able to get a buyer to give you some extra $$ as a part of the deal. If your payment is high or the market is soft you might have to pay them a little something to encourage them into the deal. i.e....you could pay the $450 assumption fee and their next payment as an incentive. It beats doing a trade in and losing thousands.

It took me 3 months in the autotrader to sell my 545 here in San Diego. I had a low price (much lower than the dealers) and the car was loaded. I think the lease incentives on the 2005 545 were so good that it hurt my resale. That said I had a low payment due to my Euro Delivery discounts and the buyer liked my payment. He even took the car as-is even though the tires needed to be replaced soon. (not a big deal but still $1200/set) Next time I'll look into swapalease...I've heard good reviews on this site.

Fullspeed

The V8 is very nice, but your 3.0L isn't chopped liver. Enjoy your car for the duration of the lease, then treat yourself to something nice (M5?) for your patience.