subject: How To Minimize Penalties On Your Lease Vehicle?c [print this page] If you are currently driving a vehicle that is on a lease, you probably are aware of your lease obligations. Typically when the lease ends the lessee is allowed to drive 24000 km per year, any km overage will result in some form of penalty. The dealership will also expect you to return the leased vehicle in a reasonable condition, this means aside from years of normal wear and tear or minor scratches the vehicle should pass certification and emissions test without any problems. For example if you returned your leased vehicle with 96000 km with bald tires, you will likely to be penalized for the tires replacement cost. It is always a good idea to prepare yourself ahead of time, most of the manufactures do not care what brand of tires go on their vehicle, as long as they are four season tires and will pass safety standard. If you think your tires maybe low, you should definitely replace them before sending it back to the dealership. You can save quit a bit compare to the quote you will get from the dealership.
Another likely expense comes from the scratches and paint repairs, the rule of thumb is if the scratch is deep enough where you can feel the groove with your finger nails. You should consider repainting the body panel to avoid any penalty charges, some times depending on the brand of the vehicle's manufacture will allow you to get away with small amount of body damage. You can usually get away with small amount of damage if you are leasing an import vehicle such as Honda, Toyota or BMW. Any vehicle with a high resell value will receive less in penalty charges because portion of the penalty will be absorbed by the resell value itself. Many people today are still under the false impression if they don't use up all the kms allowed from the lease, they will be entitled to some kind of compensation from the dealerships. This scenario is extremely rare in real life; unless the km traveled on the vehicle is less than 20,000 km you will not see any equity from your lease.
If you are looking to refinance your lease, or pay the buy out amount for the vehicle, then you will not face any lease penalties at all. So the next time you are planning to return your leased vehicle, make sure all the major repairs are done prior to the end of the lease and don't be caught off guard with unexpected expenses.
