Leasing will also make sense if you're putting a ton of miles on your new car--like 40-50K miles over 2 years.
Porsche only penalizes you 25 or 30 cents per mile over the alotted amount (the same as a toyota Camry, for example)....
So in the example above the person would pay $55K to lease his C4S for two years, with 24K miles total (12K miles/year). However, if he drives it an extra 20K miles, he pays a penalty of only $5,000 or $6,000 extra.

So, to summarize, paying $55K dollars over 2 years to drive 24K miles is A LOT of money. Paying $60K dollars over 2 years to drive 44K miles is a lot better deal-- if you're a high milage driver. Financially-speaking, it almost equals buying, since if you'd bought it you'd take a huge hit on trying to sell or trade-in a Porsche with 44K miles.
Porsche is literally giving away those extra miles for nothing. As a comparison, a Lambo of F-car charges $2-$3 dollars per mile extra vs. Porsche's $0.25 cents.

 

He will also have to put new tires , brakes , tons of routine service , to turn that car in to proper return spec . Imagine paying aton of money to do all that and hand them a higher mile but otherwise pristine car without using all those items replaced . Then he faces having to start this all over again !!

No bargain to me.

 

I use the term "rent" only to denote lack of ownership and realize there is a difference between apartment rental and auto leasing . BUT . one has to split hairs to point at those differences and there is no shred of doubt when ones name is on a cars title.

One more thing while on the subject of "financing" --
I live in Miami . If one looks at this city there are many beautiful new cars yet the average salary here is pathetic proportioned to the cost of living . The vast majority of those cars are leased many of which are by guys in their 20's and early 30's who earn 30-40K a year and still live with their parents !!!! In short they never grow up and in many cases their parents even help them pay the lease and their grandma cooks for them after they go out to the South Beach clubs . It is the essence of how far "399 a month" can go !!! Even more humorous is to hear them boast about how their parents live with them (rather than the reverse).

I believe leasing makes no sense even to the person who can afford it but to the individual to leases for mere pretentiousness it is a step in the direction of revealing complete irresponsibility.

 

That is very true, that he wouldn't get full use of replacement items that he paid for.
The positive side of the ledger is he's driving huge miles on those Porsches over the years, but never has to worry about going past warranty and incurring a huge unexpected expense.

 

It is the first time I have heard of “MRM” Maximum Residualized MSRP, but that is not surprising as I usually buy (and have a bad habit of keeping) all my cars and not leasing. I checked with the sales rep and he has provided screen shots of the leasing system showing similar numbers to what Michael_s was saying. The reason for wanting to lease –vs- purchase was to keep cash flow higher at my company (this is a company car). But based on what I am understanding, I might just have to buy the car if I want it to make the most financial sense. Thanks everyone for the discussion and feedback!

 

Another aspect of leasing vs. buying is purely a psychological one.
I am very Type A personality, and I've discovered that, thus far, I don't worry about my leased
991 C2S nearly as much a my previously bought Porsches. I drive it harder (after warm-up), redline it more, and don't obsess nearly as much where I park it.
How much is peace of mind worth?

 

If this were a BMW where the cost is about 4 grand Vs purchase on a 3 series then I still would argue the 4 grand but would have less ground to base my position .

But with a 139K 991 the gap is more than double of what it would cost with an outright buy . Using his numbers its 56 grand plus service, brakes , tires , and any cosmetic repair . We are talking nearly 80 grand to drive this car for 20K miles a year . Mind you .. if he gets sick or the car is in the repair shop then the time lapse is still costing him enormous money .
Imagine if a person leases a 991 and ends up in the hospital long term then what ? At least if he bought it the car just sits and even though it depreciates he comes home to a new car that he can keep until he decides to sell it (not when they want it back).

 

The most expensive penalty is leasing, then buying out the car at the end of the lease because you love it so much! At that point, it's better to just buy a new one or a CPO'd used one than to buy out the one you leased, unless they miraculously give you a great deal.

 

+1 on the MRM good info to have. i always lease have never run into the MRM great to know!

 

I can't help but think that taking into account the possibility of getting sick is overanalyzing a bit haha...

The base leases better due to the residuals. I am paying roughly 30k tax included to put 36,000 miles on my 102k msrp base. I find this to be a great value, particularly considering I am just shy of the 40k service, and my 10k service was negotiated into the deal.

Truth be told, if the 12 month pull ahead program is still in place next april, I may jump ahead depending on the lease program in place and whether or not my tires/pads etc are brand spanking new or not.

 

This is an interesting thread and there are some great points being made on both sides that I hadn't thought about. I'm trying to decide wether to lease or buy...

One thing I didn't see come up is sales tax. If you buy, in California you have to pay I think 9.5%. So shouldn't this come out to well over $10k on a new 911 S? Factor that in with depreciation, is leasing really more expensive?

I thought with leasing you have to only pay sales tax on the amount paid, not the total amount of the car.

So I was under the impression that buying makes sense if you intend to keep the car a while, that way the hefty tax is justified.

What do you guys think?

 

In the situation of the OP, seems like the MRM is the big factor that may make you want to buy your 911. I know I wouldn't want to pay for those options in full, then give the car back in two years.

 

sales tax has to be paid on the monthly amount (not sure what would happen if you paid a lot in cap reduction though).

spoke with the dealer today, 911 priced out to $102k would run about $1150/mo with $5-6k down. Even though i know this number isn't high considering the price of the car, I still get sphincter pucker when I think about paying that much month regardless which car.

 

Well that is not a particularly aggressive deal imho. Assuming it is a c2 base given the price. I was at 1150 per month with nothing down and 15k per year. Which included a 6.5% discount and the base rate .002. I should mention I used the 2400 conquest incentive to cover tax upfront.

Dealers are always quick to give you a payment that sounds effective by raising the cap reduction. Then they say something like, "5k down, which isn't bad on a 100k car, yada yada yada" But its a huge deal on a short lease, we are talking 20% of the entire cost over two years lol. At least in my experience with the first stages of negotiations. My salesman just forwarded me directly to the finance manager at the end of the deal, at which point he told me nobody ever had the payment down to the penny coming in before. I then explained I had a stack of finance degrees and this was as straightforward a calculation as they come. He said his education was not in finance but he knows cars. They gave me the deal and moved on.

 

You, eloquently, put into words the reason I didn't come home with a 911. When I asked why a down payment was required, the sales person said it was to reduce the payment on an already-generous residual. He didn't have a response when I asked if he could also reduce the price of the car by the down payment (about 5%).

Carsmyvice, I'd be interested to know your purchase history with Porsche and your dealer.