UPDATED in POST 22


I am looking to get a new Daily Driver as my lease is up. I hoping you guys can help me fast tract a decision on the following if you have experience. Thanks and I apologize in advance for side tracking this forum, but you guys have always provided great advice.


Current daily driver (lease 39 Month) is a Infiniti AWD M37X Sport/Tech/Premium/touring and I am very happy with it. my Lease is up 3/1. I called the dealer to run numbers on another duplicate car in a different color combo and they have not made (many) the above combo for 2016 yet. And they are not available now. Ordered cars are 4-5 months away so now I'm shopping the competition. I also inquired about a lease extension if I do order a car but they are not wanting me to pile mileage on as I do. It makes it to hard to move my car after I return it if I go over 60K which I certainly will.


Looking to stay with a lease, sign and drive and keep the number in the mid to low 700 dollar range all in w/18K per year. I prefer a sedan but would consider an SUV. Needs to be safe, reliable, 4 door, seat 4 adults comfortably, decent trunk space, AWD & all weather capable (if I need to fit snow tires its not a deal breaker), fair gas mileage (meaning no gas guzzlers but not looking for hyper-miler either) as I drive quite a bit 18K a year at least. I like a sportier car, useful tech (Nav and Bluetooth for phone w/ great voice control interface, blind spot detection, DSC, front crash avoidance, heated/cooled seats and heated wheel (yup- got spoiled))) as well as something fun to drive. My Infiniti met all the above but now that I shopping I wanted some opinions.


Would do a 36 or 39 month lease.


This is doable with the:


Lexus GS350 AWD F Sport everything but Mark Levinson stereo (hard to find),


A6 Premium Plus 2.0, Audi care 36 months pre paid maintenance, S line package plus rear side airbags (cannot believe these are not standard.) I'm driving it this weekend to see if the 2.0 is peppy enough for me. I hope it is, but my current car is 330 HP and this is 225. I hope the Audi engineers figured out how to make it perform LOL.


Anything else I am missing that I should consider? The Q50 is a little too small for my needs but a nice car all the same.


Anyone have any good or bad experience with the above vehicles?


Thanks for reading and any advice.

 

I prefer the Lexus styling over Audi

 

The 2.0 in the audi will not be enough power for you. It is very weak in such a big car

 

I picked up an '09 A6 Prestige 3.0T for a decent price and it has been fantastic as a daily driver.

IMO, go for the 3.0T supercharged engine. I had a VW with the same 2.0T engine in it and it weighed less than the A6 and it was sorely lacking in power.

 

I've got an Audi SQ5 that is fantastic. I love the styling, the technology and the driving experience offered by this small SUV. It's fantastic in winter conditions too. I don't know if it will meet your lease budget, but it might be worth a look. If not, then I agree with vrybad; get the A6 with the 3.0T engine.

 

Thanks for the response, How is the navigation?


Which engine to you have?


what type of range do you get on a tank? I do some long trips and that is important to me.


Thanks,

 

I think the navigation and technology is very good. It's linked to google, so you can search for destinations using google directly through the nav system. You can do this with voice control or manually enter it with the MMI control ****. It has live traffic updating, which can be helpful.

The SQ5 only has one engine available in the US, which is a 3.0T supercharged engine. It's rated for 354 HP, and it will hit 60 mph around 5 seconds. That's not bad for an SUV. I'm having a Milltek sport exhaust system installed soon (even though the stock exhaust sounds pretty good), and that might add a few HP.

I'm not sure of the range. The SQ5 is the performance oriented version of the Q5, so that's not really where it shines. It gets about 16 or 17 mpg in the city and low 20s on the highway.

If you like low-end torque and you want good range, then you might consider the diesel version of the Q5.

 

If looking for good lease deals, any reason why are you not considering BMW? They have the most highly subsidized leases in the premium market. 700 a month would get you a lot more car than a 4 cylinder A6, but YMMV.

 

The 5 that I like I cannot DD, the M5, it out of my price range and not an all weather.


The regular 5 series look fair to me and the car my brother had had the most unusable technology his was a 540I M Sport pack (not an M5). It was a few years back but they still use that **** that fights you lol.


Brake dust from hell is another reason.


I think that I should look, I'm just less than excited about them. Truthfully, the more I look the more I like my Infiniti.

 

Thanks, I love the whole S line of cars and I really want to push my budget higher but I have one in college now (1.5 years left), and starting in September it will be 2 in college so I need to control myself as far as monthly spending is concerned. I have saved for College all along, but it cost more than I expected. They got into great schools so I am happy but man is it expensive.


I'm Glad I have my Toy, BC I would not be jumping into that now.


I have 4 test drives set for tomorrow all at Audi a A6 2.0, A6 3.0 and a Q5 and A5 (the A5 is a crazy deal on a ordered car that the guy lost his deposit on to my advantage if I like it) Told salesman I would drive, but I really want a 4 door.

 

I just made a college tuition payment today! My youngest only has one semester left after this one. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel....

 

I am happy for you. Due to budget cuts, I have turned off the light at the end of my tunnel to $ave $ until i can actually see it, then ill turn it back on.


Once College is off my back Ill be relieved, then all I need it to have them get a real job so they can get off payroll lol. My oldest just landed a paying summer job and it looks like he is on the right track.


So one to go after that..... Good boys, hard working and smart so all they need to do it bust their a$$es and I hope it will pay off .

 

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. My oldest son graduated last year, with a good car (2012 Subaru) with no payment, as well as no student debt. He's a financial analyst in Denver and is totally off my payroll. Hopefully my youngest will have similar success. It's hardest when you have two in college at the same time. I had a two year overlap.

Hang in there... you'll see the light faster than you think!

 

Are you my long lost twin? I just came out of a 39 month lease for a 2013 M37x S - it was my third M class lease. I wanted a change & was looking at an A5 coupe or a GS 350 F Sport. I was very disappointed with the Audi - it drove nicely but lacked the creature comforts I enjoyed with the Infiniti. Ex. - steering wheel was manual tilt, sunroof was huge but only tilted, no easy exit for seat, no cooled seats, etc.
I ended up leasing a 2015 GS 350 F Sport 18k/year, $3900 out of pocket, 36 months - plus they paid off the remaining Infiniti payments to the tune of $2400.
The car is white with burgundy/black - blind spot monitor, parking assist - MSRP was $59k.
It was a demo with just about 4,000 miles - I worked them hard to make it happen at these numbers. Overall I'm extremely satisfied with the car, it is much quieter than the Infiniti. It comes with Lexus Enform which allows you to start, lock, unlock, etc using your smart phone. The a/v screen is huge and is split into two separate sections allowing you to see the radio info on one side and the hvac on the other. It has just over 10k miles now and I'm very happy with it - still have the Infiniti until early March.
Good luck and PM me if I can answer any specific questions.

 

None of them!


Sorry Brett and OP, I un-educationally disagree.

I don't get leasing and never have. I guess I drive my cars to much to understand and if I didn't, I wouldn't understand its true value to me. I guess I like the fact of owning 100% of my vehicles.


Can someone here explain the financial reasoning behind "Leasing a car?"


I'd rather play with the stock market than drive the newest Porsche/ BMW/ Mercedes 16' model.

For my home, I recently was thinking of the off-grid ($3K Tesla system(10year warranty))" for an even more future savings in case I was ready to retire.

BTW, I'm 34. I am open to any advice.