Which is Right for You: Leasing or Financing

Have you decided whether to lease or finance a new/used vehicle purchase?

This is an essential question for most American drivers, and we’d like to offer our assistance. Island Subaru works with clients through both formats all the time, making us keenly aware of the pros and cons of each approach.

Leasing a Vehicle

This method essentially amounts to a long-term car rental scenario. Most folks will lease something, drive it for a few years, then return it. In this arrangement, you have an incentive to perform proper upkeep (washing and maintenance) because you’ll have to give it back in respectable condition.

However, since this typically involves newer vehicles, ones that are still under warranty, you won’t have to worry about worn parts (or costly repairs if something unexpected happens). The leasing terms come from forecasting a depreciation estimate, which relates to how much you expect to drive the car.

Advantages of Leasing

• Because of the predetermined depreciation estimates, leasing often involves lower payments, provided you don’t drive over 12,000 miles per year.
• This is also the better way to do it if you want to pay fewer taxes and drive a newer, less worn out, and generally safer car.

Financing a Vehicle Purchase

Whenever we refer to “financing” anything, it involves taking out a loan to pay for something in installments with interest accrual compounded onto the overall price tag. This, however, means you’ll own the vehicle, and possess the title deed. Like any other purchase you make using debt financing, it depends a lot on your credit worthiness (i.e., credit score). 

Advantage of Financing

• Once you pay off the principal and interest (APR), you own the vehicle and don’t have to make monthly payments any longer.
• Since it’s also yours, you can sell the vehicle, obtain equity for whatever you’ve already paid, and put that towards buying your next vehicle.
• Just like home ownership, there are certain long-term financial advantages to owning rather than merely renting. Of course, it all depends on your personal financial fitness, vehicle preferences, and other goals.

Island Subaru – Serving You With Numerous Financing/Leasing Options

When you work with our financing department, you’ll appreciate the variety of options available. We don’t believe in limiting our customers to just one or two programs, which is why we also do lots of buy/trade exchanges. You can learn more about it by assessing the value of your trade right here on our website.

There’s a lot more to financing a new/used car, so we look forward to meeting you at our Hylan Blvd showroom at Island Subaru. That could be your chance to drive away with a dependable new Forester, Crosstrek, Ascent, or one of several other fabulous models.

Want to learn more before visiting us?

Then call us anytime at 929-552-2313.

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