Buy or move on?

You can buy a new 2015 Prius 2 for close to that money with 0 miles, I believe.


Edit: Excuse me, I did not realize you had a year and 3 months, I was thinking 3 months.

 

Sounds like early termination of the lease might cost you more than it's worth. You might be able to ride out the lease with the extra mile fees costing you the least. After the lease is finished the Honda sounds like a good choice.

 

For an individual owner, a lease is almost ALWAYS a bad financial deal.
There are about a hundred different ways you can come out short and almost none where you will really be well off at the end.

This is not a wild guess on my part and it not open for debate.
Any competent independent financial advisor or accountant will tell you the same thing.

 

OK....
I'll save you the financial lecture on fleecing a car, since you've already completed the theory-to-practice exercise for this topic.

There are two key remaining advantages that this car has over the zillion other two-year-old, 30,000 mile cars on the planet.
1. You KNOW the car's history.
2. If you keep them for 10 years or so, not many cars are as cheap to own as Priuses are.

If you buy (or fleece) another new car you will be squandering both of those remaining advantages!!
SO....
Let's presume for now that 20K is a reasonable price for a used '13 G3 with 30,000 miles on the clock.

Here's what I would do:
Negotiate a buy out price with Toyota's fleecing department. I'm not sure how it works, but since Toyota is offering (bad) terms, I presume that they will be bought out of the fleece.

I'd go to a credit union or a regional bank and get a loan to pay off the G3 TODAY.
My credit union is lending at 1.4% for cars up to 2 years old. Yours seems to qualify.
I would negotiate a car loan for the shortest term that you can afford, and use the 8 thou that's burning a hole in your pocket to pay off any other non-mortgage debt that you have or (GOD forbid!) put it into a rainy-day fund.

I don't want my car payments to be "comfortable!"
CAR COMPANIES and BANKS want car payments to be comfortable!!!

I want my car payments to be very UNCOMFORTABLE.
I want to break out in a cold, jittering sweat at the thought of stroking a check to those sniveling bastards.....longing for the day that I will be FREE from car payments.....house payments.....etc.

One last thought.
Can you change your own oil?
If so.....you can probably change out the traction battery in your G3...and you can get them re-manufactured and with a warranty for somewhere around $1200.
If you take $1200 of the $8000 that we talked about earlier and shoved it into the bank against future battery failures, then you're self-insured against this very unlikely failure and you can drive worry-free.


Good Luck!

 

if you're in it simply for the economics, the prius was a bad choice to begin with. get the accord and keep it until it dies.

 

if you're in it simply for the economics, the prius was a bad choice to begin with. get the accord and keep it until it dies.

 

it's not a good economic value, if you're trying to save money. of course, a pre owned anything would be better than another new vehicle.

 

It doesn't make sense to pay $4000 more for a car 15 months early. That is assuming your monthly lease is no more than $4000/15 months = $267 a month. A 2013 Prius Persona is going for about $21000. Your residual sounds like a good deal. I wouldn't worry about the battery. There are very few failures and the ones that do have failures occur at 150k+ miles. That's like 10 more years of ownership at your usage. Keep the car for 9 years if you are nervous. Also, the Accord might not have a traction battery but it has other more frequent maintenance items. I don't know costs but I'm willing to bet if you look up cost of ownership, a Prius will be less than an Accord.

In summary, if your lease payments are under $267, I would wait until end of lease to purchase and continue to build up your downpayment. I would not purchase an Accord. As Bisco said, a preowned anything is better than another new vehicle.

 

keep the Prius until the end of the lease, then buy it and drive it until the wheels fall off, it's a great car, so enjoy it and I hope you learned the financial facts of life about leasing.