Leasing vs. Renting

Leasing vs. Renting

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was considering leasing a Subaru as opposed to renting a 4WD for the weeks that I need to travel to Bend. Some months back, I saw Subaru ads that offered a lease at $119 per month for 10,000 miles per year, and $199 per month for 12,000 miles per year. By comparison, renting a 4WD from Enterprise costs me $275 for a week (including tax).

I didn't pay careful attention to the rest of the lease details (amount down, for example) because I wasn't really in the market at the time. Now I was trying to see if might make more sense to lease a Subaru, even for 36 months. If the monthly cost and initial payment was small enough, it might make sense to do that rather than rent a 4WD for alternate weeks driving to Bend. There is a possibility that a job will open up in Boise in the meantime--perhaps changing the equation. Or I might talk my current contract employer into letting telecommute full-time. The net result is that leasing had to be substantially cheaper than renting, because renting involves no long term commitment.

I made some calls to the local Subaru dealers this evening. One salescritter I reached on the phone did the traditional song and dance--pretending to be interested in knowing more about me, avoiding direct answers to questions about leasing costs, and when his finance manager got back to me, he was still astonishingly vague on what a lease would cost: "under $300 a month."

By comparison, Tony at Larry Miller Subaru in Boise wins the award for being straightforward. I told him what I was trying to find out, and within 20 minutes, he was back to me with a quote: $900 upfront, and $256 a month for a 36 month lease, 10,000 miles per year. This is exactly what I needed to make a decision about lease vs. rent, and if I decide to buy or lease a Subaru in the future, I'll give Tony first shot at it.

At this point, because of the uncertainty of whether I will need a 4WD long-term--or perhaps only for another month or two--it makes more sense to spend the extra money to rent a vehicle, knowing that I am not tied to it. A rental is someone else's maintenance and repair headache, and if it breaks down somewhere, or has problems, the rental agency gets to deal with it, instead of me having to arrange an appointment for warranty work.