john981

I would love to hear the opinion and experience of the members here whether to buy or lease a Porsche, specifically the 718. How many of you have a leased car and how many do own your 718. I have currently a 981 which I bought used and I kind of wish I would have leased right away a 718 instead. Now I am looking for a 718 but still undecided whether to lease or buy. We all know Porsche is a performance car and the older the cars get the more maintenance will be required. Also when you are out of warranty you somehow play Russian roulette with these cars (e.g. catastrophic failure of the PDK, which will cost you 15k+). Owning over time sounds at the first sight cheaper but when you calculate all the maintenance and potential risks, leasing might be much more cheaper and on top of that you will get every few years a brand new car. I think the good old times of the bullet proof air cooled 911s are over where you could buy one and keep it forever therefore for now I tend to lease my next 718. Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

gatorfast

Ill say that in general, leasing is usually the most expensive method of vehicle ownership. It has numerous perks though, one of which (as you mentioned) is getting a brand new car every few years and always having a warranty. But in terms of net dollars spent it will almost always surely be the higher cost.

That said, I dont think 718's lease particularly well. From the deals I have seen posted here they seem to be quite expensive given the MSRP and typically low mileage offered. However, buying new will subject you to some of the extreme initial depreciation we have seen which is not ideal. But if you plan to keep the car for 5+ years then this may be less of a concern. This brings me to my recommendation - buy one preowned (preferably certified). You can likely find a low mileage vehicle with full warranty for tens of thousands less than new.

alex2364

Porsches are terrible for leasing because of their MRM (maximum residualizable MSRP). It limits the amount of options you can add to a car and have it fully residualized. If you want a car with a minimal amount of options, it could be a decent lease but I've found if you add options worth more than ~20% of the car's base MSRP, you'll be over the MRM.

ZXTT95

When you lease, unless it's subsidized in some way, you always pay the "extreme depreciation" as you would if you bought the car. Don't fall into the trap of assigning value to getting a new car every couple of years when valuing the lease. You could do the same thing by buying and selling, especially if you sell your car privately.

Also, do the math. What does it cost to buy a new car and keep it for six years, assuming two years of risk of up $15K (using your example) compared to leasing two or three cars over that time? Question is, what is the risk? I suspect lower than you think. For example, what if you assume a 1% PDK failure chance in the two years without warranty. With just two cars leased, you pay initial depreciation twice. So compare the two, one initial depreciation with a 1% chance of 15K extra cost vs two initial depreciations.

How do you account for that failure chance? You could calculate the worst case (ie. it happens) vs the odds case, where you have a 1% chance of 15K expense. One way to satisfy yourself could be to note that by buying one car you save enough in depreciation to pay for the worst case 15K expense. In 99% of cases, you keep that 15K, though.

I'd love to hear if others see things this way or differently.

subshooter

Leasing a car is like renting a house. Not worth it. Nor is it worth the feeling and satisfaction of real ownership. Just my take.

joejenie

Only way a lease makes financial sense is in California where you have to pay the huge sales tax and don't get trade in credit. Other than that, it is almost always cheaper to buy a Porsche. Porsche's lease rates are horrible. The couple times I checked, the buy payment was cheaper. Best bet is to buy a 1-2 year old version and drive the wheels off of it. The maintenance is cheap compared to the depreciation of a new one.

fast1

I agree with all the prior posts, and I'll provide an example. I always buy new and my current car is a 2013 981S, and after discount I paid a little over $65K. About four months ago I was at a car and coffee meet, and one guy took a particular interest in my car. He was in the market for a 981 and especially a MT 981. Despite the fact that I expressed no desire to sell, he made me an unsolicited offer of $36K for my six year old 981. If I leased my 981S instead of paying cash, my total lease payments and fees would have been about $38K. If I then leased another Cayman/Boxster it's safe to say that the payments would have been similar. So after six years, the total would easily be over $75K, compared to my cost of $29K (65K - $36K). Even if you factor in the money I lost by not investing the $65K, leasing will still be far more expensive than buying.

As a many decade owner of Porsches, I recommend buying new and keeping the car for at least six years; I generally sell after 9 years. If you custom order your car and don't make compromises you'll find that you'll enjoy your Porsche as much in year 9 as you did in year 1. And you'll find that when the initial cash expenditure is averaged over many years, Porsches aren't nearly as expensive as most people think. OTOH if you have to have a new car every couple of years, Porsches can be quite expensive. Moreover, if you maintain your Porsche in accordance with Porsche recommendations, you'll find that they are very reliable. and require very little other than routine maintenance, at least that's been my experience.

gatorfast

Thats not true. A car lease is not like renting a house and to simply say leasing in general is not worth it makes no sense. A lease is just another form of a finance contract whereby the term and residual are fixed with an embedded option to buy at the end. Leasing a vehicle can have many financial and non-financial advantages. Financial advantages can be lower up-front and long-term cash outlay, certain tax savings depending on usage, and sell-side protection against higher depreciation or accident/damage value reduction as leases have a pre-determined residual. Non-financial advantages are always having a current model car and general peace of mind for always being under warranty and generally low maintenance.

Some brands and models lease much better than others and from what I have seen non-SUV Porsche's dont lease well. But to dismiss leasing altogether in a blanket statement is just naive.

Chester7

You both agree that leasing does not make sense for non-SUV Porsche's- and that was the OP's question.

Dan87951

Newer Porsches are definitely not holding up (reliability wise) long term like they use too. It seems every new generation has some costly fatal flaw in them that could financial ruin you if out of warranty. In my opinion, Porsche has taken a page out of BMW's play book and are building cars to last up until the warranty, after that, you're exactly right, it's like "Russian roulette" on whether you will have some catastrophic failure or not. IMO the 981 is a better car than the 718. Have you driven a 718? If not, you might be disappointed with a few things, mainly the noise from the engine bay. Even a base 718 is over $70k after checking a few of the option boxes. Pretty silly if you ask me, but then again Porsches were never a value brand. lol!

gatorfast

Yup def agree with that.

Just wanted to clarify that leasing does have its place and advantages when done right (as does renting real estate which was also dismissed by the other poster).

clutchplate

You have to crunch the numbers in each case to know whether it's cheaper to lease or not. If a below market money factor is available along with a healthy discount and a reasonable residual, the total spent over the length of the lease may be less than buying. Leasing isn't really like renting a house, it's more like lease optioning since you have the option of buying the car.

uniqueMR

Lease make sense only with right-off (as business expense). Otherwise as most mentioned its rip off and way expensive. Porsche leases very poorly.

billwot

Right answer! As gatorfast noted above, leasing a car is just an alternate way of financing. You cannot make blanket statement the leasing is better or worse. You have to crunch the numbers and compare specific alternatives.

fast1

Theoretically correct, but I have never seen a Porsche lease that made any financial sense, unless of course lease payments can be deducted from your federal taxes.