Team Plutonium

+1 Agreed. Works if you have a good relationship with your dealership.

zhecks

I went thru this whole process and it is quite simple. I basically called 4-5 local dealers and asked how much do they want to charge me to CPO my car at the end of my lease. Ask for the finance manager at the dealership and they will tell u over the phone. I was quoted between $2,500 to $5,000. I took the lowest offer ( basically, residual + $2,500) and the dealership will take care of all the paperwork between all the parties (PFS, you , DMV, dealership).

The finance managers must do it quite often because they were able to give me the quote over the phone right away. I believe they will need to keep your car for a week or 2 to get all the paperwork in place to conduct the final transfer to the buyer ( in this case, it would be you).

JerryAlbee

Thanks, Zhecks,

That makes it sound really straight forward. Any recommendations how how to make sure they follow through with the agreed deal? Sounds like it is not a binding arrangement and they could jack up the price if they decided they needed to, etc.

For you, did they do any maintenance or replace the tires as part of that $2500 premium?

Thanks again for the info!

rodsky

Its very simple, I did the exact same thing. If the residual is good - it was really good in my case - its simple to buy and add CPO. A few forms/paperwork and voila - you bought your own car.

SMZ

I've done this with a BMW. I called a few dealers and provided the VIN. I think they just look up mannheim #s and will give you a price. I was quoted a price without CPO (it was a couple thousand under the residual value) and one with CPO. I opted to go with CPO, which was about $2000 additional. I dropped the car off in the morning, they kept it for the day for certification, and I picked it up later in the day. I got a new title in the mail a few weeks later. I did have to pay for a new tire because of a sidewall bubble. I really should have argued that they were responsible for the cost of the tire replacement (a little over $300) but never really pursued it.

c_Gio

I'm feeling lost... Maybe need more coffee. If you want to buy your car, and agree with the residual, why go to a dealer at all? Don't you just send a check to PFS?

Is all this work so you have a CPO/extended warranty on your own car?

SMZ

1. In some cases you can negotiate a purchase for less than the residual.
2. I think the only way you will get the true Porsche CPO is when you purchase a car from a dealer after they have done the inspection/certification. You can't just purchase the CPO independently. You would have to go with a third party extended warranty which may or may not be as good.

FWIW, on my BMW it ended up needing a radiator and water pump and some housing on the oil filter. Probably would have cost me about the same as the CPO. Like many have said here, the CPO isn't always a financial win, just peace of mind.

vjd3

Would you have to pay sales tax again? (Some states make you pay sales tax on the full purchase price of the car when you first lease a car.)

SMZ

Yeah, it was kind of painful but the discount I got negated the double taxation. At the time I did mine, in Illinois, when you leased, you paid sales tax on the entire purchase price of the car. Then I had to pay sales tax when I bought the car again. I think Texas was the only other state like that. This year they changed the law and you pay tax only on the payments of the lease. A rare win on the tax front.

Team Plutonium

Jesus, what a raw deal. WTF?!

SMZ

Yeah, also if you registered within the city limits of Chicago, you would pay an 8% "use tax" on top of the 9.5% sales tax (on the entire capitalized cost).

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classi...222-story.html

zhecks

They just asked for a CPO inspection in their service department (no services or maintenance required) and handed the finance department the paperwork. My tires were borderline below the recommeded required tread by PFS. They did not ask me to buy new tires.

The dealer I went to was one of the largest in US. They are not going to cheat us for a couple of grands. They want us to go back and buy another car from them down the road. They were quite professional and updated me on a regular basis regarding the status of the paperwork.

Where are you resided? If you are in S. CA, just call the 3 largest dealerships. They are very competitive.

zhecks

As mentioned by others, here are the differences:

a) When you buy out the car from PFS, they won't CPO it for you.

b) You may pay less than the residual to buyout the car. This is highly unlikely for Porsche. PFS is usually very conservative with the residual and you can usually get a few thousand $ back by selling the car to CarMax instead of paying $375 to PFS at the end of lease. If you do a search in the Panny thread, there are many discussions on this topc.

Lastly, this may not work for BMW or Mercedes because they inflated the residual %. Some BMW/MB lease cars are worth a lot less than the residual value. I was told it could be $3-5K less.

c) Finally, Yes Yes Yes to CPO for the peace of mind. I CPO'd one of my lease buyout. 3 months later (regular warranty was over), the exhaust manifold fell off from the engine (due to some warranty recalls done right before the warranty was over). If I did not have CPO, this would be a long discussion on who wasresponsible for the repair. In this case, Porsche NA.