What to expect at the end of a car lease?
Have the car professionally detailed before you turn it in. If there are any dings or dents, have them repaired. The cost to repair will be less than a quarter of what you will be charged if you don’t do it. Take extensive photos of the car, inside and out, just before you turn it in to document the condition. The average charge that gets stuck to you at the end of a lease is $1800 for “unusual wear and tear”, which doesn’t get sprung on you until days or weeks after you have turned in the car. If you don’t have photos, you don’t have a leg to stand on. If you do have photos, they will back off. Or at least, that is the norm.
Only other thing I would add along with Lokheed’s advice on photographing the car – check the tread depth on the tires, and document it with photos. If you don’t have a small ruler that fits in the tread and has 1/32nd marks, stick a penny in the tread and take a picture of it. Hold up a ruler in any picture you take of the car too, it will give scale if you get into an argument over how many dings/how large they are. Read the lease, it is probably very specific on the amount and size of dings allowed, and the lease I had also specified how much tread depth needed to be on the tires at the end of the lease. You don’t want to end up buying tires for a car they’re going to be taking from you. The experience you’ll have returning the car may depend on whether the dealership is going to lose money on the car, or if they’re going to make a profit selling it used. Look in your lease and see what the residual value of the car is (the value left at the end of the lease) and then go to a websit
