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Can I Give Back My Vehicle in the Middle of a Lease?
Um. Well, sure. You’ve ended relationships before, right? And did that ever happen without costing something? Same with a lease. It’s a relationship. And ending it before the other party was planning on ending it is bound to cost something, in most cases. Leases are basically a long-term finance contract (12 months and up). The…
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Can I Give My Truck Back at the End of The Lease?
At the end. In the middle. Three weeks after you take delivery. Basically, yes you can, but a lot depends on how your lease was set up at the beginning (as it so often does). Most vehicle leases are designed with the idea that you’re going to use a vehicle for a period of time,…
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Can I Put Signs on My Leased Vehicle?
Let us not be delicate about this issue. You’re kind of a dope if you don’t. Put them on. Signs, vinyl, graphics, etc. Commercial trucks are valuable advertising real-estate. They are quite literally rolling billboards, eye-level, and always exposed to high traffic count. It’s an advertiser’s dream platform, and you don’t have to pay for…
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Who is Responsible for Insurance on a Vehicle Lease?
Leasing companies are kind of, you know, sensitive, about insurance. That’s one difference between financing a vehicle and leasing one. A bank might let you do something stupid regarding insurance. Your leasing company won’t. Leasing a vehicle pretty much enters you into a partnership. You’re using a vehicle exactly like you own it, but someone…
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Who is Responsible for Maintenance on Commercial Vehicles?
Depends. You can build virtually anything into a lease, including maintenance. In fact, many leasing companies depend on revenue from maintenance to subsidize cheap leases. It often makes a lot of sense to bundle maintenance into a lease for larger fleets. Smaller fleets aren’t the same. Until you get to a size that exceeds fifteen…
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How Much Money do I Need Up Front to Lease a Vehicle?
So, that’s complicated. It’s pretty much either zero or a whole damned lot, depending on your circumstances. One of the most attractive reasons to lease is that it keeps your cash in the bank, and leases have evolved to largely not require money up front, other than the first payment. However, leasing is also a…
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Will I Pay a Lot of Penalties at the End of My Lease?
You won’t pay any if the lease was set up correctly at the beginning. Penalties and adjustments at lease end are always a matter of usage that wasn’t anticipated when the lease was originally set up. The leasing company is typically planning on a certain vehicle value at lease end. That value is going to…
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How Many Miles Can I Drive on a Commercial Lease?
As many as you want. Really. Most of our exposure to vehicle leases comes from ads we see for consumer leases, and those always have some sort of mileage limitation, which is typically very low, sometimes as little as 10,000 miles per year. Commercial leases are different, however. In many cases, leases depend on using…
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What is a Residual Value?
Pretty much what it sounds like. Residual. The left-over. The part at the end. The residual value is both the future forecasted market value and the number used to calculate how much you’re making payments on (see How Does a Lease Work). Basically, it’s what we think the truck will sell for at the end…
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How Does a Lease Work?
We were hoping you wouldn’t ask. We make more money when we manage to keep it all mysterious. Sigh. OK. Here’s the dope… Leases actually aren’t mysterious at all, but since commercial leases often include things far beyond the vehicle itself (fleet management, maybe insurance or fuel, that sort of thing), they get confusing. In…
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