Getting out of a Rav4EV Lease

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Acevolt

Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2013
Messages
17
I am interested in selling my Rav4EV in February of next year (after leasing it for 18 month). Does anyone have any experience getting out of a 36 month lease with Toyota on a Rav4EV? The questions I have are:

1) How do I ensure I am not liable for the lease payments after I transfer ownership?
2) Does TFS even allow transfer prior to the 36 months?
3) What are the penalties?
4) Does this affect my credit score? Is it like defaulting on a loan?
5) According to the TFS website, I can buy my car for $29,322. Is that really correct? What about all the incentives TFS gave me? If that's really true and someone wanted to buy the car, why not just lease it for one month and get the $17,500 in incentives and then turn around and purchase it?
6) I know I will have to give California half of the $2500 back.
7) Would going through a Toyota dealer be the safest way to do this?
 
You can assign your lease to someone else so you no longer have to make the payments. You contact Toyota and they send you a packet. You fill out a couple forms, the new buyer signs a form and a credit app. Then they take a couple weeks to decide whether or not to allow the transfer. As long as the buyer has credit that is as good or better than yours they will do it. They charge a $200 fee for the transfer.

Im sure you will have no problem finding someone in or out of state to take over the lease.

Keep in mind you will have to pay back a prorated amount of the check you received from the state of Cali. So you may want to ask the buyer for some cash to cover your expenses.
 
Sell it outright for $32,000+, pay off the lease as part of the transfer same as you would pay off a loan.
 
Thanks for the information.
It just seems strange that I can purchase the car for $29,322 after only making $5856 in payments (I have been paying $488 for 12 months for the unlimited mileage lease). Like I said, why wouldn't someone that wanted to purchase the vehicle, just lease it for a month and then buy it? This way they don't have to wait for the $7500 tax credit, they get it right away along with all the other incentives Toyota is providing for leased vehicles.
Does anyone know if the unlimited mileage lease deal will transfer?
 
Acevolt said:
Does anyone know if the unlimited mileage lease deal will transfer?
Yes, if the lease is transferred then all terms and conditions (unlimited mileage) remain the same. It is not a new lease.
 
The fact that you have equity in a lease just shows how Toyota is giving these cars away.
The only reason we don't just pay off the lease is to take advantage of the 0% money factor and if the car is a lemon you can turn it in at the end.
 
Acevolt said:
It just seems strange that I can purchase the car for $29,322 after only making $5856 in payments (I have been paying $488 for 12 months for the unlimited mileage lease). Like I said, why wouldn't someone that wanted to purchase the vehicle, just lease it for a month and then buy it? This way they don't have to wait for the $7500 tax credit, they get it right away along with all the other incentives Toyota is providing for leased vehicles.
I think this is partly because these leases use most of the language from a regular car's lease, which wouldn't have all these rebates and incentives applied to them. In those scenarios, leasing to buy out would rarely ever make sense. We're in a unique situation due to the nature of the vehicle and the cash that has been placed on the hood by Toyota and state/federal governments.

I will be buying my car out of it's lease next year in order to import it to Canada, and from my calculations this will still be much more cost-effective than if I'd have bought it in the first place.
 
Acevolt said:
Thanks for the information.
It just seems strange that I can purchase the car for $29,322 after only making $5856 in payments (I have been paying $488 for 12 months for the unlimited mileage lease). Like I said, why wouldn't someone that wanted to purchase the vehicle, just lease it for a month and then buy it? This way they don't have to wait for the $7500 tax credit, they get it right away along with all the other incentives Toyota is providing for leased vehicles.
Does anyone know if the unlimited mileage lease deal will transfer?

Oops! looks like similar things has been shared while I was typing up my message.

My thoughts to share with you. I wanted to purchase the vehicle originally, but Toyota Cash for lease was a much better deal than purchase when I leased my car in September 2014, so I end up leasing it. I thought about buying it after a month of lease since I would've already gotten all of the Toyota cash upfront, but then I realize that since this Rav4EV lease deal is so good that I am paying almost "0% interest", I actually have 36 months to enjoy the vehicle and decide if I want to keep the car or not at zero cost to me. Plus since the Fed $7500 credit only applies to a "owner" of a brand new EV, for my leased Rav4EV, Toyota has already taken the Fed credit for this vehicle when they leased it to me, I found no real financial benefit to purchase the car after one month lease. In fact, if I make purchase only after one month of lease, I think I will end up paying more since it's not likely I will get a near "0%" interest for this purchase at a higher than the residual amount after 36 months. I hope this makes sense...
 
Toyota offered very similar incentives with 0% financing for outright purchases of the car in early 2013, and then switched to the current lease deals and tepid purchase incentives. Toyota ultimately hasn't changed the bottom line all that much - when they were trying to get the 2012 models off the lot in 2013 the final pricing after rebates et al for an outright purchase was similar to or even lower than the $29,322 you mentioned.

Toyota appears to have switched to pushing leases not so much to change the bottom line but to provide the big incentives only for California-originated leases, as there was a lot of interest in the car from outside the state, which can play havoc with the CARB credits Toyota receives for each car.
 
eschatfische said:
Toyota... pushing leases not so much to change the bottom line but to provide the big incentives only for California-originated leases, as there was a lot of interest in the car from outside the state, which can play havoc with the CARB credits Toyota receives for each car.

That is exactly right. Every issue with the sale of Rav4 EV centered around those CARB-ZEV credits, as that is the singular reason for its existence. We will likely see an even more California-only lease centric deal with the hydrogen car (let's face it, how are you going to refuel a hydrogen car out-of-state, anyway?).
 
smkettner said:
Sell it outright for $32,000+, pay off the lease as part of the transfer same as you would pay off a loan.
+1. Market it out-of-state (ebay motors?) and you could probably even turn a nice little profit.
 
Where are you located? I may be able to give very comprehensive advice.. Call me?
949-689-0717
Dianne


Acevolt said:
I am interested in selling my Rav4EV in February of next year (after leasing it for 18 month). Does anyone have any experience getting out of a 36 month lease with Toyota on a Rav4EV? The questions I have are:

1) How do I ensure I am not liable for the lease payments after I transfer ownership?
2) Does TFS even allow transfer prior to the 36 months?
3) What are the penalties?
4) Does this affect my credit score? Is it like defaulting on a loan?
5) According to the TFS website, I can buy my car for $29,322. Is that really correct? What about all the incentives TFS gave me? If that's really true and someone wanted to buy the car, why not just lease it for one month and get the $17,500 in incentives and then turn around and purchase it?
6) I know I will have to give California half of the $2500 back.
7) Would going through a Toyota dealer be the safest way to do this?
 
Hi I live in SF and interested to buy this car(but I'm not able to assume the lease) , anyway I can contact you?

Steve
 
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