honda-insight-car-lease
The reason we lease cars is to enjoy low monthly payments, pay little or nothing down and to reduce or eliminate maintenance costs. In short, we lease cars to save money. There is one way to save even more money: Lease a car that gets excellent gas mileage. The EPA has released their Top-10 Gas Mileage Cars for 2009 and 2010. Unfortunately this EPA listing of Fuel Efficient cars excludes the ones that are available for leasing. Of the Top-10 of Best Gas Mileage cars listed by the EPA, many of them are hybrids which either don’t lease at all or simply don’t make very attractive lease offers. Last year, Honda surprised me one month with a Civic Hybrid lease special that blew everything else away. For $199.00 a month and $2,299 down, you could lease a Civic Hybrid rated at 40/45 MPG. I have never seen a more affordable, economical way to enjoy a quality, new car for three years. Unfortunately, lease deals like this are rarely seen on Hybrid Cars. Because Hybrids require a sophisticated battery, they are 15 – 20% more expensive than standard cars. The uncertainty of the battery’s reliability and longevity probably add to their rate of depreciation. On a Toyota Prius or Honda Civic Hybrid, the battery depreciates faster than the rest of the car. Hence, most hybrid cars just don’t lease very well – at least not yet. Read the rest of this entry »
