Some View Leases as Long-Term Test Drives

It's possible, or even probable, that many people who lease a vehicle have no intention of keeping the car after their leasing period ends. But 22 percent, according to CNW Research, do end up purchasing the vehicles they lease within six months of the end of the lease’s term. But why do nearly one-in-five people seek a title after ending their lease?

The answer, for 16.2 percent of those surveyed in CNW’s yearly Lease Trak Study, is pretty simple: they look at it as a long-term test drive.

The second most-common reason for buying their car at the end of their lease term, according to Art Spinella, CNW’s president, was simply due to the lease payment on a replacement being too high.

“Those two reasons for buying a leased vehicle are consistent, if nothing else,” Spinella said in his monthly report. “They were the leading rationales in both 2000 and  2002 as well as most of the intervening years.”

In addition, CNW spotted an interesting trend when following up with lessees a year after their leases ended. The firm found when end-of-term lessees had either given or transferred the car to someone else in their family after the lease’s end, nine out of 10 times, the car had already been replaced in a year's time.