[pezhead]

I hope I'm not posting something that's already been up, but I've performed a pretty lengthy search and found nothing.

My Mini should be arriving late next week, and I'm planning on leasing - preferably the 'owner's choice' lease, which is available in Illinois. From what I'm told, it's similair to the Mini Select lease. Has anyone gone with this? I'm trying to get a feel for the #'s - what I should put down, what kind of payments to look for, what kind of residual value to expect.

Also, on another site, someone posted that the Owner's choide lease will be phased out in Oct. because it favors the buyer over BMW. I like that idea. He also said that you can get out of the lease at anytime and sell your car because with this particular lease, your name goes on the title - and you get the low lease payments without putting a ton down.

Can anyone help me out - I'd like to have an idea before I walk dumbly into the financing dept. at my dealership.

Thanks all.

[charltjr]

Leasing or PCP (Personal Contract Purchase = Mini Select) is long-term the most expensive way to buy a car. This is because they not only charge you interest on the money you borrow but also on the outstanding final value payment at the end.

That said, I went with Mini Select because it's easy to get, I only want the car for a max of 3 years (I do just over 30,000 miles a year and I can only have a car up to 100,000 miles under my company scheme) and I was able to get a decent interest rate out of the dealer.

Shop around with other finance companies first and go in there with some written quotes. The dealer will sweat blood to try and get your finance business because (in the UK at least) there is a huge amount of profit in it.

Some (approximate) figures:
My "S" is going to cost £17000
I'm putting down a 10% deposit, with a final value of £5300.
Monthly payments in the region of £350, over 3 years.
Total cost inc final payment, almost £20,000.
The dealer originally quoted me over £380 p/m but I was able to get them down to less than 11% APR which, for a PCP deal, is pretty good. Saved me about £700 over the period of the deal so it's well worth haggling for.

Probably not that applicable to your situation what with interest rate and finance regulation differences between UK and US but I hope it at least gave you some idea.

Cheers,
J.

[RYN]

i too am thinking about the mini select option as i am only 20 and can't afford to pay it cash. I was thinking about going to the dealer tomorrow to find out some more info on the finance options available.

If you do 30000 miles a year will you not be punnished at the end of the three years by the 6p per mile that you have to oay at the end of the three years or how does it work?

[charltjr]

It won't be a problem, they can tailor the Select scheme to whatever milage you do.

That's why my GFV/Balloon Payment/Final Payment/Whatver you want to call it is so low, if I did less miles per year then it would be higher, e.g.

Cooper S OTR price
£14,600.00
Miles per year
12000
10% deposit
£1,460.00
36 Monthly Payments
£300.42
Final Payment
£6,283.57
Total cost
£18,363.27
APR
13.5% <<------------

(from the official www.mini.co.uk website)

Do make sure you get some competitive quotes first though, I reccomend these guys:
http://www.banking.hsbc.co.uk/person.../carchoice.htm
Also Sainsbury's Simply Drive is good for quotes. Do a bit of surfing and see what you can find, there's lots of big companies out there doing lease schemes.

Have fun, and don't just take what the dealer offers you. You won't get any money off the Mini but you can sure as hell get some off the finance!

Cheers,
J.