aquarian

I have never leased an Audi from Audi Financials But let's say I take advantage of the $7500 EV discount buy leasing the car, and pay it off after a few months with another institution's auto loan to finance the remaining. Does Audi really care and is there a penalty for a lease buyout in a few months? Thanks.

noimfull

Exact answer is in your lease contract but in general there isn’t a penalty I believe.

Edit - on my afs contract (from 2021) the balance you owe is:

Original selling price of the car - (sum of previous monthly payments excluding the interest). So this essentially means there is no penalty I believe.

SignDoc

I just bought out my 2021 Pestige, there is no penalty. There was no purchase option fee for me either. So you can call them and get the buyout figure and send them the payment. But the big issue is how soon you will get the title, it took Audi 2 months to send me mine and I called them almost every day to complain. I needed the title to get into my new iX. I am hearing somes folks are waiting 6+ months. It's all of VW, Audi and Porsche in the US. It's a train wreck, https://www.bbb.org/us/il/libertyvil...stomer-reviews

aquarian

Wow that's crazy. But then again if I am keeping the car I guess it wouldn't matter too much how soon they release the title. I just wanted to know if anyone else has done something similar (because of the EV lease credit of $7500), perhaps after 3 months, I can just pay it off with another auto loan or something.

SignDoc

Yep, a lot of folks are doing that exact thing to take advantage of the $7,500 lease credit. Sholdn't be a big issue for you to wait for the title since you are keeping the e-tron.

Tronification

I bought two of them at the end of the lease, and that's how it's been.
If you are happy with the interest in your lease contract, buy it at the end of the lease. Buy it out now if your existing interest is too high, otherwise there's little downside in waiting till the end of the contract.

aquarian

What about the residuals from the contract?

Tronification

The residual is fixed, nothing you can do about that. As you stand, you have the option to ditch the car at the end of the contract. If you buy it out and find that you want or need to sell it later, you may find it worth less than your stated residual (look at the used prices, the depreciation has been rather brutal on these).

SDakota

I would wait to buy out the lease until after you have received your new license plates. After I purchased a new e-tron with cash, it took the dealer and/or Audi months to send me the registration paperwork. My state charged me a significant late penalty when I was finally able to register it. If I had leased instead, I wouldn't have wanted to introduce any complications prior to receiving my plates.

uberwgn

What do the rules say at lease-end about giving them their license plates back? Are you allowed to continue using them? Maybe this varies from state to state.

On my last lease/buyout, they asked for the plates back and didn't send me the title for weeks leaving me without use of that car.