I've read some great stuff on here but this is my first post:

My lease is up in a week on a 2016 Countryman S ALL4 with JCW exterior/interior styling (not engine) and with premium sound/media visual boost screen, etc. I love this car so much, put 10,000 mi on it and have done regular maintenance with no issues....i don't even mind the bumpy ride with the 18 RF tires anymore... but the buy-out is 24 K !! then add $3000 for 3 year extended warranty through dealer.... adds up fast!

There's a used 2016 countryman S ALL4 at a non-mini dealer nearby. carfax shows clean 1 driver, just coming off lease, has all same features without JCW styling. it has 25,000 miles on it and costs $20K ish, I might get the price down a little. there are a lot of other off lease R60 in the 30,000 miles range near me too.

so do I:

A. over pay and buy out my lease because I love my car and know it's history
B. return the car and see what the price is in a few weeks and try to buy it then/risk it gets sold or auctioned although I'm in an area with 3 mini dealerships within an hour and they all have a lot of used 2016 off lease countrymans right now so they don't seem to be selling very fast. it would be a pain not to have a car but do-able for a few weeks.
C. return the car and buy one of the other off-lease R60s in the area

Thanks!!

 

Why not put offers on 3 similar cars, including yours. All they can do is say no, (don't worry about hurting their feelings!). Car Guru is a great resource to find a reasonable price range.

I bet your current dealer will match another offer as they don't want another car sitting on their lot.

 

Thanks!
Unfortunately the dealer is not willing to negotiate on lease buy-out, nor is mini financial so I can only pay full buy out for my current car.

 

They won't negotiate but will wind up selling it for less because they have a dumb business model. Local dealer doesn't normally have a say in a MINI Financial owned car. Somebody should send MINI a message and say your sales are way down across the board wake up.

We had similar situation with 4 dr 2016 HT. I asked about buyout at a reasonable market price. Wife said lets go get a VW GTI Cornflower Blue Rabbit edition. She is happier and we got a brand new car with a better warranty for not much more than the 3 y/o MINI with 22K on the clock.

Tell the dealer your bottom line price, tell them you are going to X brand dealership shortly to buy X car and let them figure something out. (If I owned a car dealership I wouldn't let you walk away)

Fall in love with a new car.

 

Agree. However, I am sure I won't change my mind on getting a used 2016 R60. Already test drove other new cars in its class and it was a no go.
I guess mostly trying to figure out if it's worth the extra $2-3 K to keep the super low mileage version that I know the history on from my lease, vs pay a bunch less for someone else's off lease car with 10-15K more miles and clean hx based on carfax.

 

I say you know the history on your current lease MINI. Keep it and GO with it, don't get someone elses headache. I bought back my MINI SJCW from the owner I sold it too, when he PC'd as I knew the history and what I had put into it and work that was done. I as well didn't want anything else.

 

Overpaying for a car you love is certainly better than over paying for someone else’s car or possibly a headache! Go for the bird in hand! 👍

 

24,000 for a vehicle with 10,000 miles and known history is comparable to 20,000 for a similar vehicle with twice the mileage.

When your MINI is listed for sale, it may be listed at a much higher price, it may be scarfed up by an insider or it may be shipped to another part of the country.

Bottom line, I agree the extra for your buy out may not be too bad.

The question i would have next is: is the warranty worth the price or can you get a better deal?

 

I definitely have to do more comparison shopping on the warranty. For 3 yrs extension on the original warranty, one dealership said 3800 and one said 3000. i'm not sure i have enough car knowledge to be able to find a 3rd party warranty I would trust outside of the mini dealerships.
For now, waiting on a mechanic I trust to check out the used mini that was someone else's lease (hopefully tomorrow) and trying to decide if I would like Cosmic blue as much as I like the Starlight blue on my leased one.

 

MINI extended warranty prices are negotiable obviously as you found out. WayMotorWorks a vendor on here has mentioned in the past that USAA is the best after market warranty from his point of view. I have no experience with them.

 

I've had good luck with Route 66 warranty too as of late. Mercury was another one that was good if you had the top of the line plan.