To whom it may concern,

I am sales representative whom lives in New York City. I am allocated
500 dollars a month to purchase a car. I decided to lease the car
since I would put limited miles on the car. Currently I have put on
9,400 miles over 15 months. I can place roughly a 1,000 miles a month
or 36,000 miles after 36 months. So I am averaging 600 miles per
month. My company may want me to relocate soon and if I leave the
metro area I am going to be driving my car frequently. Because of this
I know I am going to break my milage limit. My SUV is a 2002 Toyota 4
Runner with 9400 miles on it. It is in excellent condition. The Kelley
Blue Book value of the SUV is $21,650. When I picked it up from the
dealer it was MSRP of 29,000. I put down 1,500 dollars and currently
have paid 5,390. My questions are:
How can I break the lease and then purchase the car for its value?
What can I expect to pay?
What extra payments can I argue, ie fines etc?
When I approach the dealer on this issue what do I need to have?
I am in sales and like the dealership money talks-I also know that the
dealers do not want a car back on their lot. So I am asking whom ever
to answer this question so I have the ammunition to argue my point. I
have to convince the dealer he has nothing to lose and all to gain
from my offer.

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Request for Question Clarification by missy-ga on 23 Oct 2003 20:22 PDT

What does your lease agreement say?  There may be general information
available, but it's not going to help you very much if your specific
lease agreement says something completely different.

You'll want to look for an "early termination" clause.

You are not in a good position.  By signing your contact you agreed to
certain terms.  The answer to your questions can be found in your
contract.  If you do not have a copy of your contract request a copy. 
You will likely be charged a fee for a copy.  By breaking your lease
you will be charged fees.  By leasing the car you have not been paying
principal on a loan.  You've been renting the car.  That's why your
payments are much less than if you had purchased.  If you have a lot
of time left on the lease you might try to see if having someone take
over your lease is an option.

I am not an expert.  Take this advice at your own risk.

As a person who has broken car leases early before, I disagree with
the previous comment.  It is a fairly straightforward process.  Each
of your lease payments contains depreciation, profit, and tax.  This,
by law, is spelled out in your lease contract with the exact amounts
and how they were calculated.  All you have to do to break your lease
is ask the financing company for your current payoff amount, which
will be your number of months remaining x the profit portion of your
monthly payment plus the buyout cost (the cost to buy the car at the
end of the lease that was set in your contract).  You will not be
responsible for depreciation since you will own the car.  Let's say
you are paying $200 a month to lease ($120 depreciation, $60 profit,
$20 tax) and you have 30 months left on your lease and your buyout
figure is $10,000.  Your current payoff would be (30 x 80) + 10,000 =
$12,400.

After you send them a check for the payoff amount (or take another
loan for the payoff amount), your lease will be over and you will be
making payments as if you purchased the car.

In my previous comment, I believe I misstated depreciation and profit.
You will have to pay the depreciation to bring the car down to its
buyout cost, but you will not have to pay the remaining profit
(interest). In my previous example, just switch everywhere I used the
2 terms.  I was just rethinking how my last lease break went and
realized that it was actually the opposite of what I wrote.

Your payoff is set by your contract.  It may not be the formula given
in the previous comment.