Leasing Is History

Henderson Weekes sounded genuinely apologetic. He really did. The veteran salesman at Roy Foss Chevrolet in Toronto would have been only too happy to offer a lease on General Motors Corp.’s award-winning Malibu sedan when I inquired as to its availability this week. But he said his hands, like those of all GM dealers, were tied. “Leasing is history,” he said. “Everything’s finance, finance, finance cad programm kostenlos downloaden. No lease at all.” But what if I don’t want to own the car? What if, like many of the roughly 40% of Canadians who choose to lease when getting a new vehicle, I consider a six-or eight-year relationship with the same automobile to be monotonous enslavement? Then “you’re in trouble,” he said. Vehicle buying and selling in Canada is about to change after GM and Chrysler LLC signalled to dealers last month that their finance units will pull back on the subsidized lease rates they’ve been offering for years elsterformular 2016 herunterladen. BMW AG, which derives 60% of its Canadian sales through leases, is also back-pedalling on leases somewhat by offering a wider variety of purchasing options. And Ford Motor Co. disclosed yesterday that its lending arm is planning to cut leasing of vehicles, although a Ford official said there will be no change in lease offerings in Canada audiodateien aus dem internet downloaden. The reason for the retreat is clear: The price of used vehicles has tumbled in recent months in the United States and Canada. That, along with credit-market pressures, has made leasing less economical for automakers than in the past. In particular, the value of large SUVs and pickups that drivers return to dealerships after their leases are over is now far less than expected, forcing the automakers who own them through their finance arms to set aside hundreds of millions of dollars in provisions against the declining residual values videos from the internet. Ford Motor Co. wrote down the value of its Ford Credit leased-vehicle portfolio by US$2.1-billion in its latest quarter. Leasing, loved by some for its hooked-on-drugs quality that allowed Canadians to drive away with a car they might not be able to afford to buy outright, will almost certainly become less prevalent. But industry executives say leasing is not going away. “What leasing enabled people to do was to drive more car for less payment,” says Jerry Chenkin, executive vice-president of Honda...
read more