My CRV has over 200,000 miles on it. I would get another in a minute, but I am holding out for super mileage or a mini-ute hybrid from Honda. SHould I lease in the meantime?
Trade it for an Insight or buy another CR-V. The CR-V is Honda’s mini-ute. I don’t expect to see anything smaller in the near future, unless you consider the Fit a mini-ute.
I’ll bet a Fit will carry almost as much as your CR-V.
Do you have any problems with the CR-V? If not, just keep driving it. Just because it has high mileage is no reason to get rid of it. Leasing for a private party almost never makes sense. You could buy a used car, sell it in a few years and make out better than leasing.
I would agree that if you’re just waiting out the market, keeping your CR-V will be many orders of magnitude cheaper than leasing a car.
One other thing to mention is that my impression is that Honda hasn’t really gone as nuts for the hybrid trend as Toyota (instead spending more R&D effort on the long picture like full-electrics and hydrogen) and so it’s possible that you’ll never see the cars you’re waiting for. I don’t really follow the company closely, but I’ve not heard of any mini SUV hybrids planned for Honda, nor anything particularly high mileage planned for the next few years other than the Insight.
If you did want a mini-SUV hybrid, you might look at the Ford Escape/Mazda Tribute which uses the Toyota hybrid system. Or there’s the Highlander hybrid too, but I’ll bet your CR-V gets better mileage than one of those.
There will be no super mileage mini-utes for the foreseeable future. Look at the Escape hybrid. Decent mileage but nothing super. If you took a Prius drive train and started adding the CRV performance parameters to it, you might attain marginal efficiency gains, not worth the money. CRV’s are excellent cars in their own right, and the newer ones are top choices. If you like yours, get another til Honda decides it’s possible to make one for you in the distant future. Til then, they have their hands on the pulse of high mileage needs as well as any car company.
I’d buy another, new or used as has been advised. Heck, you’re getting over 200k out of this. That’s a no brainer for me.
Unless you own a profit-making business that you can put the lease against, leasing NEVER makes any sense…Have you checked the lease terms now being offered?? Leasing companies are REALLY gun-shy now that half of them went bust…
Thanks for all the responses. I have looked at the Insight, etc but I don’t want to give up all wheel drive. Nothing really wrong with the car but probably should get another timing belt, tires, etc. It’s a '97–can’t complain about it AT ALL!! I love it.
If you want gas mileage and AWD as well as good interior space, the Suzuki Sx4 has all that. Take one for a test drive and you’ll be surprised. It’s also a lot cheaper than even a non-hybrid CRV.
The answer to “should I lease” is always no unless you can deduct the entire cost of the lease from your taxes as a business expense.