Does anyone have a decent cite for this info? I poked around with google and yahoo, but all that comes up are tons of web sites comparing leasing vs. buying from the car shopper’s perspective. I’m just trying to find out how many new cars are sold outright vs. leased? If you have a link to a reliable web site I would appreciate it.
Not sure why you want to know this, but during the pre-bankruptcy bubble, more cars were leased than bought, since those leasing could not really afford the cars they got, and did not think they would evr lose their jobs.
Lately there is much less leasing and more buying, since interest rates are low, and the car companies no longer want vehicles on their books that are worth less than their book value.
Leasing also varies greatly by part of the country; the more conservative areas tend to buy more and lease less. The California Yuppy will amost always lease his BMW or Mercedes, whereas the midwestern corn farmer would prefer to buy and pay cash at the end of the harvest.
Why not visit some dealerships…tell the sales manager you are doing research on car sales and ask the question - number of cars sold vs leased…you should get a ball park figure after visiting 3 or 4 dealerships.
I was involved in a discussion where one particular blow-hard was saying he talked to his friend, a car dealer, and that at least 90 to 95 percent of all new cars are leased. This sounded like pure BS to me, and I was trying to find some actual information. I’m not that interested that I want to go ask car dealers, who might want blow some smoke anyway, and I’m sure somebody has good data already. Just hoping someone here could point me toward it. It’s not all that important. The discussion just made me curious.
I did find one news article that said several big banks and finance companies had stopped leasing cars altogether, and that leasing was not as popular, but they never gave any numbers. Not even ballpark.
There’s always a know-it-all wherever you go. I just let them talk as I go somewhere else. Then there are people who just have to tell you that they are saving lots of money by leasing. There is a lot of wind and little truth coming from some people. Zero percent financing was nice when I had it.
Before the economic downturn between 50 and 60 % of cars were leased. But it varies greatly by geographic area.
Now more are sold than leased.
Oh, I know not to waste time arguing with that type. It’s just that his statement got me curious. If I had to guess, and apparently I do, I would say before the economy went south maybe as many as 60% were leased and 40% sold outright and now those numbers are reversed. But that’s just my gut feeling and I’m not going to spout it off as “the truth.”
I can easily believe some car dealer BSing a potential customer with how common leasing is. It’s a win-win for a dealer. They get a sale and pretty much of a guarantee the customer will come back when the lease over, so making it sound like “everybody does it” is an understandable kind of position for a dealer to take.
Well, when you deal with a lot of monthly payment buyers, then you can easily talk them into leasing.
“How much you looking to spend a month?”
“Oh, I was thinking about $250, maybe $300 a month”
"Well, we do have a nice selection of used cars in that price range. But we’re also running a special where you can lease this brand new car for only $275 a month."
At that point the unsuspecting customer does a double take and before they know it, they’ve just committed themselves to a 3 year rental of a vehicle they can’t really afford.
Even though I have my car on order(and near delivery time), part of me wants to go looking around again and when the salesman asks that question, I want to look them straight in the eye, with a serious face, and tell them “$600 a month, maybe upwards of $750 if it’s a real great deal”, just to see the look on their face.
Odd. I too poked around the internet, including gov sites, and while I found tons of info on the advantages and disadvantages, I could find no stats.
Anyone know of a national trade organization that might have this?
The stats I have found by the Automobile Dealers Association claim that just over 20% of new vehicles for private use are leased.
I agree with what bscar said. In addition, I wonder what percentage of people go in intending to buy and get manipulated into a lease. In my area anyway, almost all of the car commercials are advertising “special lease offers”, and the actual price of the vehicle is never mentioned. The dealers seem to have very little interest in “selling” cars. One actually went so far as to use the tagline “Make 24 payments, then GIVE…IT…BACK!!!” Well, at least they’re being truthful in advertising.
This is all kind of surprising, because after the economy collapsed in September 2008, I kept reading in the news about how leasing was largely going away because lending standards had tightened and people could no longer borrow money for things they couldn’t afford. In addition, car dealers were flooded with “off-lease” cars which they now couldn’t sell since auto sales were off 50%. So I guess the industry is getting back to business-as-usual.
Lately there is much less leasing and more buying, since interest rates are low, and the car companies no longer want vehicles on their books that are worth less than their book value.
If that was true…the dealerships wouldn’t be PUSHING leasing. I’ve yet to read ANY advertisement that actually shows the price of a vehicle. ALL they show is your lease payments. Dealers are still pushing leasing…and people are still leasing. There may be fewer people leasing now…but they I’ll bet MOST people still lease.
Perhaps the loan department of your bank would have access to unbiased information on this.
Then PT Barnum was wrong. There are thousands born every minute.
I know this thread is old now, but I just found this information off the CarTalk site and thought I’d bring it to everyone’s attention.
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=lease&subject=buy_lease&story=buyLease
Looks like benzman had it right! =)
It’s an interesting article. Thanks.
Thanks for posting that link. I missed it when I was looking, though I saw a similar article that didn’t mention percentages.
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_17.html
New vehicle sales 2008 10,933
New vehicle leases 2008 2,262,
83% sales
The dealership of cars and other vehicles are increased very much, the claim is getting jsut 20% of the new car or any other vehicle for leased, this is new figure out for the vehicles, anyway thanks for sharing with us.