Can't help with that I'm afraid - the first lease car I had was a three year and I went for 8k a year - after six months it became apparent I was going to end up doing more like 12k a year so I contacted the lease company (Arval) and asked to up the mileage which they did for an extra £5 a month on the lease cost. I must add however that the lease was only £240 a month to start with because it was an original Ioniq when they we wanted rid of them to launch the new Ioniq 'electric only' range...

 

My leasing contract has a very clear section about the cost of over and under usage, start from there

 

Wait...what? There is a penalty for under usage?!

 

You will need to weigh the pros and cons of purchasing your lease. You won't pay any over mileage fee if you buy the car, but is the purchase price (Listed on contract) in line with current values? You might be better off turning the car in, paying over mileage fees, and buying a certified used P*2. It is possible that they will waive the over mileage fee if you buy a certified used car from a Polestar space.

 

So basically instead of a total of about 20k you clocked in 40k? That means the overage fees are 20k x what, 20 cents so a total of 4k
Your buyout price is probably like 34k but you can lease a cert pre-owned for high 20s in the US right now, with less miles.
That's kind of the parameters for for your calculation

Let's say 28k for a pre-owned +4k is still 2k.cheaper than buying yours out and likely the replacement has less miles plus 2 years added warranty.

The numbers are hypothetical but likely in the ballpark..
Bring it down to math, don't get nervous or emotional, it's just a pile of metal and a battery in the end....
Best of luck!!!

 

They want to sell you the car and not walk away. In some weird way you have leverage even if your over that amount. It all comes down to numbers. They have to put X amount back into the car to have it sit on the lot and pay insurance on that car till someone buys the car. It might make more sense to negotiate out something with you. I don't think they really care about the extra mileage in the long run. That is their position against you. "we can forget about the extra mileage if you buy the car for X. Maybe that's worth it and maybe it's not. I would rather have to conversations early and not the day of. Otherwise you will feel pressure to maybe do something you would rather not do. In the meantime look at used one's even from the same dealer. This will let them know your more serious and they might be willing to work with you. At the end of the day they want to sell cars. They really don't want your back.

 

The Polestar Spaces don't own the leased vehicles. They are leased by Volvo/Polestar Financial, and the Spaces have the first right to purchase them before they go to auction. They can also pay the remaining payments and the mileage overage and return the vehicle to the Financial arm. Each vehicle's numbers are unique, so each one has to be looked at individually by the Management staff at the Spaces. Some cars don't make sense to keep so they send them back. They won't keep ones that they (the Spaces) can't make money on after reconditioning them, and paying for the Certification from Polestar.

 

I had about a $2400 overage penalty on my turn-in. The buyout was absurd, i'm not sure if they adjusted more towards reality on the 2022+ leases but the 2021 lease was far too optimistic. I've detailed in other posts but yeah I turned it in, tracked it's location in the app and then bought it from the used car dealer it ended up at for 20k under the buyout. In my case it was not close by, but that was a fun trip!

Can't guarantee they don't factory reset the car (like i'm sure they're supposed to) but it's an option!

 

So you can still track the car in the app huh. What happens if they reset the profile I wonder on the car.

 

I remember reading your post and what you did. Legend actually!!

 

Then you won't be able to...

 

There is no penalty for being under miles.

They use a confluence of factors to calculate your pay off price (money factor, units sold / available [for the 2 will be no new cars because it's made in China]). My buy out price for $36,800. I did not buy the car on lease turn in.

Polestar Financial will not be able to help you out with any considerations until the end of lease inspection is done by the 3rd party contractor for your area. They will look to see if you have all the keys, the charger, the manual and will document what is considered 'excessive wear and tear' and document how many miles you are at in comparison to your lease contract. Specifically they look at wheel rash, so as long as you haven't been kissing too many curbs you should be okay.

After that, PF will send you a buy out offer and any extra charges in violation of contract. You may be paying $2-5k over your standard $350 lease end payment because of your mileage.

All that being said, if you loved the car you can find a used one for sale somewhere as there are a lot of lease turn ins coming in. Mid-range seems to be about $26k for 20-30k miles regardless of package with clusters closer to the $30k mark and some extremely high mileage cars available for under $20k.

Good luck

 

We absolutely are emotionally attached. That is how we roll, and is why we kept out 1994 Volvo 850T Sportwagon for 17 years before I cracked it up on black ice, and our 2000 Passat for 25 years. Given our pattern of keeping cars long term, I’m not sure how much these calculations matter. If we love the car (we do), and have had no problems with it (there have been none), and we can’t buy the 2026 P2 in the US (which is the only one that might tempt me, most other performance EVs being too large), then can’t we just keep ours?

I do worry about Polestar’s long term viability and parts availability in the US, since Volvo has a pretty limited commitment to servicing them in CT, and that concern might strengthen the argument for turning it in. But I don’t yet see a game-changing EV becoming available next year, when our lease is up. If a Neue Klasse Touring comes out, we’ll look at that. A CPO Taycan CT is another, unicorn thought. That would be more car than we need, even dumber than buying our familiar, leased P2.

 

When leasing a vehicle, it does not make financial sense to purchase it at the end of your lease. It will nearly out of warranty, and you will likely be paying a higher cost than a comparable one that may even be a CPO car.

Depending on where you live, you may be better off to lease another Polestar and get some tax benefits from turning your older one in.

 

Yeah but my concern (and some others) is why they make it so difficult to turn the car back in at lease-end and then buy it right back at market value.

Do we need to resort to hiding a tracking device to find out where it lands and go hunt it back?

Yeah I could buy another CPO car but I'd prefer the one I know quite well after having it for 4 years.

 

What you may not realize is the Polestar/Volvo Finance are separate business entities. They have their own business goals that sometimes are separate from what the Manufacturers/Dealers/Spaces want or need. They are there to help the dealers sell cars, but they are also there to make money for the Finance company as well. It all trickles up to the parent company, but it's all different revenue streams with different ROIs.

Financially they just can't reduce the price of your lease turn-in because you want to buy it at the end of the lease. It's a part of a portfolio of assets that has a cost. The end of lease purchase price is in your original lease agreement, so you know up front what you buy it for.

BOTTOM LINE - Leased vehicles are not meant to be purchased at the end of a lease. The only time this works is if the car is unusual, or highly sought after and the residual amount is less than the market value. It is VERY rare that this will happen.

If you lease a car with the plan to buy it at the end of the lease, you need to do the math up front and you figure out it's less money to just do a traditional finance.

This comes from working for a multi-line European dealership for nearly 6 years in the Sales Department, which included Volvo.

 

This is the thing.

 

Most of the overage you will be charged (amount Y) if giving up the car is a fair adjustment to reflect the lower value of the car from the additional mileage you enjoyed. Just pay the overage and decide later whether to buy or lease your next Polestar. Buying out the car means paying a lot more above market value (this difference is amount X) as some commenters mentioned. My guess is X is greater than Y making returning he car a cheaper option

 

I'm also fairly sure that the leasing companies write off any losses on the returns as well...

 

Certainly, but that's up the Polestar/Volvo finance group not the manufacturer or the dealership. All separate entities.

 

Can't you just "track" your car by doing an (or multiple) online search using Polestar and the VIN?

 

What about sticking one of those apple tracking devices and hide it somewhere. Lol

 

A feature of those is that they alert others when the paired phone is not near to prevent using them to track others so that would not work.