What are you paying for when you lease a car?

Answer 1

The decrease in the car's value

Answer 2

When you lease you are basically paying rent on the car and don't own it. Usually the contract on a leased car is three years and if you go over a set mileage in that time you pay an additional cost per mile. You are still responsible for insurance, registering with the DMV, taxes, and maintenance for the three years of use. At the end of a contract there is a choice you are given. The car can be bought from the dealership, but you will owe a residual on it. The residual is the difference of what you have all ready paid on the car and the purchase price. The dealership can also add fees for the condition of the car and used mileage. The other option is to give the car back and start a new three year lease on a new car. In this way you never own the car, but are always renting it. Personally, I like to buy my cars. Once, I tried a lease and the dealership tried to say there were mechanical issues with the car. By pure luck I had had the car into a mechanic 3 days before I took it into the dealer and could prove there was nothing wrong with the car. Getting out of the car was a fight with the dealer and I filed a complaint with the State Consumer Affairs office that handled cars. I won, but it taught me to buy rather than lease. The ads the dealers have tell consumers they will have low payments per month on a lease, but in the long run they still get their money one way or another.