Seniors - Age-wise: Time for a change

The bad thing is that my computer screen began wiggling and changing size like Alice in Wonderland, without any Eat Me or Drink Me notifications. I have to admit I’d seen some signs of failure for a couple of weeks, but who wants to give up a Blueberry iMac that has performed perfectly for eight years? Not me.

Well it turned out not to be my choice. I had work waiting for me (I am a proofreader and editor for a bank and an advertising agency) and I have a new client on the horizon. After a dry spell, work was flowing in and I had to be able to do it. So today I picked up a new iMac and printer and soon I’ll be in business again with lots of new bells and whistles at my disposal.

Now for the good thing that happened. I saw the car of my current dreams a week or so ago, and yesterday I gave up my Atomic Blue Honda Civic sedan. It wasn’t painful at all. Because my new Milano Red FIT hatchback is reminiscent of the car I gave up six years ago, after fourteen years of valiant service, because it suddenly decided to die at every stop sign and stop light, often causing embarrassing rear-enders to the two cars behind me. (Of course they should have been far enough back and driving at a speed to avoid the collisions, but my gut ethics told me I caused the problem.) My service center said they could eventually find the cause but the cost of the hours predicted wasn’t worth the Blue Book on the car.

In between the old hatchback and yesterday’s blue car, I had a nice dark wine red sedan for three years. Now you are asking yourself why does this person buy a new car every three years and the answer is I don’t. I lease it.

Leasing came up as an option for me after I read an article in a magazine. It listed a series of questions to ask yourself to see if you were a candidate for leasing instead of buying a new car. I fit the profile and here I am today, standing on the running board (figuratively speaking) of a brand new vehicle with eight airbags, rear seats that fold down flat in a 3/4 – 1/4 configuration, and great mileage potential. Not to mention it’s cute.

Of course, there are pros and cons to leasing. And only you can determine if it’s a good option for you. Many of us up in years, as grandma used to say, don’t have a clear handle on what the near future will bring. Our planning necessarily has to be somewhat short range. Will we still be able to drive in a few years? What about our eyesight, hearing, reflexes and mental acuity?

Maybe we will be moving to a living situation where we won’t need or want a car. Do we want to invest in new car we may not be able to drive for as long as we used to?

In the past the habit of most older drivers was to keep a car for many years. So when you consider leasing you have to decide whether you want to drive an aging car or have the latest safety and comfort features in your vehicle. Of course, that may require your being willing to learn your way around new technology (keyless entry, power locks and windows) and to adapt your driving habits to the latest braking system.

Edmunds Website Senior Consumer Advice Editor Philip Reed says the advantages of leasing are:

You can drive a better car for less money.

You can drive a new car every few years.

No trade-in hassles at the end of the lease.

So many of my senior friends have asked me about car leasing that I thought I’d give you a brief survey of the process. If you are interested, go first to the Internet (see sidebar), or you may want to sit down with a local car dealer, as I did with Lindsay Karlin, Sales Manager of Saratoga Honda, to pick his brain about leasing.

He told me that one of the advantages of leasing is that you have a brand new car with the latest technology, under warranty, for three years.

Two cons you will see listed on the Internet sites and often hear from the lips of your friends are that when you lease you have no equity in the car and if you drive a lot you may run over the yearly mileage allowance.

Let’s take these in reverse order. Lindsay recommended that if you expect to drive more than the usual 12,000 miles per year allotment, you should build in a larger mileage number when you negotiate your lease. That way if you go over your specified mileage, the cost is kept to a minimum.

Regarding the caveat that you’ll have no equity in a leased car, that’s not quite right. You car has residual value, i.e., the buy out price, which is firmly established when you set up your lease. At the end of your lease, usually three years, you then have the following options:

1. Use your car’s residual value as a trade-in on another lease or a vehicle purchase.

2. Pay off the car at the residual value price and keep it, or then sell it privately.

3. Extend the lease six months.

4. Walk away.

So far, I don’t plan to walk away from this baby any time soon. When I was leaving the showroom, I was introduced to the retired owner of the dealership, who informed me that he too leases his car!