Hey team..
I know this topic is as old as Terry Bradshaw's jokes, but I am still interested on everyone's view. Being a lower priced Mercedes, are most going to opt to finance it?
Having done both for >30 years, I have a slightly different take on the question.
Without special factors in play, lease and purchase ultimately work out the same if you
run through the entire contract term.
If you purchased the car, you can sell the vehicle anytime you want to at whatever price you deem fit.
When a car is leased, you can still sell the car and at whatever price you deem is fair but the lessor determines how much you owe
and that number can shock you. The reason is because a vehicle takes the biggest hit in value the first year where as when you lease,
you are paying the depreciation on a fixed basis ( e.g. 36 equal monthly payments.) So say after one year, you want to get out of your lease
on a $30000 car with a 60% residual value of $18000 and you have paid $333 depreciation a month for 12 month = $4000. Your lessor may ask you for
a payout of $26000 because you only fulfiled one third of your obligation although the car may only be worth $22000 on the secondary market.
In other words, you have to come up with $4000 just to break the lease.
So my strategy is to take the lease if there is a super lease deal where the manufacturer gives a ton of incentives including low interest, high residual value and discount.
If you buy the same car, you usually get just the discount but not the high residual value ( has no relevance ) or low interest. Or low interest in lieu of discount.
BMW is well known to give sky high residual values and low interest but little discount - hence their best deals are always leases. That's by BMW's business design whereas MB will
do everything when they want to and nothing when they don't want to as in the case of the CLA.
Also, most novice lessers are not aware of the fact that when you return a leased vehicle, they will charge you for rock chips on wind shield, paint, door dinks, bumper dinks and most
will require the tires to have better than 50% of treads or you will be charged with a new set. I usually just voluntarily put on a set of inexpensive but good tires before I turn in the car.
If you missed a required service because you think you are close to the end of the lease, that will be billed to you. Or for stains in the carpet where you spilled a cup of coffee.
Mercedes and BMW are damn serious about those items because they intend to put that car right back on the used car lot and they want you to pay for everything.
Oh, there is also the obligatory $395 lease-end disposal fee which is outright highway robbery. Of course, if you lease another car from them, they may overlook a few of those charges - wink wink.