with 10 days left on lease i am aborting the search for a replacement - just going to buy out the Volvo and drive it for another year
the car only has 17,000 miles and it was always garaged, so aside from curbed rims and messed up tires it’s basically as good as new. the original warranty is 4 years 50,000 mile so i still have a year and over 30,000 miles of original warranty left.
the car was a bit over $60,000 MSRP 3 years ago, but after EV incentives and other discounts the price that was used to calculate my lease payments was $49,000. because of inflation, similar cars ( same year, trim and mileage ) sell today for about $35,000 on Autotrader while i get to buy it out for $29,000.
the original plan was to buy it out and trade it in for the next car but i realized that most of the difference between $35,000 and $29,000 would go to the dealer and the government ( taxes, fees ) and i would get locked into the next car for another 3 years at a time when the car buying landscape changes every year …
because of the shift to EVs and the duel between CCS / Electrify America and Tesla Supercharger / NACS standards we are in a very uncertain time when it comes to cars …
by keeping the Volvo i not only save money ( buying below market value ) but i leave myself options going forward.
i did my best to find a replacement for the Volvo but what i found is i would have to spend DOUBLE to get something that was a clear upgrade in my eyes …
so the solution is to keep Volvo until the situation changes in some way …
in separate threads i will post separate reviews of cars i have considered and ultimately decided against and the reasons why …