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All about Vehicle History Reports

Used car buying and leasing have gained footing in the manufacturing industry. With its advent comes the popularity of a major source of information for this transaction:The Vehicle History Report.

Of course, like anything happening for the first time, questions swarm people’s minds about what on earth is a vehicle history report. To help you keep your peace of mind, here are some answers:

A vehicle history report is your greatest source of information from CarFax about the history of a used car you want to purchase or lease. It includes the car’s insurance and DMV records. It’s where you can see if your car had major accidents, flood damages, or simply if the car is a lemon.

There’s simply a need for you to avail of the vehicle history report to know if your car has no issues regarding title and test passes for safety and emissions. You can also track if the car had accident history, too much mileage or anything that can pass off as evidence for heavy usage, and other valuable information that may have an effect on its functioning later on.

You need the vehicle history report, whether you’re selling or buying the car. In selling, you have to know the vehicle history report of your car to know the marketable price for it, based on usage and its standard market price. Buying, on the other hand, requires you to know possible problems the car may have due to some factors like heavy usage, accident history, and others. CarFax also offers a title guarantee. If in case there are some discrepancies on the car’s report or the title itself, you can ask for a payout.

And hey, the good thing is, all vehicle history reports go back to late eighties. Its database is that huge. If ever you wanna check on a car older than that, try to run the VIN anyhow.

Where to Find the Best Leases

Finding the best car lease is like open pit mining; half of your life (peace of mind) is at risk. Most car buyers ask the same question: Which is better: car buying or leasing? or Help! I can’t find a good car to lease! (Most of the time it’s in broken English. Check YahooAnswers.)

So to set things straight for all lessees and buyers at that, let me list down the sources you need to look into for that most sought-after yet elusive great car lease.

Prime but not primitive sources of leasing info are radio, newspaper, TV ads, and of course—the Net. Car manufacturers are fond of giving special leases for limited offer, not to mention subsidized or subvented leases. These companies usually offer these through discounting the price, boosting residual value, or by lowering interest rates. The thing is, you should work harder on your credit score; they only take in those that have 700+.

Next in line for the best car lease source are pricing or auto referral services in the Net. All you need to do is tell them the car you want and they can give a list of the best purchases or leases from the dealers who have agreed to your set price; the best part is, they will call you, not the head-splitting other way around. Another source, CarsDirect, when you like their offer lets you go to their dealership, sign the papers, and drive away, no sweat!

Top 3 among the sources is the nondealer lease sources. This simply means independent car lease companies. They may not be at par with car dealers’ promotional deals, but they can be good at hard-to-find, high-priced luxury cars. If this is not a guarantee that you will end up with your most-coveted car lease, then you might as well sue us for legwork.

Survival Tactics in eBay Jungle

You must be one of us whom after finding the right car model at maximum affordability just experience freezing fingers when about to press the Send button on the eBay site.

So what it is in eBay that scares off car buyers?

The element of non-visibility is only at an advantage for online chatters; but as for those who are serious customers online, this is not a resolved issue yet. Closing a deal online appears to be crossing your fingers that the non-existing person on the other side is true to his words. This has been touted as “honor system.” Without it, buying at eBay is not possible; the concept extends even to other items and services sold online.

It has been an online battle between sellers and buyers out there at eBay; without knowing the ins and outs of the maze, you might end with a bad deal and go home with half the car you want; our main armor against this is found on these nuggets of knowledge we compiled for you. Read on and be mindful.

Narrow the search by being definite in the car model you chose. You can save time in checking the eBay site by writing the exact model of the car on the search field.

Check feedback on the seller from other buyers; this is to check the credibility of the seller and to make sure he has experience in making online deals. Check also the auction’s description and ask for photos by email if necessary.

Be patient in observing the auctions before you jump into the bidding. Click on the “watch this item” for tracking sales and also “completed prices” for the final sale prices.

Develop good rapport with the seller; it enables you more flexible sales deals. The right seller to deal with is one who doesn’t set a minimum winning bid amount which is as much as a car’s retail value and one who allows you to cancel the deal after inspecting the car.

Even if banking is more on financing online purchases, interstate transactions are cash based.

Hire a mechanic and schedule for an inspection when you arrive in the scene. You can find inspection services in major metro markets with no-limit car warranty for the drive home.

Use Carfax for checking the vehicle history report and online pricing services for the most realistic retail and wholesale values of used cars.

Set a fixed price for a car and stick with it. Don’t engage in a bidding war. Include the travel and delivery costs when you have the car shipped after winning the auction.

When you are about to check your car on another state, buy a round-trip ticket. You can cut on the time spent when you decide to cancel the deal.

Car Leasing Option: Commercial Hire Purchase

You must have heard of some acronyms posing as car financing options. However, it has remained a riddle, creating cobwebs of doubt, as to what comprise these car financing deals.

One of these acronyms is CHP short for Commercial Hire Purchase. It’s that option where customer hires the car from a financier, paying a fixed monthly repayment, over a certain period of time. In this set-up the customer gets to use the car but is not the righteous owner of the car, not until the end of the contract when the car’s total amount with residual values and interest charges have been paid full; then the customer can claim ownership of the car.

So let’s discuss the advantages you can get from a CHP, sometimes called HP. There are several of them:

  • fixed interest rates
  • flexible contract terms usually from 24 to 60 months or two to five years
  • residual value (full or installment basis) that may be placed on contract
  • fixed monthly repayments
  • cash or trade-in may be used as deposit
  • costs are known in advance
  • tax deductions for cars used for business
  • government sales taz is not added on the monthly rate or the residual amount
  • customers can claim GST on the vehicle price
  • finance allows low interest rates since finance is secured against the vehicle

Who can benefit the most of a Commercial Hire Purchase deal are partnerships, companies, sole traders whose GST is on accrual basis,and any individual, private or not, using the car for business.

Source: https://www.strattonfinance.com.au

Leasing and Where It All Started

Leasing as a process and financial arrangement began as early as 2010 BC but modern leasing has started around 1950s, which first came with the creation of Investment Tax Credit in 1962 that spurred leasing that’s tax based. Following the strides of the early leases, a lot of equipment and other products sprouted to meet the growing demand of consumers. Many leasing companies got into leasing nontax products like vendor programs, limited partnerships, residual sharings, operating leases, and income funds.

Besides the aforementioned reasons for the meteoric rise of leasing, a lot of factors can be looked on as the force behind it. It has achieved its prestige and popularity in the recent twenty years due to the following factors:

Banking industry entered into the leasing realm, giving it more credibility from being the last alternative to any financial arrangement.

A new form, FASB 13, was produced by the accounting sector that would help in standardizing lease reporting in financial statements.

Rev Ruling 55-540 and Rev Proc 75-21, Internal Revenue Service issued guidelines, are implemented to help lessees and lessors to put a structure in leasing transactions.

People have been wondering why businesses have learned to trust leasing as a financial arrangement all through the passing years, when the economic terrain has been quite unreliable. The businesses have this to say for the reason:

In leasing there is relatively lower monthly payments and at times with lesser or no down payment involved.

Most companies have gained the mentality that at times owning an equipment is not a practical choice, that they don’t have to own the equipment to be able to use it. They have seen the economics in leasing more than loans.

The depreciation and interest on debts produce tax benefits for companies.

Some lessees can get off the record considerations and financial adjustments.

Leasing is controlled and guided by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), which are trustworthy and notable institutions.

Source: https://www.executivecaliber.ws

The economic plunge has adverse effect on the car-buying populace, but there’s a way to go around this. When Chrysler declared that it has put an end to leasing, it created a domino effect on the other car-manufacturing companies; GM and Ford have expressed that they will be giving tighter restrictions for their leasing packages, and financial institutions like Wells Fargo and Chase Bank are headed to the same path.

Leasing as a financing type is appealing to the lessee and the leasing company and car manufacturer. For the car user, it is quite tempting to have a new car every two to three years. For the leasing company, it adds up to their earning that many car users are not quite informed about the leasing process. Car manufacturers used to love leasing since a lot of people tend to use their car models, even for luxury cars.

However, this time, forecasting the residual value of your car has proven to be a nightmare for these companies with the continuous increase in fuel. It is believed that usually leases can be paid off with 40% of the car’s value; right now, they cover only 28% of the car’s total value.

Many have raised concerns about whether leasing is on its last days. Leasing authorities believe that leasing has been around for some time already and has become a commoner in the competitive world of the car manufacturing industry. It is not going away for the reason of any economy downturn.

A car enthusiast who would like to lease should be able to equip one’s self by ensuring a strong credit background; leasing companies will be more scrutinizing this hard-up days. Other car companies will give you more reasons to buy rather than lease a car so you can take advantage of it.

Source: https://www.edmunds.com

What Our customers are saying

The lease rate I got by calling the dealer was $67 higher than the rate I got from Car Leasing Secrets. It’s all about the local competition. So happy with my Benz!
 
Cristoph Wiese
Athens, GA
This is probably the easiest way to get quotes and compare them. I got one from each dealer in my city. One of them was surprisingly low. The quotes are free. No worries there.
Kristen Fletcher
Albany, NY
What a great way to shop around! I wanted a Corolla. There’s only one Toyota dealership in my city but I got a quote for a Honda Civic and decided to go with that one because I got such a good offer.
Mark Dolan
Missoula, MT