[Rando]

John 070: But you can really compare the TOTAL $ spent for the lease vs the TOTAL $ spent for the purchase, no? That's how I think, at least. Monthly payment is sort of a meaningless way of thinking to me. (But I realize it works well for some folks.)

It's not that a car can't be kept after 3 years, but with fancy cars, no doubt more electronic gremlins start showing up... your shocks will be more worn, bushings, bearings, etc.. so, all things equal, you'd rather have a new one. And these days with nav and all, the improvements are pretty big! The 2007 nav versus the 2010 nav is a big jump! (Not to mention 2007 vs. 2004!)

Oh, and for me, modding is not something I want to do. (Though I understand many folks here do it. In my opinion, that's fine, I just don't like it when people are actually lying about it to the dealer, because of course they are bumping up against various tolerances and basically increasing costs for everyone else when they don't accept responsibility for their choices.)