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There answer to the question is there are no real boundaries. There are actually 3 separate issues at play here.
The first is your warranty which is no different for a lease or a purchase. Your complete warranty can't be voided except maybe extreme circumstances like perhaps it was totaled by your insurance company but you fixed it anyway (not that this happens, just throwing it out). BMW can refuse to cover something under warranty but only if one of your mods could have led to the failure of the part that needs service. So if you put on an aftermarket exhaust they can't refuse to replace an electric seat motor unless maybe you drilled into the motor or shorted wires screwing a bracket in or something.
The second issue are the mods themselves. Many people who mod vehicles think this ads value, as in its worth is x, but I put on $1000 in accessories so its worth $1000 more. That's not the case, best case is it doesn't affect the value but in many it decreases it. No one wants a car that's been messed with, no matter how cool it is to them. Your always better off returning the car to stock as much as possible before getting rid of it. With a purchase this decreases the trade in or resale value, with a lease it results in penalties.
The 3rd issue is the lease itself. Many people think when you lease a car you are required to keep it in perfect shape and not modify it at all (like its more of a rental than their car). While that's true its no different than something you should do for a purchase if you want to get maximum value when you are ready for something else. The only difference between a lease and a purchase is that with a lease you are only paying for the depreciated value of the car instead of entire value. At the end of your lease term you have a residual value which is basically the payoff amount on a traditional loan. If you have taken care of the car, done everything right, not exceeded your mileage etc, this is the value you are guaranteed from a BMW dealer essentially zeroing out your obligation. If you have modded the car, missed maintenance, gone over mileage, etc they will penalize you and you will have to pay to end the lease. This is no different than the car having a lesser trade in or resale value. When you remove the BMW dealer from the equation you take all the penalties off the table and the residual value is essentially all you have to worry about, its your payoff amount. To everyone but BMW its just another used car. I have a friend that has always leased his cars, has always gone way over his mileage and has never been penalized like he would have been if he turned in. He either sells the car to a private seller or just trades it in for another make.
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