Automobile Renting and Leasing

Subterms

    Latest story

    138 Shares149 Views

    Is It Better to Buy or Lease a Car? It Depends.

    by

    The lowest overall cost is to buy a car and keep it for a long time. But leasing usually has lower monthly costs. And leasing an E.V. may come with a tax break.Most people have two options when they want a new car: buy it with a traditional loan or lease it.Either can make sense, depending on your personal situation.If you’re looking for the lowest overall cost over the longer term, buying a car with a loan, and then driving it for a while debt free after you finish making payments, is usually the best option.But if low monthly payments and a smaller down payment are a priority, a lease may be worth considering. And if you’re willing to try an electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid, tax breaks available for leased models may make deals more affordable. Almost half of new E.V.s were acquired with leases in the second quarter of this year, up from around a fourth a year earlier, according to data from Experian.The Federal Reserve’s decision on Wednesday to cut its benchmark rate by half a point indirectly affects rates on car loans, which are also influenced by factors like the borrower’s credit score and the level of loan delinquencies. The average interest rate for a new-car loan in August was 7.1 percent, and 11.3 percent for a used-car loan, according to the automotive site Edmunds. “It will take a number of additional rate cuts before the cumulative effect becomes material for car buyers,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.Paying cash for your car is, of course, interest free. But while car prices have eased somewhat, they remain high. The average transaction price in July was around $48,000 for a new car, and about $25,000 for a used car, according to Kelly Blue Book, part of Cox Automotive. Most people who buy a new automobile and many who buy one used get some kind of financing.With a traditional loan, you make a down payment and then pay off the debt with fixed monthly payments over time. (The average new-car loan term is about six years.) When the loan is repaid, you can keep the car and drive it payment free or trade it in and get credit for its value toward your next car purchase.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Frank Olson, Executive Who Linked O.J. Simpson With Hertz, Dies at 91

      by

      He negotiated Mr. Simpson’s star turn in commercials, tapping into his football fame, and formed a social bond with him — until there were murder charges. They died on the same day.Frank A. Olson, who as a top executive of Hertz cast the running back O.J. Simpson as the star of the company’s commercials — a corporate marriage that shined up both parties and that lasted two decades, until Mr. Simpson was charged in a double homicide in 1994 — died at his home in Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday, the same day Mr. Simpson died. Mr. Olson was 91.The cause was complications of Covid, his sons, Christopher and Blake, said.The coincidental timing of the deaths of Mr. Olson, who had steered Hertz through years of corporate turbulence, and Mr. Simpson, the athlete turned pitchman turned infamous criminal defendant, linked the two men in a way that Mr. Olson had once embraced but that he later distanced himself from.More than business partners, Mr. Olson and Mr. Simpson, both San Francisco natives, forged an alliance, beginning in the 1970s, that spoke of that mutually beneficial zone where corporate and social life intertwine. Mr. Olson, an avid golfer, sponsored Mr. Simpson for membership in the private Arcola Country Club in Paramus, N.J., where in 1992 Mr. Simpson, a former Heisman Trophy winner and Pro Football Hall of Famer, became the first Black member.In a letter that Mr. Simpson left at his Los Angeles home before his arrest in the stabbing murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald L. Goldman, he listed friends he was sending “love and thanks to.” Mr. Olson was one of them.“I took him places where I think very few Black men had ever been,” Mr. Olson said in the acclaimed 2016 documentary “O.J.: Made in America.”Mr. Simpson was 76 when he died of cancer at his home in Las Vegas.The idea of featuring him in Hertz commercials to symbolize speedy service, beginning in 1974, originated with the company’s ad agency. But because Mr. Simpson was Black and most Hertz customers where white businessmen, the choice made the agency nervous, according to a 1994 article in The Washington Post. So the decision was kicked up to Mr. Olson, who at the time was executive vice president and general manager of the rental-car division. (The company also rented trucks.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More