6 Reasons to Leasing a Car vs. Owning It

By Moez Sghaier

December 14, 2023 1:31 p.m.

In 2023, would you lease a car or own it? Based on my own experience, the following are some reasons why I think leasing a car rather than owning it is better.

Decrease in value over time

When you visit a car dealership and you start negotiating, the sales representative tries to convince you that owning a car is an investment that you should protect by subscribing to some sort of insurance. That is most likely beside acquiring that ‘investment’ by financing. The fact though is that ‘investment’ loses value over time rather than gains like real estate for instance. Our household’s latest car, a KIA Rondo 2011 was bought at about CA$18,700 in 2016. We kept it until 2021 and sold it in the auction for CA$3,750.

Increase in maintenance/service costs over time

During the 5 or 6 years we kept our KIA Rondo, we had to spend hundreds of dollars per year servicing a 5- to 9-year-old car at the car dealership we bought the car from!! And the maintenance costs increased from a year to the other due to wear and tear, labor, parts, and inflation. Obviously, that amount could have been much less or even very minimal if we had serviced the car in a private shop or just by ourselves!

Decrease in reliability over time

The evidence is that as long as a car gets older, it becomes less reliable due to wear and tear. This is particularly true in cold climates like Canada’s and especially in dry weather conditions like in Alberta and in Calgary in particular. Some drivers though do not care about anything else as long as their car can start and start running no matter how old it is. They would keep it until it just stops starting!!They then decide to take it to the car junk yard!

Better monthly budgeting

Instead of navigating visually and not knowing exactly what to expect from your car and when to expect it in terms of surprising spending, is it rather better to know exactly what you have to pay per month and budget for it especially in those times of inflation that is setting to stay, or just deciding to not to do anything and wait until your car breaks and you find yourself in a situation you have to give up other essential spending even food and stay hungry and not be able to pay your mortgage/rent to repair your car!

Benefit from a brand new car

If you are like me and you love driving brand new cars, then leasing is your choice. Most of the leased cars have in fact no or minimal mileage. In other words, all the mileage the car will be doing will be the one you will be doing yourself. Beside the psychological effect of pride in driving a brand new car, you are certain that the car you will be driving had no previous problems a previous owner did not tell you about in case of buying a secondhand car for example. The result is then you just drive and enjoy the smell of ‘new’ inside the cabin.

Benefit from luxury cars

In case you choose to pay a higher amount per month, you can even allow yourself to drive a luxury car from these prestigious brands like Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, and the like. If you consider buying one of those luxury cars, you cannot afford to buy it brand new because of its obvious high cost. Leasing, on the contrary, allows you to live the dream of driving and enjoying the experience of a luxury car that is most of the time brand new and keep smelling the ‘new’ inside the cabin!