It is done

It took almost seven weeks, but our family’s 2018 Hyundai Tucson - which was a lease - is finally sold off. Made a decent bit of profit too, which is nice. The car market is indeed super crazy right now: the absolute worst time to buy a car, but the best time to have a car to sell. The local CarMax gave us $25,000 for the three-year old Tucson that had an MSRP in the $28,000s. The lease buyout was only $16,500, including tax. Do the math!

It had to be said though our Tucson has relatively low mileage (~18,200) and is practically pristine. Your mileage (pun intended) will vary. Don’t look to get around the same money if your Tucson had significantly more miles.

The $8,500 in profit isn’t without some excruciating waiting and patience. Due to the aforementioned crazy car market, leasing companies have stopped the practice of lease buyouts by a third party. No longer can you take your lease vehicle to CarMax (and the like) and have them cut you a check for the difference in present value and the payoff price. The contract buyout price the leasing companies has is with you; they are not legally obligated to sell to third party for that same price.

And at present time, the lease companies aren’t willing to sell at all. They want to impel the customer to return the car to the brand’s dealership. Because there is an absolute dearth of new car inventory due to the chip shortage.

In order to sell the Tucson and get some money back, we had to do it the roundabout way: buy the car outright from Hyundai, then sell the car to CarMax ourselves. Paying for the car was easy - electronic bank transfer - but then we had to wait over two weeks for Hyundai Finance to mail us the title. With the pink slip in hand, there was another problem: CarMax (and the like) only accepts a clean title: the paper cannot include the leasing company as a registered owner, even though they’ve signed it off to you, and there’s a bill of sale.

Getting a clean title required a trip to the local DMV. After paying $25 to transfer the title to my father’s name only, it was then another prolonged wait for the unencumbered title to arrive in the mail.

That took another three weeks, but thankfully the new pink slip came last Friday. We immediately schedule an appointment at CarMax the very next day. Two hours on the premises later, and finally we unburdened ourselves of Tucson. A whole month after my father have already leased another car! Thank god I had the parking space at work to store the Tucson during this time.

So yeah, if you have a car to sell, now is the best time! I just hope you’re not also looking to buy one as well…

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Today’s office.

Crazy car market

The lease is ending on my dad’s Hyundai Tucson, so we’re in the process of finding a new vehicle to (once again) lease. If you didn’t know, the automotive market is absolutely crazy right now. Due to the semiconductor chip shortage, the inventory of new cars is really low. In turn that pushes used car prices up sky high. This is a great situation if you’re looking to sell, but those looking to buy are in a world of hurt.

Those Labor Day deals you see advertised on TV? Yeah, they don’t actually exist on the ground. Markups are the norm, and you’d be lucky to find a vehicle for MSRP. We contacted the local Hyundai dealership hoping for an easy return and pickup transaction. Sadly, literally every car on their lot have additional makeup on top. The salesperson would not budge from the prices, even though we are turning in an end-of-lease car.

Which ought to be a nice profit maker for the dealership, because of the aforementioned high used car prices. CarMax is offering several thousand dollars above our lease buyout for the Tucson. We were completely willing to let the Hyundai dealer have this profit if they would simply give us a good lease deal on the next one. Shame. Instead, we're planning to sell the Tucson to CarMax, and pocketing the nice difference.

As for the replacement car, thanks to my brother’s contacts at a Toyota dealership, we are able to lease a poverty-spec Toyota Corolla at MSRP. Monthly payments will actually be slightly lower, which is nice. A compact sedan is indeed a step-down from the reasonably nice Tucson SUV, but that’s the best we can do in this crazy market. The goal was to not spend more on the monthly bill, and to that end, job done.

Once my dad retires, we’ll actually buy him the Lexus that will last him for the rest of his life.

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Hollywood sunset.

Apple CarPlay is a must-have

As a proper enthusiast of on the car variety, a vehicle’s infotainment is near the bottom of my concerns. How much power a car has got and how it handles into a corner is the primary interest. It’s the oily bits that counts; a car could have the crappiest stereo system in the world and I wouldn’t have cared less. Who needs amazing music when the song from the engine is ever so melodious.

That was then; as I’ve grown older I’ve come to appreciate a nicely done car stereo. When leasing the Hyundai Tucson for my family a few months ago I elected to get the trim with the upgraded stereo, and every time I’m in the car I marvel at how awesome the sound is. Of course, an SUV isn’t the type of car to offer any driving enjoyment, therefore the quality of the interior is further up on the importance scale. Nevertheless I got spoiled; in my next car(s) I definitely will tick the better sound system option.

Along with that there’s one killer app that is an absolute must-have: Apple CarPlay. I’ve been an iPhone user since the 4 came out on Verizon, and having used CarPlay in various cars of not my owning, it’s simply amazing. CarPlay the most easiest and best possible way to integrate the data from an iPhone to car: music, maps, contacts; all it takes is a singular USB cable. Honestly all automakers have to do is provide a quality touchscreen screen in an appropriate size.

And they have: thanks to Tesla outfitting the Model S with a 17-inch display on center console to control just about everything, established manufacturers have hurried to copy. The latest Audi cars is almost entirely screen: the instrument cluster is a screen, the infotainment is a screen, and the climate controls are on a screen. Thanks to Tesla, physical buttons appears to be a thing of the past in new luxury cars. Even most mainstream cars have at least a 7-inch touch display at the center.

What automakers haven’t been so good at is actually offering Apply CarPlay, and I’m primarily talking to you, Toyota and Mazda. (And somewhat you too, BMW: charging a subscription to use CarPlay? Get the F out of here.) I would be bombing the backwoods in a Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro for years now had Toyota simply implemented CarPlay in the venerable SUV. It’s only this year that Toyota and Mazda have started implementing the function in their respective new cars.

A word to automakers: I’m not buying a car from you if it hasn’t got Apply CarPlay ability. Full stop.

All screen everything