Originally Posted by jaguar

The original post is heavily biased towards leasing, so I would suggest to take it with a grain of salt. Notice that the APR on the lease on the 5-series is ~4% lower than the APR on the finiancing. That alone works out to be about 4 grand over 3 years. Also keep in mind that you're comparing a 60-month loan to a 36 month lease, meaning that you're borrowing money for much much longer on the loan. If you only consider only a 3-year loan, financing starts to look alot better.

Also keep in mind that if you when you lease going over your mileage will screw you, and that 3-years is a very long time. So even if right now you are only doing 10k a year (or 12 or 15k) halfway through the lease you might find yourself in a situation where you're doing 20k a year, and the lease will end up costing you a fortune.

Assuming there are no special deals for leasing (like a reduced intrest rate) if you are planning on keeping the car for a long time, you should finance it. If you like getting a new car every 3 years or so, then you should lease it. (but keep in mind that the 3-years when a car is new are the most expensive).