by Gabrielle DeSantis

If you’re currently leasing a car and you can’t afford the lease payments, or if your lease is up, you have the option to sell the car in order to terminate the lease. By selling your car lease to a third party like Carmax or Carvana, you can not only get rid of those pesky monthly payments, but you could even stand to make a profit, until now. As of late, some automakers are requiring lessees to return the car to the original dealer they leased it from.  

Why would anyone want to sell their leased car?

Don’t get us wrong, it’s easy to return your leased car back to the original dealer or another one of the brand’s franchised dealerships. However, doing so can cost you a considerable amount of money. U.S. News reports that if your leased car has a low amount of miles or is worth more than its predicted residual value, you might not see the potential profits like you would if you sold it to a third-party dealer.

For example, I sold my leased 2019 Subaru Forester to Carvana late last year. I was only one year into the lease when I decided that I didn’t need the car anymore, so I received the payoff amount from the leasing company and had the car appraised through Carvana. The payoff amount was around $24,000, which is the amount that would need to be paid to own the car free and clear. Surprisingly, Carvana offered me around $27,000 (based on the current market conditions), which meant selling it to them would yield a nearly $3,000 profit.

However, depending on which brand of car that you’re currently driving, you may not be able to do what I did. A few automakers, mainly GM and Honda, are now restricting their lessees from selling their cars to third-party retailers like Carmax and Carvana.

Why are they restricting lessees from selling their cars?

There are a few reasons why brands like GM and Honda are currently restricting lessees from selling their cars to other retailers. The first reason is that there are currently fewer cars on dealer lots. Thanks to the global chip shortage, dealer lots have been void of their usually stocked new and used car inventories and now the automakers need to make up for the shortage in some way. One easy way for them to do it is to require their lessees to sell or trade their current cars back to their dealers in order to help fill their lots.

The second reason is profit. Instead of lessees getting the profits from selling their leased cars to third parties, Honda and GM are now looking to reap some of those profits by re-selling those leased cars instead. The chip shortage has skewed the used car market upward this year and by requiring all leased Honda and GM vehicles to go back to their own dealers, the brands can capitalize on the car’s higher values by re-selling them.

The third reason that automakers are restricting lessees from selling their cars to other vendors is to mitigate some of the competition. The pandemic brought an uptick in business to “no-hassle, no-haggle” dealers like Vroom, Carmax, and Carvana. This provided a lot of competition to the traditional car dealerships since consumers (like myself) were selling their cars to these companies and padding their inventories. By getting rid of the ability for consumers to sell to third parties, there will be less competition for brands like GM and Honda.

How to get around these lease-end limitations

If you’re currently leasing a Honda or GM vehicle and are nearing the end of your lease, then there is a way to circumvent the restrictions. At the end of the lease term, you can purchase the car outright and sell it yourself to whomever you want. Just note that this strategy can end up being costly as you’ll need to pay for the car’s taxes and registration fees after you purchase it. You may also need to take out a loan to cover the cost of the car, which will accrue interest.

You can also elect to trade the car in for a new model as both Honda and GM might have special deals for current lessees. However, different regions will have different deals. Hopefully, the market will stabilize soon enough that automakers will lessen these restrictions. But for now, don’t take your leased Honda or GM car to a third-party dealer, you could be turned away.

RELATED: Carmax Is Now Allowing For 24-Hour Test Drives

The post Want to Sell Your Leased Car Early? Some Automakers Won’t Allow it appeared first on MotorBiscuit.

by Gabrielle DeSantis

In recent years, the Mercedes-Benz G-Class has transformed into a vehicle that considerably deviates from its origins. Back in the late 1970s, it was first developed as a military vehicle that could provide high-level off-road capabilities. Later, rescue services and fire departments used the G-Class to access difficult-to-reach places on rough terrain. However, lately, the G-Class is frequently used as a status symbol by sports stars and rap artists. Also, many people and custom shops modified the G-Class in often wild and crazy ways. One of the most ridiculous recent examples of this is the “G-Boss,” which is not easy on the eyes.

The G-Boss G-Class is an ode to bumblebees, school buses, and the early 2000s 

The gaudy G-Boss is a G-Class kit created by G&B Design in Recklinghausen, Germany. It’s difficult to figure what type of customer would buy the G-Boss or who might find it attractive. Perhaps this is the case if you’re a lover of bumblebees, a school bus enthusiast, or want to relive your glory days from the early 2000s.

Despite the dubious styling of the G-Boss, G&B Design is not new to the automotive customization game, as it has been doing for more than a decade. The G-Boss builds off of an already luxurious and fancy W463 G-Wagon and takes it to extreme levels of absurdity. 

Tacky exterior features of the notorious G-Boss

RELATED: This Mercedes G-Wagon Golf Cart Will Make Your Buddies Green With Envy

The front of the G-Boss features integrated evil-eye headlights, a “futuristic-looking hood and front apron,” a two-part front lip, a roof spoiler with three LED units, and a matching grille. The side of the G-Boss has wide wheel arches and side skirts. For the back, G&B Design fitted the G-Boss with an enormous two-piece diffuser, carbon fiber mirror caps, and a carbon fiber spare wheel cover. Also, the G-Boss has custom 24-inch wheels. 

The interior of the G-Boss is just as painfully ugly as the exterior

The view doesn’t get any better in the cabin of the G-Boss. It features a similar bumblebee/school bus look as the exterior, with a black and yellow color-matching scheme for the leather. Also, there is no shortage of carbon fiber in the interior. You can soak it up until your heart’s content. Additionally, G&B borrows from the Rolls-Royce starry night theme with G-Boss lettering on the headliner.

Perhaps, if you keep an open mind, you can take a “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” perspective with the G-Boss. However, this is not an easy endeavor, for the G-Boss stretches this notion to the breaking point. If you truly believe that the G-Boss is an attractive modification of the G-Class, then don’t let the doubters kill your enjoyment. Go buy a G-Class and jam out to the Backstreet Boys on your iPod while you reminisce about a more innocent time during the early aughts. 

RELATED: The Mercedes G Wagen Just Beat the Chevy C8 Corvette For the Fastest-Selling Car in America

The post ‘G-Boss’: This Modified Mercedes-Benz G-Class Is Not Easy on the Eyes appeared first on MotorBiscuit.