1) If I have a lease negotiated to $200/month for 36 months, that's $7200. If I want to pay enough money in so that my payments are $0 do I have to pay $7200 or would it be less? When buyinga car & financing it any money used as a down payment is less that is financed (you pay interest on the borrowed amount). However, for a lease does the money factor apply to the entire lease amount/depreciation of vehicle regardless of how much additional money you bring to the table? 2) Buy a $24k car, drive it off the lot and it's totaled. Insurance will give you, say $22,500 since you lost $1500 driving it off the lot. I assume this is the same on a lease, right? I saw advice, which I believe fallacious, against bringing money to the table with a lease because if you lack gap insurance and it totals out the insurance will give you only value equal to the 3-year depreciated value (say $16k)+whatever you owe. So, if you paid all up front and drove off the lot and totaled it you'd end up eating thousands. This makes no sense but I wanted to check for sure!
