# Is bmw lease protection worth it?



## ard (Jul 1, 2009)

Thanks. 
Last time I checked they said 300 for all runflats., no matter the model ....


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## Bruce128iC (Feb 16, 2003)

I leased my 128i from Pacific BMW and it was the first time I ever got the $5K insurance for lease end damage. I'm so glad I did. I will turn in the car in a month or so and I have big scratches on three body panels on the passenger side (thanks to the a*hole who keyed my car) and I have damage under the front bumper from one of those damn cement blocks at the end of a parking space. All of this damage should be covered by the insurance so I'll walk away not owing a dime. The insurance only added about $20 bucks to each monthly payment....totally worth it. :thumbup:


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## CTSoxFan (Oct 20, 2006)

This debate reminds me of the wheel & tire insurance debates. For everyone who says it is a good deal, someone else will say it is a waste of money. Ultimately you need to decide what your tolerance for risk is and act accordingly.


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## JPete (Oct 9, 2014)

I paid $782 for my end lease return package on my 2015 428i Gran Coupe. Can't recall but when I return at lease end, if tires are less than normal tire wear by bmw standards, with the lease return package would I be charged for low tire wear?


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## JPete (Oct 9, 2014)

*Lease End - Tires*

Request comments: I purchased the lease return excess wear and tear package. Does this mean I can return with bald tires..or am I required to change them out before lease return?

This forum is fantastic and value your input.

Thank you


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## [email protected] BMW (Aug 2, 2010)

Bald is fine that is purpose of warranty


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## Ninong (May 20, 2014)

From the BMWUSA.com website:

http://cache.bmwusa.com/Pdf_c01b413d-d81f-4be9-8ae9-873db8ab36b2.arox


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## JPete (Oct 9, 2014)

Thank you Greg and Ninong. One other question. There was an addendum to the wear and tear plan and from what I can recall (paper work not with me) the language reads that some excess wear and tear may not be waived and the leasee must use there own car insurance to cover this. Can you all shed some light on that?

Thank you.


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## TA00 (Oct 16, 2014)

I would see if you know, you backed into something.


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## bnguyen1983 (Sep 15, 2014)

How many times do you guys typically change tires during a 36 month lease?


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## EatonZ26 (Jun 27, 2014)

bnguyen1983 said:


> How many times do you guys typically change tires during a 36 month lease?


I guess that would depend on whether or not you have a staggered setup.


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## TA00 (Oct 16, 2014)

and how you drive, and what tires you use, and the weather..


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## bnguyen1983 (Sep 15, 2014)

TA00 said:


> and how you drive, and what tires you use, and the weather..


Staggered and So Cal weather. Not driving crazy. No burnouts or late braking. Basically I'm trying to get an idea of how long the original tires will last.


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## JPete (Oct 9, 2014)

Thanks


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## Roger Yeh (Feb 4, 2010)

ard said:


> I thought the cost for low tires on a lease return was $200.
> 
> SOMEONE CONFIRM THIS.
> 
> ...


Confirmed from bmwfs that it is 300 per tile up to 19 inch and 400 for 20's and up


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## hyperzulu (Jul 12, 2011)

TA00 said:


> or .16 cents if you do it like 3 months ahead of your lease turn in


You can "prepay" any time before the car is officially returned. You are charged the higher per mile fee once the car has been returned with excess mileage. Paying months ahead is really only if you would like to add the payment into your car's monthly payments. Otherwise just wait until the day before you're turning in the car to call up BMWFS and pay off the excess mileage in one lump sum.


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## JPete (Oct 9, 2014)

Rogers Yea,
Is that charge assessed to those that don't have the excess wear & tear package?


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## rmr927 (Oct 8, 2014)

I think a big part of whether to get the lease protection depends on where you live. If I lived in NYC or LA and had to drive in a city atmosphere most of the time, I would definitely purchase the protection. Living in a more rural area like I do, I think I would pass. I take excellent care of my vehicles and have leased 5 cars from multiple auto makers and have never paid any additional fees when returning the car. I've got a 435i on order that I plan to lease and I assure you that if BMW nickel and dimes me when I return this one, it will be the last car I lease from them. I understand that I am not the owner of the vehicle and always make sure the car is returned within the normal wear and tear allowances. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who beat the s**t out of a lease with the mind set of "it's not mine - who cares". 

Personally what I would do is self insure and set up an online savings plan and withdraw $40 a month for the length of the lease. At the end of the lease, if there should be any damage, I've got $1500 to work with. If there's nothing to pay, I've got $1500 to play with. Insurance is always a gamble - sometimes it works in your favor - sometimes not.


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## hyperzulu (Jul 12, 2011)

rmr927 said:


> I think a big part of whether to get the lease protection depends on where you live. If I lived in NYC or LA and had to drive in a city atmosphere most of the time, I would definitely purchase the protection. Living in a more rural area like I do, I think I would pass. I take excellent care of my vehicles and have leased 5 cars from multiple auto makers and have never paid any additional fees when returning the car. I've got a 435i on order that I plan to lease and I assure you that if BMW nickel and dimes me when I return this one, it will be the last car I lease from them. I understand that I am not the owner of the vehicle and always make sure the car is returned within the normal wear and tear allowances. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who beat the s**t out of a lease with the mind set of "it's not mine - who cares".
> 
> Personally what I would do is self insure and set up an online savings plan and withdraw $40 a month for the length of the lease. At the end of the lease, if there should be any damage, I've got $1500 to work with. If there's nothing to pay, I've got $1500 to play with. Insurance is always a gamble - sometimes it works in your favor - sometimes not.


Yeah I think you're going to see the high volume BMW dealership in LA get more than its fair share of typical BMW drivers that take no pride in their vehicle. Most people who take pride in their cars will get the dents and scrapes repaired before turn-in anyway, and for much cheaper than $1000.


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## ard (Jul 1, 2009)

JPete said:


> Rogers Yea,
> Is that charge assessed to those that don't have the excess wear & tear package?


Yes, confirmed by Justin (BMW advisor) last week up thread....


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## happy_hippo (Apr 12, 2017)

[email protected] BMW said:


> It's amazing how many people on this forum always say these products are not worth it. I buy Safelease on every single car I get ..... Let me put this out there... the average lease return bill is around $1,500+. You guys have no idea how many people expect us to bail them out of their lease return charges just because they are buying another car. I tell my clients it's a great product, this is a good opportunity...but it's their $.... so in 3 years if ya got issues suck it up, write a check..., don't ask for a bail out. I.E. you have been politely informed about product when you got the car. I wish there was a way I could send a bill to every fester that thinks this products a waste and let them pay the clients bill who they advised NOT to get the product. And for the record the average profit on this product is between $200-$500.. so not like the dealers are winning the lottery here. YES IT IS NEGOTIABLE  just depends on dealership.


What is lease protection? I was not offered this when I took delivery 2 months ago.


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## ard (Jul 1, 2009)

happy_hippo said:


> What is lease protection? I was not offered this when I took delivery 2 months ago.


You've read this entire thread, and googled "BME Lease Protection" and can't figure it out?!?

I wouldn't be surprise to find out you bought that, the tire protection, and the headlight and blinker fluid service policies

:angel:


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## happy_hippo (Apr 12, 2017)

ard said:


> You've read this entire thread, and googled "BME Lease Protection" and can't figure it out?!?
> 
> I wouldn't be surprise to find out you bought that, the tire protection, and the headlight and blinker fluid service policies
> 
> :angel:


No, I didn't read the entire thread, didn't have the time but I will google. And no, why would someone buy something if they didn't know what it was? Headlight and blinker fluid service policies? I didnt know they even had such a thing. Why wouldn't you be surprised for? I thought this board was to help out folks who don't know, not to criticize them.. I guess I dodged a bullet with those!


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## socal59 (Oct 24, 2004)

When I returned my X5 a few months back, my local dealer was great, they just looked at the car briefly, mentioning that they used the plastic BMW circle gauge and anything inside that was ok. 

I would think there is something in the lease stating "normal wear and tear" some road rash on bumpers etc are just part of driving a car. It can't look showroom fresh after 3 years. I'm sure legally, it would stand, not sure if worth fighting w a lawyer for $2k of damage. 


Sent from my iPhone using Bimmerfest


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## mauicoug (Apr 20, 2009)

Personally, I take great care of my cars, I park away from people and I have not had a charge at lease turn in, including an Mercedes E320. The reality of run flats, the fronts will wear out by 20k miles, therefore, most people will need to replace somewhere in the second year of the lease. The question is will you put on another run flat or some other type of tire? Then, it wouldn't matter at lease end, with the protection. Frankly, if the premium is $1500, for the lease protection, I would rather hold onto the money. Curb rash is not chargeable and any scratches smaller than a credit card are okay too.


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## MJBrown62 (Jun 15, 2016)

happy_hippo said:


> What is lease protection? I was not offered this when I took delivery 2 months ago.


OK, as this section is Ask a Dealer not ask a grumpy Fester, I will answer your question.

BMW Leases allow for what is considered reasonable wear and tear. When you turn the vehicle in there is excessive wear, they can charge a fee for the type of wear. Things like a cracked or starred windshield ($600), sub-standard tires ($300 each) and levels of damage on body panels and bumpers. Lost keys too.

Safelease and BMW Lease end Protection will cover the fees that can be charged. The plans differ, but they usually cover up to $1,000 per type of wear, and up to $5,000 per turn in.

So if you have four tires under 3mm, that would be a $1200 charge. BMW Lease End covers $1,000, you pay $200. If it's 2 tires, it's covered.

BMW Dealers love it if you have the coverage as 1) there's no back and forth, what can you do for me negotiation, and 2) the funds come back to the dealer to offset their costs to replace those tires.

Keep in mind it's like any kind of insurance: you might exceed what you paid on one lease, and not on the other. I like Greg am in the industry and have bought this protection. I had one car that had 4 bad tires and was keyed from tip to tail. I could have paid my insurance deductible for the damage and coughed up for the tires. Instead it's more like a tire charge.

For the guy who was covered over 20 times for his leases, good on him. But remember the bell curve of life: he was clearly in the 2% of "it went great for me" people.

And he's not going to pay for your tires.


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## keylime503 (Mar 25, 2015)

I thought each bald tire counted as an item, and you could have 5 items each up to $1000. This is the first I'm hearing of the $500 max per "type of wear".


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## 1968BMW2800 (Aug 13, 2016)

keylime503 said:


> I thought each bald tire counted as an item, and you could have 5 items each up to $1000. This is the first I'm hearing of the $500 max per "type of wear".


Waaaay back in 2005, when Jaguar was owned by Ford, I purchased WearCare (Ford's lease protection plan) for a new Jag I leased. The WearCare cost $750 on a three year lease. All tires and wheels were fully covered along with minor scratch and dent and windshield and interior trim. It was sold as basically a walk away deal.

I usually don't purchase these sorts of "protections," because, as insurance, they are expensive and dealers are so weird about pricing -- one minute it's $1,995 and then if you decline the price drops. So unpleasant, especially if it happens at the end of a deal when I'm looking forward to enjoying my new car -- I don't like to start wondering where else in the deal have I paid too much.

Anyway, if the coverage is comprehensive and the price is right, there is value to be had. But if you need a PhD and a slide rule to figure out what is and what isn't covered... As my wife would say, "ish."


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## MJBrown62 (Jun 15, 2016)

keylime503 said:


> I thought each bald tire counted as an item, and you could have 5 items each up to $1000. This is the first I'm hearing of the $500 max per "type of wear".


As I stated in my post, there are multiple vendors of lease end protection. I can't speak for them all, just the ones I used to sell.

For BMW Lease End, it's $1,000 per type of wear, $5,000 per car total.

Brochure attached


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## 1968BMW2800 (Aug 13, 2016)

MJBrown62 said:


> As I stated in my post, there are multiple vendors of lease end protection. I can't speak for them all, just the ones I used to sell.
> 
> For BMW Lease End, it's $1,000 per type of wear, $5,000 per car total.
> 
> Brochure attached


Pretty clear. Very helpful.

Now, if we could just get a little more price transparency.


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## keylime503 (Mar 25, 2015)

MJBrown62 said:


> As I stated in my post, there are multiple vendors of lease end protection. I can't speak for them all, just the ones I used to sell.
> 
> For BMW Lease End, it's $1,000 per type of wear, $5,000 per car total.
> 
> Brochure attached


I have the BMW branded protection, same brochure as the one you posted. I don't see anything about limiting to "type of wear" so I guess it comes down to if 4 bald tires would be itemized as a single wear item or four. IMO it should be 4, but I'm guessing you're going to reply and say it counts as 1 .


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## MJBrown62 (Jun 15, 2016)

keylime503 said:


> I have the BMW branded protection, same brochure as the one you posted. I don't see anything about limiting to "type of wear" so I guess it comes down to if 4 bald tires would be itemized as a single wear item or four. IMO it should be 4, but I'm guessing you're going to reply and say it counts as 1 .


Correct


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## 1968BMW2800 (Aug 13, 2016)

Where it gets tricky is if each "item" is really part of a category that has a max dollar limit... So itemized wear and use charges are, in fact grouped under the $1,000 maximum, though the brochure doesn't make this clear.

If each tire is itemized, and no single tire exceeds $1,000, and you need four tires which, in the aggregate, exceed $1,000.... Do you have 4 separate items or four items falling into an aggregate category not specified in the brochure?

Thus one relies on the integrity of the Finance Director or CA to break it ALL down for a customer who is trying to close a deal and start enjoying a new BMW.

As the brochure states, in tiny print at the bottom, other exclusions may apply See Dealer....


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## MJBrown62 (Jun 15, 2016)

One of your top-notch peers, jjrandorin, kindly posted one of his lease turn in inspection forms from last year. Each form is based on the model. For example, the 535 has Xenons, so that is listed. If it was a 528i without, it wouldn't have it.

As you can see, it groups things as type of item.



1968BMW2800 said:


> Where it gets tricky is if each "item" is really part of a category that has a max dollar limit... So itemized wear and use charges are, in fact grouped under the $1,000 maximum, though the brochure doesn't make this clear.
> 
> If each tire is itemized, and no single tire exceeds $1,000, and you need four tires which, in the aggregate, exceed $1,000.... Do you have 4 separate items or four items falling into an aggregate category not specified in the brochure?
> 
> ...


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## levigwyn (Jan 5, 2018)

*A little more information from my experience*

I have some other information to offer. I have turned in a BMW 328i recently and they said the only thing that needed attention was the tires. I had about 28,000 miles on it and the tires were at approximately 2/32 on each tire (not in good shape; most people would consider replacing these due to road noise and wet/bad road performance). If I had needed to replace them, I would have gotten cheaper non run flat tires.

I had lease protection/excess wear and tear coverage. So I paid just $633 for the protection which was financed along with the car (you can also pay for it all up front). That means that I didn't have to pay for tires at all. The tires for the 328 were valued at $1200. So the contract I had says it covers up to $7,500 and $1,000 "per incident". I have found out that each tire is considered an "incident" so that means all 4 are covered with no shortage.

You also want to make sure it's non-deductible so there is no out of pocket expense. Make sure you turn in your car before the grace period ends because there is sometimes a limitation on how long it's covered (usually fine).

So the second time that I leased a BMW the cost was $1275, also financed with the lease, which covers up to $5,000 and $1,000 per incident. The reason that the cost of the coverage varied is because each dealer negotiates with a BMW financial services approved 3rd party administrator to come up with an offering. With that being said, each dealer can offer passthrough cost or charge you up to the MSRP (list price) of the protection, which is somewhat less obvious. They don't seem to advertise the details on all of this so I called each of the 3rd party administrators and asked a lot of questions. The dealer advised me that they couldn't adjust the price so I had no choice to take the price they gave me; because it is still worth it to not have to pay for tires and/or other incidentals that could come up.

I would advise anyone to follow the same practice and consider a cost built into the deal while you are car shopping. One dealer had a higher lease price on the same car but offered lower lease protection cost which evened out to some extent. In this particular situation I ended up taking the lower cost vehicle lease and higher protection cost as the overall cost was still quite a bit lower.

In short, I would definitely suggest you strongly consider it for piece of mind; it's not insurance and won't pay for wreckage, just excess wear and tear. Insurance will not cover tire wear, I don't know of any coverage that does. However, you can also opt to get tire and wheel coverage which would pay for bends and breaks, road hazard damage to tires and that sort of thing. Perhaps the guy who paid $2,000 for protection paid for both types of coverage and that is why it was more than the MSRP of lease protection.

Read the fine print very carefully and ask those question at the beginning of your deal making, else, you will be blind sighted and it will come down the last minute and you are surprised at the additional coverage you had no time to truly consider.

Also, just FYI, the new dealer I went to said that I didn't have coverage on my 328 but that is because they just failed to mark my lease properly. The contract that you sign (KEEP ALL PAPERWORK) will give you the details and NOT the dealer. You will need to submit final lease inspection paperwork, a copy of the lease, a copy of the lease protection contract as well as proof that you turned in the vehicle. They may require other information but in my case it sounds pretty straight forward, then the 3rd party administrator pays BMW financial directly.

Also, I utilized my option to pull ahead for my new lease so they paid the last 3 payments on my 328 lease as well. I also recommend that you pay your taxes and registration on the old lease car before you turn it in, if you are, perhaps, getting another more expensive car the next time. This allows you to pay the lower property taxes on the lesser, 3 year old car, and skip a year on the new car's value. By the 2nd year, you don't owe as much because the tax assessor devalues the car over a yearly basis. This worked for me anyway; check you own state's laws, mine is NC.

Please be an informed buyer/lessee, it pays big to know your stuff; especially for fiscal piece of mind. Just my long 2 cents. Happy car shopping!


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## Mykatie (Aug 8, 2012)

Can you get the protection soon after the sale or only at finance desk?


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## southcoastguy (Jan 3, 2017)

This is just "insurance" that is highly profitable for the dealer and of little value for the average consumer.


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## Mykatie (Aug 8, 2012)

southcoastguy said:


> This is just "insurance" that is highly profitable for the dealer and of little value for the average consumer.


Sometimes piece of mind is worth the price. I have benefited from turn in insurance. This time around they were offering something different that I was not too comfortable with.


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## MauiSteve (Apr 3, 2019)

Great old thread. I expect to pick up my ordered car in one week from today, and it is soon decision time on this product. My client associate told me the F&I guy was gonna ring me up on Monday to discuss. Product presently being represented as $1500 to buy, with $5000 protection. Given a hypothetical bad situation that I had to pay $1200 for 4 bald or non-runflat tires and $400 for some scratches on the nose, it still seems cheaper to self insure. Especially true if the policy is going to exclude damage items that would be covered by my comprehensive coverage. And lastly, this product would seem a total loss if there is any chance you would purchase the vehicle at lease end. 

I would think dealerships are very happy with clients that buy this, as they can charge back various damage repair during CPO prep. BMW won't retain customers if they over-charge normal wear and tear at lease return.


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## MauiSteve (Apr 3, 2019)

unintentional double post cleared.


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