2018 Clarity - Would you still purchase off lease?

[jpkik96]

All -

I leased a 2018 Clarity Touring in June 2018 and my wife and I have very much enjoyed the car - maybe a little too much! Our other family car is a 2016 Honda Pilot but the Clarity has proven to be a great road-trip car for long trips with 2-3 people or short trips with 5 people.

After 12 months, we had logged close to 24,000 miles on the car (versus 12M mile/year allowance), and have now started avoiding taking long trips with it to reduce overall usage. Milage today is 26.5M....still no major problems to date!

I am now contemplating purchasing the car back from American Honda along with a Honda Car warranty so we can get back to using the car! However, according to this press report below (which I found using this forum) American Honda appears now to be only focused on delivering Clarities to California (I live in NJ)!

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124432_honda-pulls-back-clarity-phev-outside-california

This has me concerned about their long-term support as well as part availability, in the event of an accident. I am also curious if the residual value in June 2021 will be substantially lower (or higher) based on what appears to be a limited production of the Clarity going forward.

This forum has been an invaluable source of information on the Clarity - appreciate everyone's thoughts on my above concerns....

 

[Robert_Alabama]

Here's the order of importance to me in making the decision:
1) Is this the car I would want if I needed a replacement?
2) Does the purchase price of the car seem like a good deal and does it fit my budget?
3) If you buy the Honda warranty, then I wouldn't worry about long term support and replacement parts at all. If not, then I am still a believer in PHEVs and long term reliability in general. I could be wrong, I know, but I just don't worry about mine breaking (but I did buy the long term warranty - but because it seemed cheap insurance, not because I believed it was necessary).
4) Longer term value of the car only really matters if you wreck it (total loss) or if you are selling it. If you don't plan on selling it until it is pretty depreciated, then it's not worth the time to worry about it. Just doesn't matter. I plan on keeping mine at least 8 years (6.5 more) so I don't count on much residual value at the time I sell it.

I hope this helps. I love the car and would buy one again if mine were to be totaled. Probably would just try to get the best deal I could and just rock on, but buying something else would not even be an option for me.

 

[bfd]

Long-term parts outlook seems poor - and likely overpriced. This car will possibly even become orphaned within the next year or two. I'd get out and not look back. I kind of wish we'd have leased instead of taking the 3 year - super low low loan. It likely won't be easy to sell the car - even with low miles, etc., and the trade value could also be lower than one might expect for a PHEV. I'd hoped that maybe within 3 years we'd see more great options for BEVs besides Tesla, but it's apparent that it may still be a few more years before the market really gets moving in that direction - even here in California. There's lots of noise about moving to BEVs - all the carmakers are showing us teases - but they're nowhere to be seen at retailers, yet.

 

[Robert_Alabama]

Long-term parts outlook seems poor - and likely overpriced. This car will possibly even become orphaned within the next year or two. I'd get out and not look back. I kind of wish we'd have leased instead of taking the 3 year - super low low loan. It likely won't be easy to sell the car - even with low miles, etc., and the trade value could also be lower than one might expect for a PHEV.

1) "Long-term parts outlook seems poor - and likely overpriced." Aren't all OEM parts for all cars overpriced? What parts do you expect to need to buy? It will only be a wreck that would cause most parts needs, and serious wrecks likely total these cars anyway. Yes, if it is repaired due to a minor accident, it may be out of commission for a month or two, but that's just a nuisance since most insurance will provide a rental car for the repair period.
2) "I kind of wish we'd have leased instead of taking the 3 year - super low low loan. It likely won't be easy to sell the car - even with low miles, etc., and the trade value could also be lower than one might expect for a PHEV." Again, unless you plan to sell the car before it is essentially mostly depreciated (8 years or so), then this doesn't matter. Sounds like you just aren't happy with your Clarity purchase and wish you had bought something else.
3) "I'd get out and not look back." Again, sounds like you just wish you had bought something else other than the Clarity.

@bfd, it seems that you and I just have very different views for the future of ownership of this car. I guess time will tell which one of us more closely predicted the future.

 

[Sandroad]

Well, if you’ve “very much enjoyed the car” and put 25,000 miles on it in a year, I’d say you like it enough to purchase! Don’t worry about parts and service, Honda will have things available for many years and it’s got a long HV battery warranty. Get Honda Care if it makes you feel better. (It would for me.) Make your decision based on other factors like finances, etc. And, speaking of finances, i thought the residual value of a leased vehicle was part of the lease contract and didn’t change?

 

[SteveinSD]

While my original intention was to buy my car at lease end, I'm now leaning towards returning it and going full EV. I've only filled up 5-6 times across 13000+ miles, and find that I rarely drive more than 75 miles in any given day. While it's nice to have the gas backup, I think I'd be willing to put up with a quick charging stop if I had 250 mile range. Also, we added solar panels sufficient to cover all of our driving (we also have a Chevy Bolt). I'm hopeful that there will be some interesting options come September 2021.