[flmark]

Read the exclusionary language in the EWT contract. Mine= nothing over $500. A shiny Volt wheel with road rash? $558. And you don't get the wheel to keep & and trip over in the garage.

Yikes! I now get to read all the leasing horror stories and I am sooooo glad I bought my Volts, BOTH of them. [Now if they had actually given me a REAL fifth seat or 6.6kw charging I might think about upgrading, but the incremental improvements did not add enough value to the Volt]

In any case, I looked into new wheels and bought the cheaper ones via my tire dealer for $200 each, as I wanted two spare tires for my Volts. The dollar figure you quote is just so unreasonable as to seem nearly criminal. Sorry for your issues and thank you for taking the time to alert others to your 'lessons learned'. While the write-up doesn't really help me, I hope that my encountered wheel costs help others under a similar situation to just buy new wheels versus getting burned under the format you describe.

 

[obermd]

Yet another reason to not throw away your money on a leased vehicle. I ran the calculations about a decade ago and determined it's cheaper to purchase a car on a credit card than to lease one. There's a reason banks love car leases.

 

[49er]

So, I'd suggest you not do what I did: Turn in your car, at the dealer, the day you drive off in your new Volt without having the condition estimate been done. Three months and change, I am still trying to get it all tied off.

What should you do? Some simple and some not so obvious things:

Keep duplicates of ALL your paperwork
Find a convenient fax machine. Not every one has made it to the 21st century.
Confirm your dealer sends in/notifies the leasing bank of your EWT policy
Find out who actually holds your EWT policy and get their contact info (it may not be the company you think it is)
Read the exclusionary language in the EWT contract. Mine= nothing over $500. A shiny Volt wheel with road rash? $558. And you don't get the wheel to keep & and trip over in the garage.
Confirm your State DMV office has your most recent and correct address
Call your dealer the week after you take home your car to confirm the deal has gone through
Call your dealer the week afterwards and confirm they have made any lease pull-ahead payments to the bank
Be present when the lease end inspection is made of your car.
Use your comprehensive insurance (if necessary) and take care of what you can and have the car re-inspected
Be civil when you speak to unknown people in offices. Sometimes that can be the difference, just like your mother told you as a kid.
Unknown people in offices are not your friend, but they can be friendly. The institutions they work for are clearly not your friend.
Document your contacts in a way you can read and refer to after the fact. It will be important.

Drive your volt, have fun and apply for every cash card and rebate you can. You may need the money!

How much did they charge you for excessive wear and tear?