Let me start by saying that I'm self- employed, have never worked for a dealer and explination I wrote about was based on just a few experiences my customers have had while I was servicing their exsisting equipment. That may not represent how the industry as a whole operates on the lease-purchase program. I can tell you from experience that I've picked up customers that used to use dealers because of -multiple repairs for the same issue, misdiagnosing simple repairs with large expensive ones (unit won't start- dealer diagnoses bad engine- I'm called for a price comparison, find no igntion spark, have the unit running in 15 min)etc. Some of the techs in my area who work for dealers are paid a commision based on the price of the job- so it's in their best interest to find ways to jack up the cost.

As far as the dollar buy-out, again this is a tax issue. If you purchase something here with a loan, you have to seperate out the price of the unit & depreciate that, then declare the interest on another tax line. It all starts to get confusing. But- if you lease, you can write off the entire payment on one line- much simpler. But in the end you're actually buying the machine, just another way of "paying" for it.

I think that the issue of buying vs renting comes down to 2 issues- tax structure of your government & control of the repairs. In America, large corporations have their own service depts. They handle all the service on all the equipement (except warranty issues), purchase their own parts (usually from aftermarket sources, when possible)- in short- they have complete control over what & how gets repaired. In Europe, if a corp. is renting a machine & a breakdown happens, are the dealers usually authorized to just repair the issue, even if the repair isn't covered & it's a billable event? Since there would be no need for a in house service dept., what job position is responsible to make these types of dicisions?