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Anyone extend their lease?

18K views 28 replies 12 participants last post by  Brian H 
#1 ·
I still have over a year left on my Clarity Electric lease. It is a fantastic vehicle and it would be great to keep it beyond the 3-year lease term.

Honda Fit EV owners have reported elsewhere that they were able to continue on the original lease terms for another 24 months when their original 36-month lease ended. Hopefully Clarity Electric owners will have the same option.

With the earliest owners reaching the end of their 36-month lease, has anyone talked with Honda about extending their lease? Please post about your experience and what the terms are of the offered extension, if any.
 
#2 ·
You may want to look at the VW ID.4 instead. Honda appears to view the Clarity as a compliance & technology car only. Since you have a year left VW may have the ID.4 available when your lease ends.
 
#4 ·
If OP's lease were ending today I suspect you're right. However, OP said his lease ends in a year.
 
#5 ·
Honda offered lease extensions (at a reduced price) on the Fit EV. I suspect they will do the same with the Clarity Electric. Both are (were) lease only with no option to purchase. Keeping them on the road a couple more years costs them almost nothing, but brings in revenue.

I've got about a year left as well, and will be looking at options next spring.
 
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#8 ·
Honda will allow you to extend it at the same $199/mo. They are not providing any additional warranty.

Ours expires in October. Looking hard at the Ioniq EV as they periodically run some great lease deals (as low as $39/mo with $2K drive off that included plates, registration and all taxes/fees). Kona EV leases are also less than the Clarity (SEL is $99/mo with $2K drive off)
 
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#10 ·
My 3-yr lease ended December 2020. I had called up Honda 2 months before lease end to ask for an extension and they gave me a non-binding 1-year lease extension at $199/ month. Although the new lease ends 12-2021, I can terminate at any time.

I do plan to extend my lease as long as Honda will allow me. It's fun knowing I'm driving a rare vehicle as more people return their BEVs at lease end.
 
#11 ·
I just extended my Clarity Electric for another 12 months again. According to HFS, this will be the last time I am able to extend my lease. HFS allows only two 12-month lease extensions per vehicle. My current lease terms and mileage stay the same and I can cancel my extended lease anytime without penalty since I've already fulfilled the initial 3-year contract.
 
#16 ·
Just got permission for a third year lease extension for our Clarity BEV which we started in Nov 2017! We have been calling for 2 months and repeatedly told no. We actually have $ down on a new Leaf , waiting for it to arrive. However, the lease extension is a great financial deal as well as ecological one so we will put off buying a car for another year. I guess someone at Honda realized that people were willing to pay them $200 a month for no work on their part so why not take it rather than destroy a perfectly good car.
 
#20 ·
This is great news! I'm about to request a second lease extension. I was already dreading turning the car in to be crushed a year from now. What a ridiculous waste of a car in perfect condition (<25K miles, battery still near-original capacity).

Thanks for being persistent and blazing a trail for the rest of us.
 
#21 ·
I just received approval for a 3rd-year lease extension on a 2017 Honda Clarity Electric. The original lease started in December 2017. In June/July this year (2022), I called several times and requested for lease extension, but all requests were denied. Right before Thanksgiving, I called again and I was surprised to hear that Honda will send in my lease extension request for "Corporate Approval." This morning, I called Honda and was confirmed my lease extension was approved. Glad to have this Honda Clarity Electric around while waiting for Honda Prologue to become available next year.
 
#22 ·
I just received approval for a 3rd-year lease extension on a 2017 Honda Clarity Electric.
Thanks to everyone who has posted about their 3rd 1-year lease extension. I just got one on my 2018 Honda Clarity Electric.

I was able to do it on the first call, but I had to insist and quote several of your posts from this forum. In the end, the supervisor said that she'd never heard of a lease extension beyond 2 years, but she would ask corporate. After a couple of minutes on hold, she came back and said that (to her surprise) it would be granted, pending a final corporate signoff, and that I should receive the forms in a couple of days. The electronic forms arrived in e-mail about 4 business days later.

Thank you to those of you who have posted of your success obtaining a 3rd year lease extension on your Clarity BEV. Without your posts I don't think I would have been successful. For $199/month, it is still one of the best deals out there on a larger, family-size EV. And the alternative, a perfectly good car getting crushed is wasteful and unnecessary. I'm glad that has been postponed by another year.
 
#24 ·
I haven't heard anyone report a 4th year extension yet. However, we thought a 3rd year would be impossible until people pushed for it. Please keep trying and let us know how it goes!

It should be pure profit for Honda at this point. It would be strange for them to refuse. Hopefully they remember the GM EV1 debacle and don't want to be seen forcibly taking cars back from happy customers only to crush them.
 
#27 ·
We had an 8 year run with Honda EVs (Fit and Clarity) and were disappointed Honda chose not to support EVs going forward.

There are so many great choices on the market It is likely that there won't be too much you miss about the Clarity after you move on.

Almost everything on the market (even used) will have over double the range and have usable DCFC rates. The 2000s vintage Nav and head unit will seem even more archaic once you experience something of recent vintage.

I occasionally start to get a twinge of range anxiety when I drop below ~80 miles of range, but then I remind myself that I spent many years where that was essentially a full charge.
 
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#28 ·
For those of you turning in Clarity EVs at lease end, did you get any serious charges for wear or anything broken? I heard someone had to replace tires with low tread, even though it went straight to the junkyard. Now that some systems are out of warranty I might be on hook for any expensive repairs over the next year. It would be annoying to have to pay $$$ to repair something that will be scrapped a few weeks later, if anything broke. Is Honda being forgiving?
 
#29 ·
Honda gave me a $500 credit. My charges were $435 so I was lucky to have not paid anything out of pocket. Last year when I thought I wasn't going to get an extension, I had an inspection done. They told me that I would have to pay for new tires even though the car is being junked. Makes no sense whatsoever. One of the things they told me I had to repair last year magically got fixed on its own and didn't show up on this year's inspection.
 
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