An oldie and mostly baddie is back -- car leasing! Clark thought the practice had gone the way of the dinosaur since manufacturers, dealers and consumers all got burned by it. The question now is, "When does it make sense to lease a vehicle?" There are really two such situations. The first is when you're talking about luxury automobiles. Luxury brands don't want to give discounts and cheapen their image, so they do it in a hidden way by subsidizing the lease. BMW is a great example of this -- almost two-thirds of their vehicles are now leased. Jaguar and Audi are other luxury brands that are very into leasing. The other situation where leasing is OK is if you like new wheels all the time and you don't mind that depreciation is demolishing your wallet. Then leasing a new car every 24-36 months is understandable.

But be honest with yourself. Make sure your lease doesn't come with an exceedingly low mileage allowance and beware of excessive wear-and-tear assessments in the future. The average leased vehicle gets hit with wear-and-tear charges to the tune of just under $2,000. When you get a leased vehicle, you should take extensive photographs of the interior and exterior so there's no question when you return it in top shape. And if you do spill something in the car or tear the upholstery, fix it before returning the car. It will be one-fifth cheaper for you to pay to have it repaired. Finally, before you return the leased vehicle, make sure you've gotten a third party to do a thorough inspection of the car. This alone could save you up to $1,500 in unnecessary turn-in fees.