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I hope nobody budgets $2k for brake pads and tires on a RAV-4, I'd expect to spend somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of that... but semantics I suppose, we'll use those numbers regardless.
Your lease is not free of maintenance, you're on the hook for brakes above a certain% and tire tread depth being above a certain amount when you return a lease... so tack another $2k on top of your TCO for the lease as well then. You also have to put cash down, nobody does $0 down leases for regular people, so you lose that cash that you put down too. BMW website suggests that minimum downpayment on a lease in the USA is $2,500 which puts you at $497.04 on a base model 330i per month. I have a hard time believing you'd find a base model demo for lease, it's going to be loaded so you're not going to be leasing one for $400 a month with nothing down. That's also with only a 10,000 mile per year limit, which isn't a lot, if you up it to 16,000 miles per year the payment goes up to $531 a month.
So realistically I'd say your TCO on the BMW for 3 years is more like $22-$24,000 whereas the proverbial RAV-4 assuming your depreciation numbers are correct and the maintenance costs are as high as you've put is still only $13,000
That's a huge difference. Nevermind the fact the curve flattens on a good quality purchased vehicle... the RAV-4's depreciation slows... the maintenance most likely doesn't get any worse... so a further 3 years might only be another $6,000-10,000 at most.... whereas you go get another BMW or whatever and you're dropping another $20,000+ all over again.
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