Inflating residuals

In fact, inflating residuals is a common practice in the leasing business to make monthly payments more attractive, and Ford does this on a regular basis (without disclosure, of course). I did a Study of residual values set by Ford o a number of vehicles that were involved in lawsuits against the company and I found many residuals that were inflated by over $1,000 per car.
While I was out “spying” recently, 1 asked salesmen at several Ford dealers why they didn’t have very many off-lease Tauruses or Escorts for sale. (Several hundred thousand of them had just been leased and turned back in, so the dealers’ lots should have been covered with those models.) The salesmen said that they usually don’t keep those cars because they’re not worth the residual amount at the end of the lease. They said the dealers usually turn them in to Ford and the cars end up at auction, Where they can buy them for less than the residual amount.