Rene have you ever had an early termination before for the same reason?
No, the Ateca is our first MB car. It wouldn’t matter either way.
It’s hard for me to properly explain it, language barrier. For all purposes, we didn’t actually cancel early. That’s because delivery of the GTE happened (.. will happen, harumph) after the original, un-cancelled contract for the Ateca runs out.
So while we did cancel early originally, due to the long delivery time, our account (basically) went from “cancelled early” to “extension required”. They’re mutually exclusive.
I’ll try a simpler example.
Lets assume that MB lease contracts are not 3 years, but 7 days for ease of explanation.
On monday, you take delivery of your new car. On tuesday, you cancel early and pay an early cancellation fee. On wednesday, you order a new car – and that’s where the important bit lies.
If the car gets delivered before monday, you cancelled early, they keep the fee and your accounts gets a marker as “cancelled early before”, preventing you from doing so in the future (or making the fee more expensive). If the car arrives on tuesday however, it’s considered an extended contract, despite you cancelling early. The contract still runs until you take delivery of the new car. If it arrives said tuesday, then you get your fee refunded, and the marker gets removed.
In our case, we cancelled around 8 months prior to our original lease running out – but because we waited so long on the new car, we’re now half a year or so over the original lease length.
Does that make any sense?
edit: they also explain that to you on the phone by the way, we knew this prior to confirming the cancellation. That’s the reason we did it, we knew the Golf wouldn’t arrive within the 8ish months left on the original contract, but afterwards – leading to no repercussion of any sort.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.