DoctorCad is partially right.
Many New Car leases will allow you to specify your mileage at the beginning of the lease
That is only partially true:
Most Leases will not go below 12K miles per year and most will give you a choice of 12K or 15K miles per year. Yes it's true that many will ask you how many miles you expect to average per year, but if you say 8500 miles, they will put you down for a 12K mile per year lease. Read your lease and you will see that regardless of how few miles you drive per year, they will put 12K miles per year in the lease agreement.
In my case, I leased my Hyundai and not really expecting to drive more than about 5000 per year since I have another car that I will use part time. They said the lowest the go is 12K miles per year.
Both of my vehicles get the same 30 MPG on the highway but the Mercedes requires 92 Octane premium gas while the Hyundai uses 87 octane regular....that's a 15-20 cent per gallon difference and a significant savings if I put more mileage on the Hyundai, since I was already paying for 12K miles per year.
8500 miles per year makes you an ideal candidate for a lease...but only in the dealer's eyes, because that means your vehicle will have lower miles when you turn it back in and makes the resale value higher. in reality, most leased vehicles are not resold by the dealerships...they are owned by the leasing entity of the corporation go back to that leasing entity. They are then sold through some third party fleet sales or large volume used car dealerships. Some may get sold back to their dealerships, but the dealerships get nothing from the resale of leased vehicles...they made their profits from the original lease.
That's also why most dealerships don't inspect the vehicles being turned in very carefully...No where near as closely as they would if you owned it and were going to be trading it in. They no longer have a dog in the fight...they just follow the basic turn-in inspection requirements from the leasing entity. If it is not obvious damage it is assumed to be "Fair wear and tear"
There is no incentive to piss off a customer by claiming excessive damage when that customer may refuse to purchase or lease from you again.
I had made modifications to my leased 2001 Sport Trac including adding a wooden dash overhlay, painted my step bars to match the vehicle, added a bug deflector and a rear-window vent-visor which I left on the vehicle when I turned it in. The guy who inspected my car said they are only concerned about modifications that are so personalized or outlandish that most people would not buy the vehicle. Things like jacking up or lowering the vehicles, or things that could not be simply removed and the vehicle restored to stock.
...Rich