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Lease-End Costs: What We’re Doing to Improve Transparency

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marqie

marqie

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We understand that unexpected end-of-lease charges can be frustrating. Lucid is committed to transparency, fairness, and continuous improvement as we grow.

To help avoid surprises, we strongly encourage all customers to take advantage of our complimentary pre-inspection. This inspection is conducted by the same independent third-party that performs the final inspection, giving you a clear and consistent view of your vehicle’s condition before lease return.

Under our Excess Wear and Use Guidelines, found here, charges are only applied when damage exceeds normal wear. If you receive a final invoice and believe a charge is inaccurate, you are welcome to contact the lender, Lucid Financial Services at +1 (833) 423-0369, to request a review.

All disputes undergo review for fairness, in close collaboration with all involved parties. The objective is to maintain consistency, ensure transparency, and deliver a customer experience that embodies the values of the Lucid brand.

We appreciate your feedback and are committed to making the lease-end process as smooth and fair as possible.

UPDATE - Oct. 14, 2025
Thank you to everyone for your valuable feedback—it plays an important role in helping us improve the Lucid ownership experience. We are taking the following steps, in addition to those announced in earlier communications:
  1. Fair & Transparent Evaluations -- We continually review our lease-end process and excess wear guidelines with our inspection partner, who is the industry leader in lease inspections, to ensure fairness and transparency.
  2. Updated Wear & Tear Charges -- Based on ongoing internal reviews and customer feedback, we have made several revisions to our excess wear guidelines over the past few months, including recent updates that remove or reduce charges across multiple categories.
  3. Front Bumper Charge Review -- We are reviewing all customer accounts charged for damage to the underside of the front bumper to ensure that we are only charging customers for significant damage that is beyond what would be considered normal wear and tear. Significant damage includes broken, missing or severely damaged parts on the underside of the vehicle. Any charges that would not have applied under the updated guidelines for the underside of the front bumper will be considered and customers will be notified of any charges that are reduced or removed.
  4. Inspection Discrepancy Checks -- Lucid is also now reviewing, on an interim basis, any post-return inspections that show an increase in identified damage compared to what was identified on the pre-return inspection. This ensures customers are not charged for damage they were not aware of or did not have the opportunity to repair. As a reminder, Lucid offers all lease customers a complimentary pre-lease end inspection. Customers are strongly encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity. The same inspection partner performs all inspections to ensure consistency.
We truly appreciate your input—it helps us move closer to our goal of delivering the best cars and ownership experience in the world. We launched a lease return survey this week that will help us to proactively capture your feedback.
 
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Isn’t that the exact same process already in place though? That everyone hates?

Pre inspect-pass

Secret location inspection weeks later-thousands in fees

Then a lengthy fight with Lucid while BofA sends us to collections?

Idk this doesn’t seem any better, or did I miss a new process?
 
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marqie said:
We understand that unexpected end-of-lease charges can be frustrating. Lucid is committed to transparency, fairness, and continuous improvement as we grow.

To help avoid surprises, we strongly encourage all customers to take advantage of our complimentary pre-inspection. This inspection is conducted by the same independent third-party that performs the final inspection, giving you a clear and consistent view of your vehicle’s condition before lease return.

Under our Excess Wear and Use Guidelines, found here, charges are only applied when damage exceeds normal wear. If you receive a final invoice and believe a charge is inaccurate, you are welcome to contact the lender, Lucid Financial Services at +1 (833) 423-0369, to request a review.

All disputes undergo review for fairness, in close collaboration with all involved parties. The objective is to maintain consistency, ensure transparency, and deliver a customer experience that embodies the values of the Lucid brand.

We appreciate your feedback and are committed to making the lease-end process as smooth and fair as possible.
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Thanks for sharing this information. Very informative and helpful to know people in this situation are going to have a way to pre-inspect the vehicle and have a 3rd party do any necessary repairs.
 
I think the transparency here is around the process. This is the first time that the steps are illustrated.
 
pyle112 said:
I think the transparency here is around the process. This is the first time that the steps are illustrated.
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No it’s not it’s in the lease documents and their own website.

The real issue is that Lucid does not follow their own rules about lease return charges.

People are getting nailed for thousands of dollars on things that should be acceptable by Lucids own definitions, and yet here we are. And people aren’t finding out until it’s too late-that’s the problem.

I seriously doubt that Lucid can actually fix this since it’s BofA doing it.
 
fisheral said:
The fact that they are trying to handle this on a case-by-case basis rather than handling it on a wider scale speaks volumes.
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It’s quite telling for sure. Their plan is to just keep throwing charges at people and see who has the will to fight it. Incredibly disappointing.

The fist post seems like a big “see? We told you so” because it’s not new, and it’s not different. It had a “…well maybe it wont happen to you!” vibe to it.
 
This is how BMW (the ultimate leasing machine) does it:

A. Before your lease is officially up, we invite you to to Flow BMW for a free lease end pre-inspection of your current BMW vehicle. This pre-inspection offers you several important benefits:

  • A pre-inspection eliminates potentially unexpected costs, so that you will know exactly what to expect when you do turn in your vehicle and receive your final inspection
  • If there are any damages, you'll be informed right away providing you ample time to have them repaired
  • A pre-inspection now will save you more time on the day you turn in your vehicle, getting you into a new vehicle that much sooner
  • Any further lease-end options or responsibilities can be discussed with you to figure out your next step

I highlighted the parts that Lucid refuses to do. Just do that. Don’t do what you’re doing now.
 
… not to mention, most conventional brands leverage lease end to put you in a new lease via forgiveness for most condition issues. That isn’t even mentioned or a part of any conversations. There are people reporting WANTING a new lease but being put off by this.

I am in that boat. I am very much a potential new lessee — mine is up in September ‘26. I cannot even think of what else to get because I love my Air — except one with more features. But I simply won’t if I’m punished for extremely common wear.

I love my cars — this one especially. I park far from other cars in lots, hand wash only, do a once yearly full detail / paint restoration. But if I’m charged 2400 bucks because this extremely low car made contact with a speed bump…. Yeah that’s a no from me.
 
How about this simple solution: you hand off the car, it gets inspected while you are there. Once that inspection is over you CAN'T be charged anything that you didn't agree with.

I'd rather wait 2-3 hours and have the opportunity to challenge the charges there and then that waste days without any result.
 
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Also, maybe sell parts to fix the car at closer to cost? And maybe eat some labor costs? It’s hard to believe these aren’t retail prices on parts and labor. There are moves around the edges to make this a better experience for the customers beyond transparency.
 
There’s nothing in this post from Lucid explaining how they will resolve the issue of customers receiving bogus charges that were not present from the pre-inspection. If the pre-inspection shows 0 dollars in charges and then a customer receives multiple charges weeks later from a 2nd inspection, that is extremely unethical and borderline fraud. There’s no way a customer is going to feel good after an experience like that and will turn them off from ever dealing with Lucid again. A company that is already on shaky financials should be weary to piss off the few people willing to give them a chance.
 
It’s pretty obvious that neither Lucid, nor Bank of America, wants these cars back. I wonder what that means.

Also, calling windshield pits “excessive wear and tear” is absurd- the top half of these cars is windshield and pits are normal wear and tear. Pits can’t even be repaired. Because they’re normal wear and tear.

This feels like an easy out for Lucid: hey look! A windshield pit! Every 3 year old car will have a windshield pit. It’s like Lucid and BofA doesn’t want these cars back, unless you pay them to take them back.

🤔
 
socktucker said:
It’s pretty obvious that neither Lucid, nor Bank of America, wants these cars back. I wonder what that means.

Also, calling windshield pits “excessive wear and tear” is absurd- the top half of these cars is windshield and pits are normal wear and tear. Pits can’t even be repaired. Because they’re normal wear and tear.

This feels like an easy out for Lucid: hey look! A windshield pit! Every 3 year old car will have a windshield pit. It’s like Lucid and BofA doesn’t want these cars back, unless you pay them to take them back.

🤔
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I should have read the guidelines more closely before deciding to lease, but I got sucked in to the hype around the car. The guidelines basically say you will be giving them a free windshield at the end of the lease term, since it's actually impossible to have no wear/tear on the windshield after several years of driving.
 
marqie said:
Under our Excess Wear and Use Guidelines, found here, charges are only applied when damage exceeds normal wear.
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That states:
Glass: Any scratch, chip, pit, or crack in the windshield or other glass surfaces.
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Unlike exterior/paint damage, there apparently is no minimum size limit under which a scratch or pit is consider normal wear and tear, which as been pointed out in this thread, is simply a bad policy.
 
Smorgasbord said:
That states:

Unlike exterior/paint damage, there apparently is no minimum size limit under which a scratch or pit is consider normal wear and tear, which as been pointed out in this thread, is simply a bad policy.
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Yeah….we are buying them a windshield every time. What a bunch of crooks.

BMW: “chips, cracks, scratches and stars”

Lexus: “cracks, stars, bullseyes”

Lucid: “Any scratch, chip, pit, or crack”
So yeah, $2400 if you drove it more than 100 yards

I feel like I got tricked. Shoulda kept my Tesla.
 
socktucker said:
Yeah….we are buying them a windshield every time. What a bunch of crooks.

BMW: “chips, cracks, scratches and stars”

Lexus: “cracks, stars, bullseyes”

Lucid: “Any scratch, chip, pit, or crack”
So yeah, $2400 if you drove it more than 100 yards

I feel like I got tricked. Shoulda kept my Tesla.
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What's ridiculous is that when I leased my Air back in June of this year, I asked the saleperson at the time of delivery if I can have a list of what Lucid considers normal wear and tear so that I can be prepared prior to returning the vehicle. The guy spent about 10 minutes looking for any sort of documentation on Lucid's website and his own internal resources for this. He came back empty handed and told me not to be too concerned about it, as they are standard with other car makers.

Clearly that's not the case and I'm fairly certain now that this was the plan all along. They get people into relatively well priced leases for a high quality EV and then recoup the losses with fraudulent charges at the end of the lease when the customer no longer has the ability to do anything about it. This model would work if you already had a large customer base and can deal with some % of customer loss. However, to screw over the customers who were willing to take a chance on a new brand is so short-sighted low class, and guarantees they will not be able to last long term as a brand since repeat customers and retention are vital in the high price point car industry.
 
corianderchi said:
What's ridiculous is that when I leased my Air back in June of this year, I asked the saleperson at the time of delivery if I can have a list of what Lucid considers normal wear and tear so that I can be prepared prior to returning the vehicle. The guy spent about 10 minutes looking for any sort of documentation on Lucid's website and his own internal resources for this. He came back empty handed and told me not to be too concerned about it, as they are standard with other car makers.

Clearly that's not the case and I'm fairly certain now that this was the plan all along. They get people into relatively well priced leases for a high quality EV and then recoup the losses with fraudulent charges at the end of the lease when the customer no longer has the ability to do anything about it. This model would work if you already had a large customer base and can deal with some % of customer loss. However, to screw over the customers who were willing to take a chance on a new brand is so short-sighted low class, and guarantees they will not be able to last long term as a brand since repeat customers and retention are vital in the high price point car industry.
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I think you are going way overboard with this. I don't think there is malice, only gross incompetence. This issue wasn't taken with the seriousness it requires and is becoming a major disaster for Lucid.
 
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