Mini Cooper end-of-lease inspection. Trim fixed, scratches polished, wheel scuffs touched in, seats shampooed, windscreen chip repaired. Tailgate dent left as it would likely fall under threshold. Lease company charges for devaluation, not repair.
Lease companies do not repair the cars you return to them -- they charge you for the cost of devaluation, which is not always the same as the cost of repair, and often more expensive. A scratch they could polish out for a small amount becomes a charge for repair-and-repaint of the whole panel. A small hole in the carpet becomes the cost of a replacement carpet. On the other hand, a scuffed wheel is usually charged at the trade repair price -- not a great saving over doing it yourself.
On this Mini Cooper there was not a great deal wrong to begin with, but enough that the cumulative damage would likely have triggered recharges. We fixed the trim, polished out the scratches, touched in wheel scuffs, shampooed the seats, and had the windscreen chip repaired. There was also a small dent on the tailgate -- we recommended leaving it. The dent was within what the lease company would reasonably overlook once the other items were addressed, and removing it was not worth the additional cost when everything else had been corrected.
That is the point of an end-of-lease inspection: not to produce a perfect car, but to get you to the threshold where the lease company decides billing you is not worth their admin overhead.
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