My coworker Chris called me from a BMW dealership on a Sunday afternoon. He was looking at two trims and the gap between them was nine thousand dollars. He wanted me to help him decide. I have leased 40 cars over two years and paid for the top trim on a bunch of them. I found the same thing almost every time. This post is what I told Chris and what those 40 leases taught me about paying for the best version of a car.
Chris texted me at around 2pm on a Sunday.
Chris is my coworker. He drives a leased BMW 3 Series, has for years, and he cares a lot about cars. I wrote about him in the Mazda3 review on this site. He is the guy who borrowed my Mazda and went quiet after driving it.
This time he was at the dealership looking at a BMW 4 Series. Two trims on the table. The mid trim and the top trim. Nine thousand dollars between them.
His text said “is it worth it.”
I called him back and asked one question before I said anything else. How often do you use the massaging seats in your current BMW?
He thought about it. “Maybe five or six times,” he said. I asked how long he had owned the car.
“Three years.”
Five or six times in three years on a feature that cost him extra money. That is the whole story, honestly. But let me explain the longer version because it took me 40 leases to really understand it.
What the Top Trim Actually Gets You
When you step up to the top trim on any car, you are usually buying a few things.
Better seat materials. Sometimes massaging or ventilated seats. A bigger screen or a nicer audio system. A panoramic moonroof. Maybe a heads-up display on the windshield. Fancier exterior details like bigger wheels or chrome trim bits. Sometimes extra driver assist features.
All of it sounds really good in the showroom.
And it is good. I am not saying these features are fake or bad. I used them on my leases. I enjoyed some of them.
The problem is not whether the features are good. The problem is how often you actually use them after the first month.
The Pattern I Found Across 40 Leases
I leased the Mazda3 Turbo Premium Plus for four weeks. Chris borrowed it, you can read about that in the Mazda3 review. The Premium Plus is the top trim and it came with the Bose audio system, the bigger digital cockpit display, ventilated seats, and a sunroof.
Here is what I used every single day. The audio system. The ventilated seats in Las Vegas summer. Wireless CarPlay.
Here is what I used a handful of times. The sunroof. The heads-up display. The extra ambient lighting settings.
Here is what I used maybe twice in four weeks. The auto-dimming mirrors. The fancy parking assist mode. Some menu in the infotainment I still do not fully understand.
Now here is the thing. The ventilated seats and the audio system are available on the trim below the Premium Plus too. Not the Bose audio, a regular system, but a good one. The ventilated seats step down one trim and you still get them.
So I paid for the top trim mostly to get the sunroof and a better stereo. That is it.
And the sunroof? I opened it maybe four times. Las Vegas is hot. Opening the sunroof here means hot air comes in. The tinted glass looks nice from inside with it closed. But I did not buy it to look at it.
I saw this same pattern on the Nissan Rogue. I wrote about it on this site. The Platinum trim at $45,000 has features the SV at $31,000 does not. Ventilated seats. A bigger screen. A few extra driver assist bits. Nice to have. But the SV already had the things I used every day. The Platinum extras sat unused more than they got used.
Same story on the Kia Telluride. I had the SX Prestige, which is the top trim. The second row captain’s chairs heat and cool. The rear entertainment screen folds down. The panoramic sunroof is massive. My kids used the entertainment screen for maybe two months and then went back to their tablets anyway. The sunroof stayed closed because my wife does not like wind noise.
The SX Prestige costs about $12,000 more than the EX trim. The EX has leather seats, three-zone climate, and blind spot monitoring. The EX is a genuinely good car that handles daily life well.
I could not tell you what I got for that $12,000 difference after the first month.
When the Top Trim Actually Made Sense
I want to be honest because it is not always a waste. Three times across 40 leases the top trim made real sense for real reasons.
The Subaru Outback Wilderness. That is technically the top-performing trim on the Outback even if it is not the most expensive one. The turbo engine on the Wilderness is not a luxury upgrade. It is a real practical difference on mountain roads with a full load. Without it the base engine feels slow and strained in the hills. I covered this in the Outback review. In that case paying more for the Wilderness was actually paying for something I used every single time I drove the car.
The Hyundai Palisade with the heated second row seats. My kids use those on cold Las Vegas winter mornings. Not every day but they use them. And my wife uses them on long drives. That feature came from stepping up from the lower trim and we actually notice it every time it gets used.
The Mazda CX-50 Turbo Premium Plus. The turbo engine on the CX-50 changes the driving experience in a real way, not a small way. Going from the base 187 horsepower to the turbo 260 horsepower on canyon roads is something you feel every time you drive. That is not a forgotten feature. That is the car being better in a way that shows up on every single drive.
So what do all three of these have in common? The upgrade was to something I used constantly, not something I used on weekends or remembered to turn on.
That is the test.
The Question to Ask Before You Pay More
Before you go up a trim, ask yourself one question.
What am I buying with this extra money and how many times per week will I actually use it?
Not per year. Per week. Because if the honest answer is less than twice a week, you are probably paying for something that will feel important in the showroom and invisible in real life by month three.
A panoramic sunroof sounds amazing. In Las Vegas most people open it a few times in spring and fall and keep it closed the rest of the year. That is maybe 30 uses across a three-year lease. Divide the extra cost by 30 and ask yourself if that math feels right.
Massaging seats sound amazing too. Most people use them on long road trips. If you road trip four times a year in a car, that is maybe 8 uses per year, 24 across the lease. Chris had used his five or six times in three years. He paid for that feature as part of a top trim package and it sat there doing nothing most days.
The features that are worth paying for are the ones you notice every single day. Heated and ventilated seats are genuinely worth it if you live somewhere very hot or very cold. A better engine is worth it if you drive in conditions where the power difference actually shows up. A nicer audio system might be worth it if you commute long distances and music matters a lot to you.
Everything else. Be honest with yourself.
The Other Thing Nobody Mentions: Resale
Top trims also depreciate more in dollar terms. Not always in percentage terms but in actual dollars lost.
A mid trim Kia Telluride EX might lose $12,000 in value over three years. The SX Prestige might lose $18,000 or more over the same period because you paid more to start and the extra features are not valued as highly on the used market. Someone shopping a three-year-old Telluride is happy to find a used EX at a good price. They are not necessarily willing to pay top dollar for the Prestige extras on a used car.
So you pay more to get in and you lose more when you get out. That is the full cost of the top trim that most buyers never calculate.
What I Told Chris
I told him to ask himself one thing. List the features on the top trim that are not on the mid trim. For each one, think about how many times per week he would realistically use it.
If the answer is “almost every day” for at least two or three of them, the upgrade makes sense.
If most of the answers are “probably on weekends” or “when I have long drives” then the mid trim is the right call.
Chris went with the mid trim.
He texted me a week later. Said the car felt great and he had not once thought about what he did not buy.
That is usually what happens.
Few quick questions people ask about this:
Should I always skip the top trim?
Not always. If the top trim has something you will use almost every day, like a better engine or ventilated seats in a hot climate, it can be worth it. The question is whether you will use the extras constantly or just occasionally.
What is the best trim to buy on most cars?
The one just below the top trim is usually the best deal. You get most of the everyday features without paying for the premium extras that sound good but get forgotten. On most cars the second or third trim from the top is where the value is best.
Do top trims hold their value better?
Sometimes on paper but not always in real dollars. You paid more to start so you have more to lose. Mid trims are easier to sell used because more buyers are looking for them. Off-road trims like the Subaru Outback Wilderness are an exception because buyers specifically want them.
What features are actually worth paying more for?
Ventilated seats in a hot climate. A better engine if you drive on hills or highways with heavy loads. Heated seats if you live somewhere cold. Wireless CarPlay and Android Auto if they are not on lower trims. Safety features like blind spot monitoring if the lower trim does not include them. These are daily use features that you will notice every time you drive.
What features are usually not worth paying more for?
Panoramic sunroofs if you live somewhere hot or cold. Massaging seats unless you drive very long distances regularly. Rear entertainment screens if your kids use their own devices anyway. Premium audio upgrades if you mostly listen to podcasts or phone calls. Bigger wheels because they usually cost more to replace and do not improve the drive meaningfully.
