Advice on buying out car lease

[okits]

DH's car lease term ends Tuesday and we are leaning towards buying the vehicle.  We don't drive a lot but that can change on short notice based on the demands of his job, plus we are the in-country children for both sets of our out-of-town, aging parents (one deteriorating quite steadily), and we've already had one middle-of-the-night emergency where we had to hop in the car and hurry to the hospital.  We have a decent stash (no debt) and have decided to pay for the convenience of having a vehicle always at our disposal.  Our plan is to keep this car until it dies on us (hopefully we can get 10+ years out of it.)

The car:

2011 Toyota Matrix
~24,000 km (15,000 miles)
Purchase price just under $11k CAD (~$8900 USD)

DH says the purchase price is lower than what he's seen online for the same car, plus this is a vehicle he leased new so we know it's been maintained and not damaged or roughly used.  He mentioned some charges that made me scratch my head a little:

• safety inspection but no warranty if we buy it,
• $250 CAD (~$200 USD) ownership transfer fee,
• $100 CAD (~$80 USD) processing fee.

There may be other stuff but he hasn't shown me the full details yet.

He said they tried hard to convince him to lease a new Corolla (it's probably more profitable for them if we don't buy the current car and keep leasing for $350 CAD (~$280 USD) a month.) Apparently Toyota no longer makes the Matrix (too bad, we like it well enough.)

I'm just wondering if there are questions we should be asking or things the dealership will try to overcharge us for as we are totally out of our element with car stuff.  Any obvious mistakes we're making, here?

Thanks for your thoughts and advice!  :)

[forummm]

You could ask Toyota finance if they will discount the residual (charge you less to buy it). You work this out with finance company and not the dealership.

Otherwise it seems like a pretty good move. It's a good car at a good price and you know how well it's been taken care of.

[okits]

Thank you for the advice, forummm!  Hubby gave it a try but no dice.  We are going to proceed with buying the car, just trying to get the dealership to confirm they'll accept credit card and debit vs. making hubby trek out to the bank to get a certified cheque.

[AZDude]

I leased a Mazda 3 several years ago and ended up buying it when the lease ended. Car was totaled not long after I bought it, but was still a good move.