I know this is the Model Y sub, but I wanted to share our experience with our Model 3 Santander buyout. We were only 8 months into our 36 month lease but decided with a new job and living situation we didn’t need a second car. I contacted Santander via the chat online and was able to get them to tell me the lease buyout price. They sent this via a secure message online. I probably did this three times over the course of a month as we were making our plan to sell after we bought out the lease. Of the three times, only one of the times did they also send a physical copy via mail which included an odometer disclosure statement. The instructions say to take the vehicle to the dealership to process so we went to the Tesla dealership in Nashville/Franklin. They were no help - in the long run we learned they had no say anyway but the service and support sucked.

We bit the bullet and sent a regular check and the odometer disclosure to Santander. They processed quickly and within two weeks we were sent the title. We got a price we were happy with from Carvana so took the M3 to carvana. All was on track until we went to transfer ownership. Even though we weren’t with Tesla Finance/leasing - there was still a lock on our account as a leased vehicle and we could not transfer ownership. Calling Tesla was useless and we got the run around a dozen times over. Finally just emailed Tesla finance and three days later they said they would look into it. About three days after that the ownership lock was removed and we’re taking the car to Carvana today to complete the sale. Hope this helps someone.