2nd Post-Leasehackrs Lease... What I've Learned

Signed Deals & Tips
1

Here’s the car I just got for my wife. It’s not as good as some deals on the forum for sure, but I’m happy with it. And it’s from my local dealer.

I wanted to say a few things I learned or did differently this time around.

When I was searching for my last lease (Volvo S90), I reached out to many dealers. Following advice I’d seen on this forum, I’d try to negotiate selling price before talking about lease details. This eventually worked, but I put a lot of time into it. It involved a lot of back and forth email.

This time, when I inquired about a vehicle, I used something like the following:

Can you please provide your best 36/12K lease price on that vehicle? I would like the monthly payment based on a $0 drive-off (just first month’s payment), maximum MSDs (security deposit), with PA taxes and fees rolled into the payment. Please also provide a breakdown of dealer discount, incentives, rebates, and the MF and residual.

This worked much better for me. Many dealers would actually come back with all the information right away. I also think (though I don’t have a ton of data to support it) that the opening offers I received were better, since it was fairly clear that I knew what I wanted.

I initially didn’t expect to lease a car from my local dealership. I set up a test drive for a loaner mainly to have a test drive. After the test drive, I negotiated a little bit in person. I told them about some of the other offers I had, and some of the deals I’d heard about on this forum. They would not discount the loaner much, but they offered me 14% off MSRP on a new car, which matched the best deal I had elsewhere. Unfortunately, it was still over my budget. After I left, my sales person found a cheaper loaner, and said they could do $425/mo. After about a week of looking at other cars, we countered and said we would sign that day for $400/mo. They said they couldn’t do it for the loaner, but would sell an identical new car to us at that price. Works for me!

Year, Make, Model, and Trim: 2018 Mercedes C300 4matic

MSRP: $45,925
Selling Price: $39,341 (includes incentives)
Monthly Payment: $400 w/ 9% PA tax
Cash Due at Signing: $400 + MSD
MSD: $4050
Incentives: $1250

Months: 36
Annual Mileage: 12K
MF: ~.00071
Residual: 57%

Region: PA
Leasehackr Score: 10

Calculator

69 Likes
2

This post is perfect for me! I’m looking for the same exact car and being new to the forum wanted to find the easiest and most direct way to email. I will be using this! Much appreciated.

3

I’m glad it helps. It worked well for me, but don’t be afraid to experiment. I just read someone in another thread says he likes to call instead of email, because it lets the sales manager know you’re serious about buying. Personally I hate calling! I didn’t call anyone during my entire search.

1 Like
4

Your email is very similar to what I used to get my recent deal.
Nice deal for an MB, I think. Congrats.

1 Like
5

Yes, I got the idea from you @Qbrozen! It’s much easier than going back and forth so many times.

2 Likes
6

Did they say why they could sell the new one for less than the loaner? Seems counterintuitive.

It does seem to cut out a lot of the work, especially trying to get prices before incentives, which confuses the crap out of most dealers. How varied were the offers you received?

7

Maybe the miles on the loaner made the RV drop and hurt the deal?

8

It sounded like they had a formula that started with invoice price and then deducted based on the mileage. For some reason they didn’t want to go below that at all. They also said that incentives didn’t apply to the loaner.

Most were around 8-12% off, with loaners being closer to 12%. I only seriously negotiated with two dealers, the first one I got 14% off on, and the one I bought from.

9

No, it was definitely the sales price they wouldn’t budge on.

10

From what you are saying it sounds like the car was over 5000 miles and ineligible for incentives. And the drop in selling price would have been too steep to make up for that, as well as the reduced residual.

11

Not on Mercedes.

12

You definitely know better than me, maybe I’m thinking BMW? Either way OP makes it sound like whatever incentives were there the loaner couldn’t get for some reason, or at least that’s what they told them.

13

Huh. That makes the situation even weirder. When I first told them about my other deal, the salesperson said something like “They must have used an employee certificate to do that”, and it sounded like they were going to do that too. I have no idea what an employee certificate is, but maybe that is what can’t be applied to loaners. I assumed it was something like dealer cash that each employee can use however they want.

The dealership forgot to collect money for my first month’s payment, so I need to talk to them again anyway today. I’ll try to figure out why discounting the new car was easier. I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I’m curious too.

1 Like
14

The 5k mile cap thing is BMW, Merc goes up to 10k from my recollection.

The employee pin is just a form of fleet and it often is a factor in how dealers make the bigger discounts. I got about 19%/20% off on a c300 and e300 and in both cases the dealer was applying a pin to get there. They did not disclose that fact, it only came up when I tried to add a $500 AMG code I had and they denied it.

4 Likes
15

Nice, thanks now I know how to actually sound decent and what to ask for!

16

Every loaner car has a different amount paid out on it, which is what people don’t understand. Let’s say the owner took it home and put 100 miles on it. Mercedes wouldn’t compensate him for those 100 miles as there isn’t a service contract associated to it.

17

I used the OP’s template to ask for a quote for a Grand Cherokee. The sales asked me to filled out a credit application because only that he can provide me the quote with all incentives. This is my first time asking quote from Jeep, is credit application really a “must have” for the dealer to provide a quote?

18

Run away from that dealer and keep moving. You definitely don’t need a credit application to get a quote on a vehicle.

3 Likes
19

Also, you don’t need a quote with all incentives. You need a selling price before any rebates and incentives are applied. Incentives you can research on your own. You need to know the dealer discount on the car. If they won’t give it to you, find someone who will.

4 Likes
20

Thank you very much, I just sent emails to two other dealers.