I have never leased a car before, but it seems like a good way to drive a new car without too much commitment.
I have 800 plus credit, so I thought I could get a good deal. But when I approach a dealer with an advertised price they act offended that I thought I could qualify.
I started with Boch Toyota Corrolla L advertised at zero down $99 per month. (13-1400 due at signing). They took my keys at the pretense of evaluation my trade in. Then they told me $4000 down. No thanks, I’ll go now. He left supposedly to get my keys and they came back at $2000 down. I said no, I want the advertised price. But apparently you have to be a graduating student with tier 1 credit. (does such a unicorn exist?) Finally they let me go and took my keys out one of their pockets. I went back to my car which had never moved.
I am not a car person so the learning curve is overwhelming. When I looked at Consumer reports they said the best subcompact was Yaris ia, which some kind of scion reboot. Fit looks good too. But the subcompacts don’t have the same specials as the corolla and civic.
So now I am looking at Chevy Trax. It has AWD which seems good. quirk advertised 1999 down (plus fees) and 45 per month. All in, that adds up to 101 per month for 36 months. They are also advertising a zero down 95 per month (but only 24 months).
I have been emailing back and forth, and when I asked for the residual they didn’t answer. I kept checking the prices and got an email from a new person saying they were out of that model. should I give up? Will a broker be worth it, if I am looking for such a low end car?
The advertised prices usually include every incentive possible and you may not qualify. However usually it is possible to bet the national advertised offer.
Are you trading in a car because that will certainly complete things.
First, you made a good choice coming here before buying/leasing a car and paying too much. The baseline advice is just to browse the site a bit for advice on leasing. Leasing is complicated, dealers like it since they can get unsophisticated buyers to pay way too much. However, if you know the working of a lease, it can work to your advantage.
To answer one of your questions, the first step is don’t negotiate payments. Negotiate sales price and then work backwards from there. If you have a sales price and tell dealer you want a 3/36 lease with buyrate MF of .00xxx they will take you seriously/know you aren’t a mark. If the ads they put out where widely available dealers would make no money. Unfortunately it is usually not that easy.
The first step in leasing/buying a car is always deciding on what car you want-
Make a budget- most important- if you do nothing else, you must do this.
Test drive everything. See what you like, are comfortable in and won’t be annoyed by. Every dealer will offer you the deal of the century, the one where they are losing money and where the salesman will tell you that he might be fired for offering the deal. (Ignore all of it.) If you want, leave your credit cards and checkbook at home when you go. Just bring your driver’s license- if you can’t say no.
Realistically ask yourself if AWD is necessary. It easily adds $1k or more at startup and more maintenance down the road. If you drive in the northeast or Colorado- may be worthwhile.
I’d recommend going with one of the brokers on this site- once you know what car you want- Makes life simpler- unless you want to negotiate on your own. Its not hard- just requires a lot of research and digging to get the best deals- then putting up with 10 bad dealerships to find the 1 good one.
Sounds like a sleazy dealer and you did the right thing leaving. I googled Boch Toyota and when you click on the specials, you have to provide a name, phone number, and email address. Once done, I didn’t see any disclosure worth anything (possibly illegal in MA, I don’t know). There was mention of a Toyota College Graduate Program, but nothing stating that it was built into the lease that I saw. Bottom line- leave, and you did the right thing.
You can take the high road and become versed in leasing and do a lot of negotiating, but it’s a big learning curve for one $100/mo car.
Dealer ads are often “loss leaders,” designed to draw people in like this one did. They’re often ridiculously low price/payment deals that you could never negotiate on your own. They’re a loss a dealer is willing to take to get customers in the door. When they are truly outstanding deals, they usually are gone when the doors open the next day. Customers who have shopped around recognize how good the deal is and get there before the dealership opens to grab the deal. If it’s advertised (and there should be a specific VIN or VINs), they are legally obligated to sell it or lease it for what is disclosed.
Having an 800 FICO score is excellent, but leasing has higher qualification requirements than financing. You’ll probably need to have prior auto loan history or a mortgage. Probably 2 or more items of history (you must have something) and for a minimum amount of time. Toyota probably has a first-time buyer lease that’s not tied to being a recent college grad.
Sounds like you’re near Boston, so I would think AWD would be a big plus for you. You’d probably be chain-exempt for the most part, right? The Buick Encore has a great lease- I don’t know if they have an AWD version. Subaru could very well be the way to go. If you can find a “Subaru Ambassador,” they can give you a coupon code worth $500 towards a Subaru lease or purchase.
Get a feel for a dealer’s reputation by looking at their Yelp! reviews, and sort them by most recent first.
As mentioned, look at manufacturer’s websites for their lease offers. Those offers can often be beat for lower payments.
If you have a trade in, see if you can get some baseline numbers on it. Is there Carmax or Carvana out there? See what they’re offering, and if the dealer you’re leasing from can’t be close, you could do a separate transaction on your old car. Hopefully it won’t be necessary. Try looking for your car’s value on KBB or Edmunds. Out here, KBB numbers tend to be optimistic.
A good broker as mentioned above can be well worth the fee. I don’t know what sort of fee you’re looking at, but as I said before a bona fide loss leader kind of deal is untouchable.
ok so the advertised price of trax at quirk is 16495
so at the deal they are offering 1999 down 45 per month for 3 years then residual is 12876. Where do I apply the money factor?
I’m pretty sure that all these low payment advertised specials are just used for bait-and-switch. They will have one car at that price which some lucky person may or may not get, and then buy ads to run for like 6 months. You’re better off finding a car that you like, doing some research, and following advice from all the experienced hackrs on here to iron out a deal. Don’t get discouraged when the dealers don’t respond to your emails. They play little games. Work with multiple dealers and don’t get attached to one car.
If you have the time, read the articles on this site, and educate yourself on how leases work; What leases well, what doesn’t, incentives, etc…
It took me a couple months of following this site, to even have an inkling of what I was doing. If you are not interested in doing that, get a broker, or buy from a dealer on this site. I believe @mani_is_kool is in your area.
I just went through the process and closed yesterday. My strategy was to draft a general email to all dealers in the areas with important details on what I want but not too much that it scares them off. Some of the details were not 100% accurate but a ballpark. Sent it to about 7 and got 6 outrageous offers or requests for me to come in and 1 actual legit dealer which was super easy to work with.
Generally, an additional $1,000 in your drive-off will reduce the payment by $30/mo, so that Trax deal might be around $105/mo with 0 down, but still your normal drive-off (1st payment, registration, fees).
To be honest, I wouldn’t get too caught up in a $100/mo lease deal. What are you going to accomplish on an add special? $10/mo less? It isn’t worth the time like it is a $300-900/mo payment (as an example). What really matters is what is your payment for a given scenario- like 36 months/10,000 miles with 0 down. Compare the payment to the MSRP as a percentage. Like $120 for a $16,000 car = 0.75%/mo.
Consider doing the lease with 0 down if the lease includes gap insurance. No need seeing some of your down payment lost unnecessarily if the car is a total loss along the way.
Suggestion- call the dealership and ask for their Internet Sales Department manager, or fleet manager, or a sales manager. Don’t get stuck with a salesman- they’re going to work you over. Your credit score and history makes you Tier 1 all the way.
Seems every dealer is now trying to give you deals for 5k miles, 7500 miles or some other number for a low lease rate. Make sure you ask for the same amount of miles from every dealer- 10,000, 12000 and 15000 are common, but YMMV.
Also know the penalty for overmileage- some can be as little as 15 cents, but now it is more common to be at 20 cents- this is set by the lease company, not the dealership.
