bill lopez - i suppose i have you to thank for there being a 2017 fiat 500e in my drive way!
however, i had never leased a vehicle before so conversations about residual, money factor, etc were all brand new to me. i quickly discovered the deal you got isn’t one that i could duplicate. i even reached out to your contact (justin) at OCFiat and for whatever reason, however persuasive i tried to be, it wasn’t to be.
and this gets me to my main point here. for people who aren’t familiar or have the stomach for walking into a dealer and getting a great deal, the process of purchasing or leasing can be challenging. for me, this is where the notion of a lease agent brings value. i know the upside of a lease is “paying” for the depreciation that you use, and only paying tax on that amount and not the full msrp of the vehicle. additionally, the monthly didn’t matter to me since i’ve never leased before, so i was looking at this as “what’s the final cost?” – after all dealer incentives, rebates and tax credits?
in other words, how much would i have to pay (insurance and electricity excluded of course) to have use of the vehicle for 36 months?
we all know the lease deals that are out there now:
36 mos
10,000 mi/yr
$2,500 down (advance against $2,500 rebate)
$1,000 conquest (i didn’t qualify so for me it was an addt’l $1,000)
$69/mo + tax ($75/mo for LA) (btw $59/mo + tax was avail for Tier 1 credit)
$395 disposition
if you calculate all that out (2500 + 1000 + 2625 + 395), total cost comes to $6,520 (before the clean air rebate). since i was only concerned with final cost of the lease, i wanted the option to prepay in order to save some interest (i saw that in one of the posts here). oddly, the dealers i was negotiating with would allow a prepaid lease but said it would be the same price (wtf???). but the price i got from anthony for a base 500e, 36 mo/10,000 mi a year, fully prepaid, including his fee, was $5,597, or almost a $1,000 less than the best deal i could find at any of the dealers.
bill – i believe your deal, if calculated out (625 + 3780 + 395), comes in at around $4,800, which is basically the difference of the conquest rebate (which i didn’t qualify for). i know there are opinions here about paying as little down as possible – which i get and agree with – but with the current state of rebates on EV’s, i think there are other scenarios which come into play. for myself, i happened to qualify for the extra clean air rebate, which means i get $4,500 back against the ~$5,500 i paid for my fiat.
so in short, it cost me a grand total of $1,000 to drive a brand new fiat 500e for 36 months. and i have all of you (and anthony lopez @DSR) to thank!