Thank you for that. Looking to lease a Volt LT before the year’s end.
Do you happen to know what Chevy’s wear and tear policies are? I recently lease a Fiat 500E and got hit at the last minute with an extra $24/month at the deal signing to protect myself from the excessive charges Chrysler is now levying because they are losing so much money on their leases (For example, normal tire wear and tear now incurs a $1,500 tire replacement fee at the end of lease). So, my monthly on the Fiat went from around $170 to $195 in the dealers Financial Office.
Want to protect myself beforehand when we go for the Volt. Thanks in advance.
Was this by chance in the SoCal area? I’m really considering the Volt and have Costco exec. (but have never tried the car buying service.
I’d love your contact info if it happens to be local. Hell, I’d offer to buy you a round of beers if you’d help me negotiate it (I have never done so for a lease, and the whole thing gets my head spinning when fees start popping up or they refuse to show the numbers they are working with).
Go to truecar.com, find the car, enter your zip, register, and you’ll get 3 local dealers and what their discounts are. You’ll probably see $4,000 MSRP, but that includes $1,000 customer cash that’s only available for purchases. Hopefully, you’ll see one odf the dealers go above that. You can also try different zip code in another search.
Once you locate the dealer with the best discount, check their inventory online to see which car you like. Prices may differ slightly depending on colors/options.
Once you find what you’re looking for, get in touch with the dealer and say that you’re looking to lease, which terms you want, and that you’re looking to get the truecar discount and $6,860 in lease cash. If you have another current lease, mention that and you’ll get $7,360
Once you negotiate the discount off MSRP and the lease cash incentives - then it’s pretty much automatic.
Residual will depend on mileage, MF on your credit score. For example, 10k/year is 51% residual, 740+ credit score is 0.0004 MF.
Finally, set up the appointment at dealership and get your car.
Thanks for the info and breakdown. Really helpful.
So far, almost any dealership I’ve visited based on TrueCar (regardless of maker), they’ve always raised the sales price significantly above their TrueCar when I mention lease. In fact I think only one was willing to show the breakdown, including dealer discount, incentives, rebates, etc. It’s pretty frustrating, frankly.
Ultimately, I think I’ve since decided to go with something else with a little more space and better visibility (that part sort of killed the Volt for me).
The number you want to zoom in on for the Truecar pricing is the “certified dealer discount”…or something like that. That discount is the amount the dealer is taking off the price of the car BEFORE any rebates. You can ignore all the other rebates and stuff (except for USAA), as those apply only to purchases.
If the dealer says they can’t give you the Truecar certified discount listed in your guaranteed quote on a lease, they are lying and are just trying to milk you.
Better option is to create a dummy Truecar account, since Truecar charges the dealer a ~$300 finder’s fee. Use the dummy account to get the certified Truecar discounts, then contact the dealer separately and go “Hey, I want to lease _____ if you can take *insert certified Truecar discount + $300” off the price of the car before incentives!". Dealer isn’t hit with the $300 finder’s fee, so they should have wiggle room to give you an extra $300 off their guaranteed discount. If they are WILLING to do that is a whole 'nother story though.
Armed with all the other lease info, you should be able to score a sweet deal.
