I’m looking to lease a Honda Civic Hatchbatch Sport Touring and feel a little confused as to what prices I should be expecting towards the lease.
The MSRP of the car is 29,000. I went to two different Honda dealerships (in the Bay Area) that had the car and told them I was interested in leasing. Both times they came back with outrageous offers asking for $2000 down for a $600+/mo payment. My first offer was $3000 down for $785/mo. When I told them that it was too high, they seemingly told me that “I wanted too much car for not enough money”. Am I way off for thinking I could lease the car for around $250-375/mo with $0 down, paying first payment + taxes and fees?
I’ve never leased a car before and definitely look young, even for my age of 22. I have a hunch that maybe they’re assuming I’m young and stupid enough to fall into an awful lease. I have incredible credit and a stable job, so I’m not sure what’s up. Maybe I really am just wanting too much car for the money?
PS: As mentioned, I’m located in the Bay Area. Would I get a better deal if I found a dealer outside of the area? Tips are appreciated!
Totally understand your frustration. Unfortunately, that’s how some of the dealers play their games.
I leased two cars in the past 6 months. I’ve talked to two dozens of dealers. I’ve salesmen/saleswomen lied to me about RV, MF, incentives, rebates, MSD, all sort of things. Sometime, they just hope to find a dumb rich customer and make 3+ times of the profit they would make from a regular sales and, unfortunately, sometime they succeed. I have a guy from a BMW dealer quoted me $3000 down + $600+/month when everybody on the forum is getting $0 down + $100+/months.
Two things I’d recommend: 1) don’t set your foot in a dealership before you have an agreed lease terms (except when test driving. Use email/text/phone instead; and 2) stand your ground firm. Sales people are trained to play games with you and use all sorts of questions to challenge you reasoning (e.g., How did you come up with that number?). Just be firm but polite and don’t take anything personally. It’s just business Good luck.
I am younger than you. And I can tell you that $700+ a month for a Honda Civic is beyond crazy. My bet is that they were showing you finance terms over 3 years.
Do you have any asian leases in your household? Maybe look at some of the Chevy deals right now.
For 375 a month I know you can definitely get a 3 series. Maaaybe even a 5 series.
Gotcha, So you’d recommend emailing dealers instead of walking into the dealer? I would’ve assumed they would refuse to say anything about pricing until I walk into their office.
Yup. I definitely thought $700/mo for one was crazy, but after two dealers gave me similarly high prices, I started to wonder if I was just really out of the loop.
I’ll be sure to check on the Chevy deals, thanks for the heads up!
Also, this would be my first and only lease (currently in a '12 focus that i’m looking to sell off soon)
Kudos to you for finding this forum before signing!
Generally speaking, a good lease payment is about 1% of the MSRP with nothing down. So you should be around $300 per month or less. Some vehicles just don’t lease well, and you may be better off buying instead, if that is what you really want.
Someone recently said there is no need to bring a reference deal (like an ad or a deal posted on Leasehackr). This is Exactly the reason you need to do your research about the car before stepping into the dealership and be ready to rebut their egregious offer with a posted ad or some feasible numbers
The monthly payment the salespeople quoted was for a civic lease for you, a boat payment and a trip to Hawaii for the dealer that the dealer expects you to pay for.
Thanks! Their calculator gives a $309/mo payment with $0 down. That’s pretty much the price I anticipated to be around for the car. When they spat out $500+ numbers, I definitely entered a state of panic and confusion.
I’m going to try some more dealers though for sure.
Haha definitely! In hindsight after looking at other cars, I’m finding I could essentially drive a well-upgraded luxury car for the prices they were giving.
Definitely going to have plenty of numbers ready to go before sitting down at the negotiating table again.
The 1% MSRP thing is good to know! Is there any way to know which cars will lease well? My current reasoning would be that Honda’s would lease pretty well considering they’re known for their reliability and ability to retain value.
For $300/mo, you can get an 2017 Infiniti Q50 3.0t. However, we got denied because credit score was lower than 700 and also young (first time leasing a car) – lots of threads on this if this is something interesting to you. We were really bummed, it was a really nice car @ $40k MSRP for $300/mo with $0 down
Dealers have FOLP (Fear of low payments). Your reaction to $3K down and $785/mo for a civic is the same reaction they get when they see $0 down and $50/month for a car. Great job by not signing. Do your research on the vehicle, use this forum, edmunds for incentives and costcoauto.com for incentives. Once you figure it all out, email a few dealers with a car you want and start negotiating there. Goodluck !
Infiniti Q50 would definitely be a good option. Also, BMW 3 series may also fit your $300/month budget. Looking out for new graduate discount and corporation fleet discount (via your employer if you work for a big company). If you have some extra cash, try to use MSD to bring down the money factor, which will further lower the monthly payment for you.
Yes, one of the tactics they play is luring you into their dealership using some made-up reasons so they can wear you down. I have talked to a guy told me to come to their dealership for their ‘biggest sales event of the year’ because of Father’s Day ;D Once you step into their territory, they will keep you there as long as possible. Every time you negotiate, the salesperson will say the price is too low, they need to check with their manager, disappear for half an hour before they come back, until you eventually lost your patient and sign a lease that you will regret later.
However, unless you are leasing a car that is hard to find in other dealerships, which is very rarely the case, your dealership will face competition from other dealerships. Just tell them you are not going to their dealership unless you have an agreed term, they will give you quotes via email or on the phone although it’s not their preferred way to do business.
In order to feel less intimidated you should use the TrueCar or Edmunds or both services, get communications from the dealers and NOT go to see them until you see a committed quote that you happen to like and find acceptable (on this forum)
We are working on a sheet that says “Truecar discount $1,700” (but dealer did not tell us about the $2,000 lease cash) and then somewhere down near the Freight and Handling Charge is another fee called Advertising Fee $207
This is a nice deal with no negotiation (notice “2 at this price”) so this should get a little better. So unless the Honda drives itself or lined with gold, IMHO the Infiniti Q50 is a VERY NICE car for $329/mo. This is $0 due at lease signing meaning they rolled everything into the payment. The Q50 has a very low MF (almost 0% interest) so rolling everything in doesn’t really cost you more.
Good luck.
