So I’m upside down on my Dodge Dart (purchase) and owe $13.5k on it and the dealer offered me $9.5k. My current payments with the Dart are at $370 and I have 3 years left. If I can get out and get another car at the same payments, but lease, I’m all for it. This is the first dealer who has said they can make it happen.
This dealer is a recommendation from a friend, but just want to be sure I’m still getting a deal and not being set up for a vanilla deal.
There would be about $4k negative rolled into the new lease. MSRP of the car is $29,265, sales price would be $24,200. Been seeing online you can get the car for around $25.5k, so not bad, but that’s just TrueCar. The sales guy is telling me the store is taking a $2k hit, I think it is eating up all their hold back.
It would be a 48 month lease, 12k a year, $368 a month. Worth it? I would prefer 36 month lease, but that is $400 a month. Might try and push a little more and do 36 month lease with 10k miles, since I think I can get away with that.
Is this a good deal or just normal for my situation?
Well you are missing a lot of info, but what are you putting down is the big one. I think it would be silly to take the 48 month, its only 22 a month cheaper and i think the standard warranty is 3/36.
Since you have negative equity it is best for you to get a car with a high residual. Due to deiselgate, the residuals on VW are horrible. I leased a 2017 Camry SE for $196/month tax inc for 36 months with $0 drive off. Add your $4000 neg equity and that’s about $307 with $0 out of pocket.
It’s tough because other dealers will probably offer me even less than the $9,500 VW is offering. I wouldn’t want a base model though on my new car. I’d want leather, back up cam, apple car play, heated seats, remote start, etc. I could probably get a civic or an accord, but I’d probably get like $7k for my car and higher end models are gonna be around $230 to $270 a month so I’d be back at the same $370.
VW dealer will actually send your Dodge straight to auction. Antyhing other then VW is a hussle for them. Most likely a Dodge dealer would give you the highest trade-in.
What year Dart? Still under warranty? Is there some reason you have to have a new car now? I would stay in it for a little longer until get above water and or warranty runs out. If dead set on Passat now then consider financing it. If only leasing, then look for something with high RV to lease, perhaps Cruze, Camry, etc. Perhaps a Dodge dealer can do something with a Ram truck which seem to lease well or other model if not looking for a truck.
Sereiously you have 3 years to pay it off. I would stick with it. This is exactly a case of keeping up with the jones. However, if you dead set on a new car try something with high residual as recommended.
You will still have to pay some driveoff ($1-1.5k?) of a new lease even with $0 down. The negative equity is also going to get wiped out in 3 years and you should be able to trade the Dart in for a couple of bucks to use as MSDs. Once you get to that point in 3 years you can slowly look for a good deal since you own your car outright at this point. $370/mo with MSDs will get you into some nice cars
I am just asking if it is a deal. I asked no advice on other cars or if I should wait. This isn’t “keeping up with the Jones” @NY13 look up the Dodge Dart and you’ll see how horrible this car is to drive. I turn the AC on the whole car vibrates and will even stall. Put it in reverse, stalls. Many other issues, no resolution from dealers. It is a 2014 Dodge Dart with the 3 year just having ran out in December.
And @max_g your two things only make sense if you end up with equity LOL. I will literally always be upside down on the Dart until it is 100% paid off. They are just dirt cheap, Dodge only made them for 4 years and then stopped in 2016 because they were not selling at all. And I don’t want a Jetta lol. I obviously know I can get a Jetta or go and get a Fiat 500 for $20 a month (exaggeration) but I want a car I still want.
I’m not doing it just to do it. My current car sucks so I’d like to get in a similarly equipped car for the same price. I’ve gone to Dodge and to get into a Charger it’d be close to $500. They value my trade at $11.2k but won’t come down as much on the sales price of the lease. The only cheaper car Dodge makes is the Chrysler 200, which is now also not going to be made anymore and 2016 being the last year LOL so definitely don’t want to get into another upside car.
I’m just curious if you the sales price the VW dealer is giving me is actually good or if I should be able to push more. And if the payments, when you subtract the negative equity would be inline with a slammin’ deal.
Listen i did not mean to offend you but what kind of a charger were you looking at? Chrysler 300 has better rebates but lower residual. Try that car maybe, and see what you can come up with? Also, are you in NY? I can recommend my guy. Try carmax too maybe, and just pay ofd negative equity. The WV deal is horrible in my opinion. What are you putting down for that deal?
The selling price is good, I just bought a 2017 Passat SE Tech for $24,100 in December and MSRP was $29,375. It’s a great car for the money with a ton of options standard. The problem is the residual value and MF on a lease. But if you dislike your current vehicle that much, like the VW and and understand you will have nothing in 3 years then I say go for it. Life is too short.
In CA, unfortunately. I asked a few dodge dealers and they said it would be lower payments with a Charger than a 300, which I thought was weird too lol. @Grandmaster so yours was a purchase? I mean, regardless of me having negative equity, the residual and money factor are going to be in effect on any lease. The negative is just purely increasing my monthly or does it actually effect the residual and bank rate because of the negative equity? Oh, and it would be no money down. Only drive offs are the first month and DMV. Which is also why it seems attractive since other dealers would probably require a few thousand due to the huge negative.
Yeah I bought because I plan to keep for a long time and VW’s lease poorly generally speaking, they don’t even come close to the 1% rule. At least I will own something after a few yrs, and why financing can be better than leasing on lower priced vehicles. I love the car. But you are in a different situation with negative equity and a car that isn’t meeting your needs. Have you taken your vehicle to Car Max for a quote or tried selling it on your own? Not sure if you are financially in a place you could dump the Dart and pay off the negative equity in cash and start fresh. If not and you need to roll the negative equity into something I would explore other avenues too for minimizing the loss. VW is wanting to give you $1700 less than Dodge for your car. Perhaps you can get them to offer more. I would also look at Toyota Camry and Chevy Cruze and see what they would give me on a trade and what payments would be on a those cars which lease pretty well and do zero drive off. If all are close get the one you like best.
Ah! Yeah some things get lost in translation over the internet. I didn’t realize you specifically wanted a Passat. I thought the dealership was possibly trying to get you into one. Nor did I realize the reasons you want out of the Dart so badly (BTW you will eventually have several thousand dollars of equity in it, but that is now besides the point).
As the others have said, now it comes down which other cars besides the Passat might work for you, and whether those other dealers can offer something better. There are two moving parts: the lease of the new car itself, and how much they offer on trade for the Dart (i.e. how much neg eq)…it’s possible someone other than VW might have a better combo of the two
My suggestion is to negotiate your lease price first. You know what the fair trade in value is for your vehicle. They are just playing with the numbers. Then you know you got the absolute best lease deal and you deal with the negative equity after that.
