Total Due At Signing: $1480 TTL+$485 first payment + $650 acquisition fee = $2615
Note: My current credit score is 836.
My thoughts:
The selling price should be no higher than $32,500 based on their invoice price of $31,949 + $681 holdback. I am unaware if there are “hidden” dealer incentives or kickbacks which would add to their profit. $1000 is a fair enough profit in my book.
The MF is ridiculously high given my credit score. I’m thinking it should not equate to higher than a 3.9% APR and that seems even too high.
The RV is too low. Shouldn’t it be at least in the low 60% range even with 15,000 miles/yr?
I could probably live with the current selling price, but the MF and RV seem way off.
You won’t be able to Negotiate the Residual Higher. Its set by the manufacturer.
MF is high but that too is set by manufacturer. You can check with edmunds to see if they are marking it up.
Honda’s retain their values well in the real world. They don’t lease well due to high MF and sometimes very conservatively low RV. I think the best thing to do would be to buy it.
Also here’s one on autotrader with a lower selling price. Get quotes from other dealers to drive down the cap cost thats going to be the best way to lower the payment. I’d shoot for another 1-1.3k off (right now your are right at the national median for True Car pricing) . It does look like MF is marked up by .00045 (going off 36/12 from edmunds in the Chi town area)
These cars are a Becky special right now and selling really well. Rav 4 will be a small step down (for a much better lease) or if you don’t mind the size go highlander for around the same price.
Becky special lol… I had two CR-Vs (LX but still) and I can’t imagine anyone choosing one for a lease at any trim vs a comparable Terrain, Equinox, etc. Even going a slot up in size you’d do much better price wise. And you wouldn’t get those God awful wheels that Honda picked out of a Fellini nightmare for that car.
But I heard that if you move up to the Touring model Honda throws in the adjustable intermittent wipers that virtually every other base model SUV come with standard.
Today, I called a 2nd Honda dealership to inquire about the 2018 CR-V Touring AWD. I will compare dealer #1 to Dealer #2.
MSRP: $35,025
Selling Price: #1: $32,900 #2: $32,949
RV: #1: 54% #2: 58%
MF: #1: .00255 (6.12%) #2: 00320 (7.68%)
I spoke with the New Car Manager at Dealer #2. He said Dealer #1 quoted an RV of 54% mistakenly as that is for a 42-month lease. He stated that it is 58% for a 36-month lease. He said that Honda simply doesn’t offer great MF rates or incentives on CR-V’s because they are their top seller and they prefer to sell them rather than lease them and I added that they also seem pretty damn proud of their product too.
He said that MF rate he quoted is for the first three tiers of credit all the way down to 710. He couldn’t explain why Dealer #1 offered a MF of .00255. I told him there was no way I was paying that kind of interest and thanked him for his time.
He then told me he has a “certificate” from the manufacturer which would allow him to drop the MF down to about .00220 (5.28%). He also offered to waive the $650 acquisition fee. He said that if I wanted to shop around I would see that the numbers are pretty consistent when it comes to the selling price, RV and MF.
Mainly out of curiosity, I asked him to work up his very best deal and email it to me. He said he would do so by the end of the day. That was five hours ago. The dealership closed a few minutes ago…I haven’t heard from him.
I’ll keep you updated if I hear from him. Thanks again for all of the feedback.
Well, I’ve got a better one for you. I have a 2015 Mercedes-Benz GLA-250 and it does not have a door lock on the passenger door. None. Nada. The passenger has to reach across to the lock on the driver’s door to unlock the car. And, I went to the Auto Show last week and saw the 2018 version…still no lock on the passenger door. I would bet the cheapest Kia has a power lock on the passenger door. Go figure.
CR-V is the top selling compact suv for 25 years there is never a market surplus because Honda never makes fleet deals, I think the dealers can dictate the terms of your surrender …
Which just shows that people don’t care about what they drive (to a point), and don’t shop around nearly enough. I guess you have to factor in that leasing is a relatively small % of total sales, so if you are going to be keeping it long term I suppose it’s not a bad choice in that sense. That supposed Honda resale value is a bit questionable to me though. When trying to figure out what to do with my CRV lease I was shocked at how little it was worth.
They buy the Honda due to the fact the general consensus is that they have been bulletproof for the last 30 years, and American cars are second rate in quality. I don’t know that I totally agree with that sentiment anymore, personally, but perception can sometimes trump reality. American cars also don’t hold their value like the Japanese counterparts, for the most part. Just goes to show you how long it takes to recover from the damage of the junk the American manufacturers put out in the 80s and 90s.
From a financing standpoint, yeah I’d rather finance a Japanese import. But from a leasing standpoint if all else is equal I’ll take the best deal. Having my last two new cars being GM I have been satisfied with the quality, and dollar for dollar feel like I got more value and features than my previous three Hondas, at least over the course of a standard, warranty covered lease term. The GM cars allowed me to punch a bit above my weight class, so to speak, while I always felt like I settled for less with Honda. Now if I had planned to keep them for 10 years it probably would have been a different story.
