In Houston Texas and seeking a 36 month, 12,000 mile lease deal.
2018 SQ5 - Premium Plus, S Sport Package, Navigation, Nappa Leather, 21" Wheels, B&O
MSRP: $65,625
Discount: $8,344
Rebate: $1,500
Total Purchase: $56,936
Tax Credits Applied: ~$2,910
Audi Care Included (Receiving an updated quote without)
Cash Down: $2,500
Balance: $57,434.95
Money Factor: .0018
Down Payment and First Month Due at Signing
Payment at 12,000 miles and 36 months, $2,500 down:: $693/month
You have over $1000 in dealer add-on crap that isn’t residualized and making your deal a lot worse. It seems like you have tax credits at lease which saves a lot in Texas
I agree. $400 for window tint and a ~$900 acquisition fee seem pretty high but I have never worked an Audi deal before… Any suggestions?? I think if they were able to roll Audi Care in for free and drop the window tint fee I would be at about $650 flat, which was my target. It would also get me to 1% payment (but yes, cheating due to down payment).
Is there any advantage for paying off the dealer fees instead of doing the equivalent in a down payment?
Audi’s standard acquisition fee is $875. You cannot negotiate it any lower. They cannot give you AudiCare for free, but rather discount the price accordingly. If you are willing to do a down payment, consider maxing out MSD
I’ve asked the dealer about the MSD and he has told me that each $700 down (up to 4 installments) reduces the MF by .00005. Is it worth giving MSD of $2800 instead of spending the equivalent as a down payment??
Regarding the $1,000 dealer add-ons (referring to phantom footprint, tint ,and dealer services?) are these things that are commonly dropped during negotiations?
This dealer seems very misinformed. You can use more than 4 MSDs. Plug your numbers into the Leasehackr calculator and see what max MSD will do. It should save a nice chunk of money.
Dealer add-ons are all negotiable
To be honest, I’m not sure I want to max out the MSD’s regardless. One of the reasons I’m doing a lease is to take out a bit of equity from my current vehicle, so I’m not going to get too hung up on the number of deposits I place with them.
How do you think the deal looks thus far? I’m going to push for the AudiCare and/or dealer fees to be waived, but it seems like they’re being aggressive on this. 15% discount including rebates and negligible sales tax seems strong.
There’s a chance I finish out this deal tonight, I’d love any additional advice from some more hackers
You’re not at a true 15% discount with nearly $1k being added back in for the dealer nonsense. As others have said, push to remove that. Audi care is marked up from $869 so consider that as wel.
Re: MSDs vs cap cost, very simply, MSDs reduce your interest rate on the lease and you get the money back. Cap cost is just mental gymnastics, you are paying a portion of what you owe on the lease up front and then less that for the remaining months. That money is gone and you are still paying the total owed at the end of the day.
So to summarize your comment about MSDs… Using $2,500 as MSD will mean the amount of my money going towards interest is lower, but this comes at the cost of having a higher monthly payment (i.e. less comfortable on a monthly basis)
Think of cap cost this way, at the end of your lease you will have paid $25k let’s say, it doesn’t matter how you paid it, cash now cash later, cash down has 0 financial benefit.
Understood. I believe I saw that you got an SQ5 a while back as well… Interested to hear your thoughts with the car overall! I’m coming from a BMW M235i, which has a much less posh interior but it drives like a go-cart. I’m going to miss hooning around, but I need more size and this vehicle seems like a great compromise. Looked at the X3 M40i, but couldn’t get the cost low enough.
It’s a great car you won’t regret it.
FYI it went up to $999 in 2019. Just helped 2 people get Audis this year and did one in December when it was $869.
Edmunds forums also confirms it’s now $999
Good lord!
I know, right? Almost as if Audi wants to make their bad leases even worse lol. I just helped close a deal on a Q5 at 1.07% tho, so I’m pretty happy
I signed the deal and wanted to update my post with the agreed upon numbers…
2018 SQ5 Premium Plus
MSRP: $65,625
Discount: $9,844 (included $1,500 rebate)
Audi Care: $999
Trade Allowance: $20,500 (using $2,500 as down payment with the rest of equity in a check back to me)
Tax: $455.45 (Texas, post trade-in and tax credits)
Balance after down payment, TTL, and dealer fees: $55,679
36 months / 12,000 miles: $659/month
Overall I was happy with the deal. They offered me tax credits right off the bat before they knew I would trade a car in, the discount for the outgoing model year was solid, they allowed for an extended 24 hour test drive to let me get to know the car, and they matched the cash price from CarMax that was offered to me for my trade-in. I also only spent about 25-30 minutes total signing paperwork. I come from 3 sports cars and this SUV is the perfect combination of performance, utility, and luxury. I originally was looking at an X3 M40i and my analysis is that while the X3 is faster, the luxury aspect of the SQ5 is years ahead of even the new X3 interiors.
Hi. Could you share/PM the dealer you used ?
Nice deal and congrats, welcome to the club 
