Hello everyone,
I’m at the end of my first lease and considering my options:
A) Buy my car (2017 Honda Accord 2.4L EX CVT 4D Sedan - 41K mi - $15,598 RV)
B) Trade the car in and get a new Acura lease (Owe Honda $400 in fees)
C) Trade the car in and buy preowned (Owe Honda $1000 in fees)
D) Extend my lease out for 6 months to buy more time… ($335/mo, RV drops by $239/mo, 1k mi /mo - not ideal)
Firstly, I think the RV on my car is kind of inflated. The numbers on my signed worksheet from 3 years ago don’t make sense. I think I got a good deal but I feel like my RV should be $2K less based on the trade in value of my vehicle and what I’m seeing from others’ lease deals from back in 2016/2017. Regardless - I like the car but it’s got some wear and tear and has some mileage and I’ll have some basic maintenance coming up (brakes, tires, 45k mi service). I don’t think it’s the best idea for me to sink an additional 15.5K + tax + financing chage into it. I already took it to Carmax and they offered $14K for it… so I’m already looking at a $1.5K loss from buying it.
If I’m buying a preowned car, my budget is $8K-$15K which has a wide variety of vehicles available but the ones I’m interested in are more expensive to maintain (Audi, BMW).
I wasn’t even thinking about leases (knowing Hondas don’t lease as well and that I wasn’t interested in another Accord) but I only recently learned I can take advantage of the same loyalty benefits from leasing/financing a new Acura. I went to the closest dealership in the last week of October, test drove an ILX, and was quoted a little below their currently advertised deal on their website. Went back and forth with the guy and built some rapport with him but told him I wasn’t interested unless he could get me something lower than $270 for an ILX with $0 DAS and 12k mi /yr. He told me he’d reach out if anything came up but that I should check in with him in November. I went back to him yesterday and he tried really hard to get me into a TLX which I hadn’t even been considering since monthly payments would be a full $100 more on that car. He wouldn’t hear anything I had to say about the ILX and said that it wouldn’t make any sense to even consider it over the TLX because they have “way more incentives for the TLX”. I’m wondering if that’s true. On Edmunds I found that the ILX and TLX both have military and recent grad bonuses but the TLX has two additional offers:
$750 Conquest Bonus (the terms only mention “Acura” not “Honda” so not sure if I can claim this)
$750 Loyalty (the terms only mention “Audi, BMW, Buick, Cadillac, INFINITI, Lexus, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz”)
That being said, I think he put together a pretty good deal for me, but I’ll let you guys be the judge of that:
LEASE DEAL
MSRP: $33,995.00
“DISCOUNTS”: $ 7,254.00
ADJUSTED PRICE: $26,741.00
FEES:
DOC: $495.00
ACQ: $595.00
REG: $135.00
TAX: $ 88.32
CAP COST: $27,459.32 (+$718.32?)
RV: $17,338.00 (51% = Depreciation of $16,657)
MONTHLY: $ 384.00
DAS: $ 384.00
TERM: 36mo/12kmi
Questions:
Is this a good deal?
That $7.2k in discounts - might that already include the incentives I mentioned or is it simply a dealer discount?
I don’t see a MF or “APR” anywhere on my worksheet. I asked him for it and he tried to make me feel bad for it - asking if I read leasing blogs LOL.
I have a few things up my sleeve I’ve been waiting to bring up. When I said no at the end of our appointment, he said he had “$5 or so of wiggle room”, if he were to reduce the monthly by $5 ($379), would I bite? I again said no. If you guys think the above is a good deal to start with, I’m going to go back and try to get him to give me that “wiggle room” and then ask if I can claim loyalty from being a Honda customer. If needed I might call HFS to see if they’ll be nice about it. I’ve already had success calling them and getting them to drop half my mile overage ($400 saved with a 5 minute phone call).
Thanks in advance!!