Honda HR-V LX (front wheel drive) [gray] – San Diego
We are moving from San Diego to Denver and are looking to get our existing lease bought out by Honda Financials. There is 6 months left on the lease, premium to buy out the lease is $13,664 and the dealer has appraised the car for $18,135 two weeks ago. We are going in this week to get the car reappraised and complete the deal.
We know that we could get a better deal through services such as CarMax/carvana but the title transfer will not be complete before we move, so we are only looking at going through Honda financial since we can get the deal done in one day and walk out. We are relatively happy with the proposed deal, but want to make sure we get the most out of our situation and thought I’d come here since lease hacker was a saviour when originally negotiating the lease (monthly payment is $195 – would have been $160 with a better credit score).
We think we can get more out of the deal for a couple reasons:
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We got the 15,000 mile/year option since it was originally for daily commuting and long distance road trips, however my work is now remote and we travelled less than we anticipated. The car only has 20100 miles on it, out of the 45000 allotted for the lease, thus I’d argue that the lease buyout premium should be lower as we are paying for extra miles that was not foreseen when originally negotiating the lease – as a result I believe we could argue that the buyout premium of $13644 could be negotiated down, but am unsure how sticky those terms are.
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The car has been regularly serviced and well taken care of, no damage at all, not even minor scratches/dings. We have had no issues with the car either. The tires still have a good amount of tread as well.
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The same model & trim with similar milage is going for around $22-24k on used car websites leaving quite a gap between the appraised value from Honda financials and the market value (obviously Honda have to make some return on the deal).
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We also paid for the service package
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We bought 3rd party floor mats for both the front and rear seats, as well as the trunk, but I imagine Honda won’t keep these as they are not the brand/option that they offer customers.
What I would like to know is the following:
- what is my best way to negotiate a higher appraisal value?
- is the lease buyout value a non negotiable term? If not, is my point above about the miles/yr a valid negotiation tool?
- what would you say is the fair value of the car?
- is there anything I am missing that could help us negotiate a better deal?
- am I being unrealistic for trying to squeeze the dealership for more?
- how much room for negotiation is there on this end of the deal?
- Which terms are negotiable? (lease buy out cost vs appraised value of car)
- Is there competition between Honda dealerships, or does Honda financial remove any competition (i.e could we take an offer from one dealership to another and see if they would compete on the appraisal value).
- Are there any rebates that would work in our favour?
Things to consider:
- The vehicle has been used to transport my dog to and from the dog parks/road trips
- The vehicle has not been smoked in
- The vehicle has never been in an accident.
- We have both original keys.
Looking forward to any responses, and thank you for reading.
Cheers,
Guv