2020 Jetta S - Shoot holes in this guy's offer

Good question. New job, need a cheap lease, maintenance is rolled in, and it gives him a few years to figure out what he wants longterm. 40mpg doesn’t hurt. Basically looking for something cheap that isn’t a Hyundai.

Yeah I think eliminating the drive-off would be good, too, but I was trying to reduce the monthly a tiny bit for him by paying $2k drive-off. I reached out to some MD dealers. I do have time and I can always come back next week.

Well keep in mind payment only goes up roughly $27 per month for every $1000 you don’t put down. Why not just send your son $27 a month for every $1000, instead of putting $2k down right away?

Yeah, agreed. I did this with my own car versus paying for GAP.

Typically you shouldn’t have to purchase GAP for leases.
Just checked all VW leases come rolled in with GAP included.

Some shady dealers will still try to sell you GAP though.

It wasn’t a VW. But yeah I ignored them and put nothing down on my own. Probably best to go with that philosophy here too.

Appreciating you and your advice right now, by the way.

You’re very welcome! Learned the very hard way. Put close to $4k down on a BMW lease, the car ended up being totaled and I never recovered my downpayment. It’s not worth it imo.

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Ok so this is the goal with 0 drive-off and the numbers updated on the calculator. Of course MD will hopefully be lower on the fees.

I see that you can still save like another $1k if you register it in Arizona.

Also would he consider a corolla? a broker on here has it listed for $183 +title tag tax

btw you should be the one holding all the cards in the current market. no need to put up with dealer bs. if they don’t wanna play ball, on to the next!

AZ is pretty sweet for cars, I have to admit. But we’re going to register it here. Interestingly, Corolla was something on radar but he’s a VW kind fo guy. I’ll look for the posting if things don’t work out here. The dealer is trying to tell me I need to get there by 4pm. Ha ha. If it’s a “deal” today it’ll be one tomorrow.

Okay if that’s your preference, I can see that it’ll buy you piece of mind.
& wow this dealer is trying to pull all the typical sales bs.

If I were in your shoes, what i’d do is take your goal quote, and email it to every VW dealer within a certain radius that you feel comfortable driving to. See who bites.

If you send them a deal structured a certain way, chances are one will take it.
I have used this technique successfully several times in the past.

Doing that exact thing right now, actually :slight_smile:

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Except you picked a car that isn’t cheap to lease.

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True. Cheap gas, cheap insurance, maintenance rolled in. Certainly not the best lease deals.

None of those are exclusive to a Jetta S.

Maintenance is a joke. It’s like 2-3 oil changes. And other brands offer that too.

Most cars in that class have comparable or better MPG.

Insurance will most likely be cheaper for other cars in that class that have safety features such as automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise, etc.

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that’s true, and even those oil changes in this class are like $20-30 each

So … “went” to a dealer in MD, got the price I wanted less even a bit more money that really came out to $10/m on the lease. Thanks to your guys’ advice I saved an extra $500 on the dealer fees. Also got the better MF, which is another $16/m.

No, it’s not the best lease. VW is never going to be a good lease. Heck, for $100/m more he could’ve had a low end BMW. But it’s what he wanted and at the end of the day there’s something to be said for that. I’m pretty happy with the price and if all goes well tomorrow we’ll sign.

Fingers crossed - let us know how it goes! And post some pics!

So what were the final numbers? 240ish a month for the 20k Jetta? Yeah those don’t seem to lease well for some reason. At least you did better than the starting quote.

Smack on, nothing out the door but first payment. I think it’s about as good as you can do on a low-end VW. The vehicle at this place was priced a bit higher (just shy of $22k) because of BS add-ons but I consider their value $0 if I didn’t ask for them or want them.

Kid gets the car he wants and I’m happy with the price; he even met tier 1 credit criteria on his own. We have 39 months to research and plan for him to get a real car but in the meanwhile he’ll be able to get to and from his new job. And there’s peace of mind that you can’t put a dollar value on.

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