Good morning, Leasehackrs! I’m trying to make an informed lease deal for the first time. The wife is looking to turn in her current Lexus lease (2016 RC 350 AWD) early to get back into a sedan. This particular car is the 2020 IS 350 F Sport AWD Black Line Special Edition, which has an MSRP of $50,985 not including $1025 delivery/handling fee. We want 48 months, 10,000 mi/yr, zero down.
From the Edmunds forums, I learned the January MF/RV and incentives for my zipcode; .00050MF for 48 months, 43% RV, and $4000 lease cash. As this agreement was from December, the dealer has already told us that we’ll get $500 more incentive, which I believe is lease cash mislabeled as rebate in the offer below. Apparently we have negative equity in the current lease, hence the -$2700 “trade equity”.
Putting this in the leasehackr calculator, I can’t make the numbers make sense. $4000 lease cash/rebate + negative equity = $1300 (previously $3500 + -$2700 = $800). And that $1300 would be the “taxed incentive”, right? So Net Cap cost should be $56,979.81 ($58,279.91 - $1300). It looks like they have figured the Net Cap with the entire rebate is being applied and the negative equity is being ignored…but the monthly is way too high. From the calculator I show that the monthly should be $663 (or $646 if acquisition fee is paid upfront), and that’s with IL state tax of 6.25%, which I think is correct. I assume the MF is being marked up, and I will obviously want to negotiate the selling price down from MSRP before doing anything, but am I on track with this? I feel like I’m missing something. We’re long time customers of this dealership but I certainly don’t want to be giving them an extra $100 a month for 48 months!
Why do you want 48 months? Chances are it isn’t the best lease and the chances of needing brakes and or tires increases exponentially. Considering that they’re selling it to you at MSRP, why bother posting this when you know it isn’t a good deal?
Because I’m looking for help and advice? I know it’s not a good deal from the perspective that the selling price will need to be negotiated, we ain’t paying that. The deal seems worse at 36 months, and the wife wants a lower payment - hence 48. If the price is negotiated down 2-3% and I can get them back down to the base MF (again, I’m assuming that it’s inflated based upon using the leasehackr calculator), then it’ll be better for us and perhaps she’ll be willing to go back to 36 months.
FWIW, she’s at month 36 or 37 of the current lease and isn’t near needing tires or breaks.
That would be an abysmal lease. Look on ClubLexus to see what an appropriate discount is. No matter what, this is going to be an ugly lease. Lexuses don’t lease well and throwing in negative equity will only make it worse.
What dealership in IL did you work with. I ask because I was helping my brother look for a 2020 Lexus RX350 recently and all dealerships quoted 5% discount with no room to negotiate and got one dealership to discount 12.5% which was insane.
That being said, I recommend shooting emails to various dealerships around you and get a quote without any mention of your current trade-in. Be straight up and say you are looking for xx% discount and base MF for a 36 term and see what they come back with.
Ultimately, the current deal you have is not great and the fact they quoted you with 0 discount on sale price would be offensive to me.
This is literally the first time I’ve been involved with the lease processes, so I’m trying to learn. 3% off at 48 months and MF where it should be gives a 7.2 hacker score. And the score is better at 48 months than 36. That’s way better than the crappy deal she has now paying too much. It’s almost like you’re ignoring that I’ve said we aren’t taking this deal as-is. Am I not going to be able to negotiate the MF back to .00050? Will the dealer not negotiate selling price?
If this is a bad deal, it’s a bad deal, but I guarantee I won’t be talking her out of it. She’s tired of two doors, likes the Lexuses she’d had and the dealership. This will happen one way or the other, so I’m trying to be informed as to how to better the situation.
O’Brien Lexus of Peoria. Yeah, I think the wife has just walked in and accepted whatever if she was cool with the monthly. After I left money on the table on a purchase then doing much, much better with my last car purchase, I decided to get educated about leasing. Ultimately it’s her decision. If she’s comfortable with the payment and wants it, we can afford it no problem. I don’t want to be lining the dealership’s pockets any more than necessary.
We are just giving our honest opinion and are here to help.
As I mentioned above, don’t stick to one dealership, contact every dealership in your area within a 100 mile radius to get an initial quote and go from there.
Is there a reason why she wants the IS? The ES in my opinion is better and probably has better lease support but i guess its just personal taste.
She’s had 4 ISes and likes them. ES is larger and therefore less desirable. BMW seems to have better leasing options, but with the current negative equity, she’d have to fulfill this lease before moving on, and I’m not certain that’s in the cards.
Not gonna comment on getting a IS vs ES (two different cars, but the new ES is a LOT better than the 2013-2018 version… But nowhere as sporty as the IS/GS line), but you can roll in negative equity into a BMW lease or any other lease. The Lexus dealer (not Lexus financial/corporate) is buying the car at $28500. They tack on the negative equity ($2700) on the new car. If the RC is worth $28,500, then you should have no problem having a BMW dealership buy the RC for $28,500 and roll the $2700 negative equity into a new BMW or any other manufacturer of your choosing.
FWIW, the IS isn’t available with Apple CarPlay… Something to think about since most other competing cars have it available… Why I personally went the Volvo route over the Lexus route (some newer Lexus lines have CarPlay… the 2019 RX didn’t have it available)
A good benchmark is to search this forum under the broker/dealer section and see what deals they are getting in the different markets. Although each market is different, it gives you a baseline of what is a reasonable/achievable discount on MSRP you can shoot for.
Yikes the IS subforum there is relatively dead. For NX, RX, ES, there is a very active prices paid topic that I consider to be invaluable. I figured it was as lively for IS, but unfortunately not it seems
Do not accept a first offer for your existing car. Check Carvana, Vroom, etc to see what they offer and/or put it up on swapalease. We’ve had a couple people complain about how badly RCs are leasing rn so maybe you can exit at less cost than -2,700
Wow 799 for an IS. In my mind that’s an LS payment. As a matter of fact here are some vehicles that you can probably get with a similar payment: Audi A6, A7, SQ5, Q7, Q8, etron, BMW X3, X4, X5, 540, 745. Even Porsches get higher LH score. If you end up signing don’t forget to post in the worst deals section. Did you try Carvana or Vroom to to see how much you can get for your trade? Also, try cars.com and kbb instant cash offer.
Hahaha…I’ll be sure to report back so others can know what not to do! I didn’t realize that the “trade-in” value of the current lease could be negotiated. Good information.
Unfortunately some dealerships take advantage of the fact that you’re a returning customer. They assume you won’t shop around. It’s up to you whether you want to prove them wrong.
Also if you can somehow step foot inside other luxury brands showrooms, you won’t have to talk her out of anything. They pretty much all blow the IS away so they’ll do the talking for you
There was talk of BMW for a while…but the local dealer left a bad taste in her mouth several years ago. That said, my car is a BMW that I got for a good purchase deal from them. I think we should go look at 330i and M340 before doing anything.
