Financed (not leased) a 2022 Subaru Impreza Premium Hatchback. This is my first car and my goal was to not pay MSRP in this market. I considered building a Jeep through Clutch but couldn’t wait that long.
MSRP: 23,655
Sales price: 22,120 (6.5% off MSRP - see bullet point bellow)
Finance rate: 48 months @ 1.9% through Subaru Financing (Chase)
Monthly payment: $542.53 with 10.4% tax (ouch)
technically the sales price is 22,620 (4.4% off) if you factor into account the $500 donation to ASPCA to get VIP Pricing. There’s another cheaper way, but takes 6 months of donation. Details here. I did not consider the $500 as part of the vehicle price and meant it as a donation, plus my employer had a 100% match so it’s good for the cause, but including it here to normalize the datapoint.
Leasehackr calculator if I were to lease the car, using September program from Edmunds. It’s unfortunate the base MF is that high.
Trust me it was a tough choice. I had most, if not all, the features I needed on the premium such as heated seats. I love the rims & look on the Sport though, just didn’t feel it was worth paying a few grand just for that.
One thing my research let me down was that I thought Premium could support remote start through the app, but turns out I need to get a genuine key fob for like $400. I believe the Sport has remote start built in.
I called all the dealers (like 6 of them) in the region and only one honored 2% under invoice. 2 others only did invoice, and the rest didn’t honor any discounts.
All of them were only on new factory builds, not even cars in transit.
This post on ascent forums has some dealers that honored VIP pricing pre-shortage
Good on you for getting something under MSRP. Especially in this era of carlessness. I was speculating that the roof racks won you over, but seeing you’re in WA, heated seats make more sense haha.
Congrats! Great to hear your car came in and it looks fantastic. Coincidentally, we just ordered a Subaru Outback for my wife through the same process. Enjoy the car!
I’m going to second @IAC you did good, even in a bad or good market with Subaru. To me Subaru is always a purchase vehicle for how well they hold value.
My family did the same thing recently in Tucson AZ on a 2022 Subaru Outback. Donated 500+ dollars to ASPCA. Waited 2.5 months for the car. Subaru gave us 500 dollars in accessories credit as an apology for the long wait. Agreed at 1.9 with resale leasing did not make sense. Dealer here gives two years of maintenance as well. In Tucson Arizona they only required a $500 deposit. In AZ had no issue finding a dealer to honor the program. If you want a new Subie this program is the ticket.
Also, don’t forget to call SoA to see if they have loyalty coupons (if you’ve leased/owned a Subaru before). They sometimes will give $500 or more that will have a material impact to your final lease payment.
Also, if you can plan 6 months out, I believe you can access the VIP program for as little as $50, but you have to wait 6 months for access
On our Outback (Touring 2.5) 8.4% discount off MSRP. In my area all dealers were requiring a $499 dealer processing fee which takes this to a 7.2% discount. When you add in taxes for my state (Maryland) and all associated governmental fees it brings you to a total discount off MSRP of 0.5%. The reason I looked at this final percent is because I was basically covering all my governmental fees via the VIP discount, plus a nominal additional discount, which for me was a nice fact (this will likely be irrelevant for most others). Given used Outback’s (1-2 years old) are currently selling for new Outback prices it seemed like a reasonable decision in this market.
@fronk thanks for sharing this. I called a few dealers over the last couple days and found two who honor the VIP program mentioned. Visited both in person, saw their allocations… got 5.5% off MSRP on a base 2022 Forester.
