Agreed - buying a BMW i4 BEV is not a prudent financial decision. BMW is having several recalls on the battery/car. This first year model is sure to have many many issues…
BMW issued a recall notice for over 14,000 electric vehicles for a software malfunction that could lead to a loss of power and an increased risk of a crash.
The automaker said that the recall covers certain iX SUVs and i4 and i7 sedans produced between October 14th, 2021, and October 28th, 2022. The software issue relates to the high voltage battery electronic control unit. According to BMW:
This has all the makings of the great Bolt EV self combustion recall of 2020… Ownership of All first year EVS are to be avoided and only leased - eg EQS, EQE, I4, I7 and IX until the manufacturer figures out the gremlins
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Respectfully, I’m not here to seek advice on whether or not BMW builds good EVs or if leasing is a better practice to change cars at will. I’m committed to buying and owning and maintaining the car that I’m choosing. But I do want to understand the hidden costs of an immediate lease buyout.
BMW recalls happened mostly in 2021 to mid-2022. I never encountered a recall in my 8 months of i4 ownership in late 2022 to 2023. Besides, of all the carmakers they handle them the best by providing loaners and/or up to $1200/month compensation.
This is a major departure compared to the joke that is Hyunda/Kia/Ford/VW and their recalls.
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So you are not willing to change your mind about your EV strategy and only want validation from internet strangers … ok … I am a long time BMW owner and have owned their i3…
I am also saying just stay away from the initial production year models … and buy after all the gremlins have been ironed out. I am not saying the I4 is unreliable… Anyway … good luck with your purchase and enjoy in good health.
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Hyundai and Kia dealers are offering discounts and on top of the lease incentive (or the $5000 cash rebate for financing). Sales spiked recently so I guess it is working.
I have to say - after 3 months with my Ioniq 5 Limited and my reservations about it after downgrading from a BMW i4 - it’s an excellent do-everything EV.
It’s quiet, comfortable (suspension is closer to ID.4 and i4 than Teslas), lane centering and HDA are excellent for all sorts of driving, and charging is insanely fast (234 kW multiple times at chargers on a trip to the race track on the weekend).
To think I had such high hopes for ToyoBaru’s Solterra/bz4x and then finally test drove one. They are 3-5 years behind the Korean EVs.
What kind of discounts are you seeing? I assume its not possible to stack the $5000 + $7500
My '22 Ford Lightning EV I purchased a year ago and 10,000 miles later has not had a single issue since day 1.
Not even a single warranty nor maintenance (other than tire rotation once).
Have to say, compared to the past BMWs I have leased, Ford has really hit it out of the park for me.
Guess I got lucky ?
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The $5000 incentive is the ev credit pass through. They just dont give the entire thing.
No… Hyundai and Kia are passing through $7500 via leases… there’s a SEPARATE cash rebate for non-leases and it was $3750 but now $5K on some trims. It’s only $2K for the Limited trim.
Looks like they have bumped it up to the full $7500 on some models. Some are still only getting $5k (niro ev, for example)
To answer your original question, I’m still not seeing many discounts on Ioniq 5s at least in SoCal.
They are either MSRP or at most $1k off (but look out for the blessings).
Even with the $5k purchase cash or the “up to” $7500 lease incentive. captive finance and lease rates are still not very good.
There are some deals in Marketplace though.
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Right. The Hyunda Kona EV gets $7500 but the Niro EV only gets $5000… BUT because of massive oversupply in Florida I’ve seen Kia dealers chop $3-4K off of Niro EVs.
Still vastly overpriced since the MSRP of the top trim Niro EV close to a Model Y LR.
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In Florida? I’m thinking that what you are seeing is they give $1000 and knocking of $4000 from the $5000 Rebate
Maybe… but some of these Niros have been sitting for 3-4 months (this was a month plus ago)
And this was before cash rebates appeared (only lease incentive before) so now they have been sitting for 5+ months.
Ken Ganley (formerly Friendly Kia) offered me $3K off, no crap $1995 dealer add on, plus the $7500 lease incentives on their EV6s… they had 15+ at the time that had been sitting their since Jan/Feb. They’ve sold almost ten since then.
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That’s pretty good, so they are leasing it for 10.5k off ? pretty sweet on the I6
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Yes… and this was an EV6 GT also. Essentially $50K for the GT… and it’s still on the lot unsold.
Has anyone done this through Audi (lease then immediate buy-out)? Trying to leverage the 7500 leasing EV credit NOTE: I’m 100% a leasing n00b so I could be completely wrong here…
Long story - but basically they’re trying to say that to buy it out you have to fully pay off the lease - including whatever fees are in your lease payments for “interest”. So imagine that the term were 24 months and the totally monthly payment were 1500 regardless of when you buy it out they’re saying you’d have to pay * 1500 + residual. It makes no sense to me that I would be paying whatever the finance charges are for months that I haven’t even incurred yet - i.e. if I bought it after 1 month, I get paying 1 months worth of charges, but not the other 23. With how they explained it AND given the higher interest rates / MF (believe it equates to 5.9% roughly) this approach makes absolutely zero sense vs purchasing outright.
One last piece of info I’ll throw out there is that my reps manager got involved for multiple reasons and was trying to show us what they see when a lease buyout is happening. For simplistic purposes lets say he showed a car with 22 payments remaining @ $500 per payment - meaning 22*500 == 11k total payments remaining - but when looking up the obligations it only showed say $6k - which he was also thoroughly confused by himself.
They finance guy is off on Tuesdays so I’ll be speaking with them tomorrow first thing but I’m very interested if anyone in this community has gone through this as I’m really starting to doubt just about any information they share with me to be honest.
Thanks in advance!
Sounds like they don’t know how to read their own contracts, so they make the mistake of thinking that you have to pay the sum total of the lease payments.
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Sounds like they don’t know how to read their own contracts, so they make the mistake of thinking that you have to pay the sum total of the lease payments.
Yes - this is 100% what they were claiming and they said it was “by design” even. It’s amazing how little they seem to know.
I did follow up by calling Audi Financial Services and they confirmed that my train of thought was correct and that the finance charge in the remainder of the payments would not be paid since those were never incurred given the early buy-out (again, which seems extremely logical!). He mentioned that effectively it comes back as a “lease rebate” that would go against the total purchase price.
That said, he was very clear to say that he can’t speak to my specific situation since I was not yet a customer and that he’s not part of the sales process. My plan is to have the dealerships finance manager either outright confirm what I’m saying in the AM OR have them call AFS directly w/ me on 3-way.