2024 Acura ZDX A-SPEC deal check...what am I missing?

Ask the Hackrs
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Hi Everyone!

This is my first post, and like so many others, I wish I had found this site much sooner than two days ago!

I live in Northern CA (Sacramento Valley, specifically). I’ve been leasing cars for decades, and consider myself fairly-educated in auto finance, but after racking my brain for the past three weeks looking for an EV with a decent MF (I have top-tier credit), I think I landed on a 2024 Acura ZDX AWD A-Spec. However, these last three weeks have also made my brain a little mushy, and I feel like I’m missing something on this deal, so I’d love your help.

First, here’s a breakdown of the final selling price of the car:
MSRP - 70,450
MVSP - 69,208
Discount - 23,000
Tax, Title, Fees - 1703.01
Total Purchase - 47,911.01
Trade Equity - 266.20
Rebate - 4,000
Balance - 43,644.81

Nearly 27K off original MSRP seems like an incredible deal to me. The dealer obviously has a major incentive to sell low like this, given that it’s a 2024, and the '25s are hitting the dealership in just a couple weeks. But, I’d still like to get your feedback on this price.

Assuming you all agree the selling price is great, here’s what I have so far for the lease deal:
MF 0.0012 (2.88% effective APR)
36 months
10K miles
Residual - not sure yet, but I think it’s around 46-50%

Monthly payment - $534.55

First off, I normally don’t look seriously at MFs without the first positive number being in the ten-thousandths place, but they are so rare right now, and not available on vehicles I give a shit about. So, this seems pretty good right now.

Second, why does the monthly seem high for a $43.6K balance? I am just finishing my current lease of a 2022 Honda Ridgeline, and my payment is $497/mo, despite the final balance on that vehicle being almost exactly the same as the Acura…$43.2K. I know the MF can easily play a major role in that difference, but I don’t have the MF rate on the Ridgeline listed on the contract. It just says “rent charge”, and I don’t know how to calculate MF in reverse.

To all who read this entire post, THANK YOU!! It’s nearly 3am right now, so I’m a little tired. But, I appreciate everyone’s feedback, and please let me know what other info I need to ask the dealership to give me before making my final decision.

***** UPDATE AFTER GETTING SOME MUCH-NEEDED SLEEP :rofl:

First off, thank you so much to those who have already responded. As someone who coaches and consults sales teams on a regular basis, not only am I on a neverending mission to strive for lease “knowledge & negotiation perfection”, but I want to emulate the procedures and processes of those who are so dialed-in on their workflow that personal stress and total time spent before leasing a new vehicle is light years less than mine.

Second, I meant to write in my original post last night that the only lease info I have from the Acura dealer is the total monthly payment amount and MF rate. I’ve only communicated via text and email with them so far, and I first wanted to negotiate the final selling price of the vehicle. I requested the lease fee breakdown, but haven’t received it yet. That’s when I made my post, because I knew something wasn’t right.

I am becoming a super supporter in the next few minutes, so I’ll work with the lease calculator, and post the info shortly. I will also be responding to each of the comments, so thanks again to those who’ve given me feedback! :grinning:

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Check signed and marketplace. Try to replicate their deal. Someone just signed $8k Onepay in CA. Acura ZDX Aspec AWD 24mo/10k year - $8000 ONE PAY SoCal ($333 month effective)

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First, pay the few bucks to become a super supporter on here so you can get the actual RV. You can’t put a deal together if you’re guessing at what the RV is.

Second, once you have the RV, plug your numbers into the lease calculator on this site and share it so that we can all see how the deal looks.

Third, look around on this site to see what others are paying for this car or what brokers are offering.

I have a leasing basics sheet I can send you which includes a sample email to send to dealers.

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A friend of mine just negotiated this in NorCal (I’m debating this as well given how good of a deal it is, just not sure if I want to pay a bit more and get an i4) at a one-pay for the AWD at <$7,900 at 24/10. The effective monthly comes to about $325. There are other deals which are not one-pay on the marketplace (think GC Auto and 1-2 others) that come to around $270-$290 per month pre tax at 24/7.5 - if you want 10k miles, assume ~$25-$30 extra a month.

Short story, you can most likely get to $320-$350 / month on this one. Tell the dealer that’s your alternative and ask them to match.

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Look up Signed Deals & Tips for ZDX. You negotiate a dealer discount before the 2x,xxx rebate. That’s how you get your monthly into the 3s with 0 DAS.

That’s not a good strategy.

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That’s a high price for a zdx. I’m in the same region and am traveling today to pick up a zdx lease. I went with rwd bc they lease a bit better despite having less in rebates.

Become supporter so you can play with the calculator. You’ll find the 24 month lease is the sweet spot for residual value.

Assuming my deal closes without issue, I’ll see if they are willing to replicate it. I’m doing a one pay lease but the effective monthly payment is well under 300…

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Oh my God, bro, that’s AMAZING! And, if they would replicate it, even more amazing. I’m so appreciative of your response.

Judging by the responses I’ve been receiving, I’m going to be changing my entire procedure on the steps of my research and negotiation, but my biggest initial concern is what to do after the first step of “find a vehicle you want”. I mean, besides the KIA EV9 being my first choice (but it’s leasing terribly from what I’ve been able to gather), there are about ten different vehicles I could easily love. And, the amount of time I’ve spent these past three weeks researching vehicles that are currently leasing shitty is so frustrating.

Do you have any tips on how to quickly determine if a vehicle I like is worth spending time emailing dealerships for deal acceptance? I wish there was a portal to just type in a vehicle name, and a result be returned that says “don’t bother” or “leases well…proceed”.

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I’d recommend flipping through a few of the spreadsheets that are listed on the Marketplace here. You’ll get a reasonable feel for the MSRP vs. monthly payment quickly. At least that has worked for me pretty well, and it’s my first time leasing & learning about this whole biz.

It will be hard to beat the Acura deal but it really depends on what you’re looking for in a car / what you can afford to spend.

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I’ll definitely do that, thanks! I’ve been leasing forever, and my process has always been to determine MF rates (since that equates effective interest), then negotiate the best final selling price that’s acceptable to me, make sure the RV is >60% (preferably above 65%), and then scrutinize the fees to determine what’s firm, what’s negotiable, and what’s total bullshit.

If I now need to change my entire process, I’m totally good with that (obviously), but I’ll need to essentially learn how to write left-handed, when I’ve been writing with my right hand my whole life. A little daunting, honestly, but getting feedback from experts that my lease deal was smokin’ is the ultimate gratification that makes the time spent totally worth it.

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Hi Max. Thanks for responding to me. Would you please kindly let me know why my MF rate-focus is not a good strategy? Everything I’ve ever been taught, as well as experienced personally, says to never pay a high interest rate when the buyer has top-tier credit. Of course, “high interest rate” is subjective, and MF is just one of a few important lease factors, but that’s why I came to this forum. If MF is the third or fourth most important factor, and other pieces of information are considerably more critical to understand during the process, I will evolve immediately :slight_smile:

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Youd think so, but with conquest, there’s $28250 in incentives and dealer cash on this, so the offer in front of you is OVER msrp. This “deal” is overpaying by thousands of dollars.

Also, there is no 25 zdx coming.

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Thank you so much for linking that deal. I’ve PM’d the buyer, because their contract indicates over 7K in trade value, and a couple other numbers that won’t be on my contract, so I need to extrapolate the like data.

@BigLebowski - I appreciate the help. I’m now a SS. Also, I’d love to see your leasing basics sheet, for sure. Thanks so much!

@Ondraled - Thanks for responding. Is your friend’s deal on this site, by chance? I need to show my dealership where the $200/mo discrepancy is on the numbers.

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.00120 is buy rate for tier 1 on the zdx. There is no better rate available. It is subvented to that number with some of the incentive money theyre using.

Would you care if the mf was .00240, but they applied a commensurate incentive increase instead? By dwelling on the mf, you’d determine one deal is bad and the other good with the exact same cost?

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It’s from them charging you a mark up over msrp.

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There is no such thing as “my dealership” because they are ripping you off.

Forget about everything you think you know about leasing. Going back and forth, showing other peoples’ contracts, haggling, negotiating… forget all of that.

Step one: post a LH calc here showing what your target deal is.

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Holy f’ing shit. At this point, given all the feedback, along with what I’ve read so far, I guess it doesn’t surprise me. Before three weeks ago, I hadn’t done anything with new car leasing in three years, so I’m clearly majorly out of touch. And, your response here is just the humbling cherry on top.

I’m seriously grateful for you telling me this, though, because nothing piques my anxiety like the thought of discovering AFTER signing a contract that the “amazing” deal I just inked wasn’t actually amazing in the slightest. My ignorance, maybe, but definitely not deal itself.

Embarrassingly, I don’t even know what conquest is, but I’d like to find that $28,250 source so I can take it straight to dealer.

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Its the $4000 rebate they have itemized at the bottom for you currently having a qualifying non-Acura vehicle.

Screenshot_20250316_213944_Chrome
Screenshot_20250316_213944_Chrome697×761 102 KB

Mf = (total rent charge / length of lease in months) / (adjusted capitalized cost + residual value)

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Yeah, they did tell me 0.0012 is their buy rate, but I’ve heard many dealerships will tell you whatever MF rate they give you is their buy rate, even when two competing dealers give you different rates for the same vehicle. Is there a specific source you use to determine actual buy rates, so a dealer’s bluff can be called if they give you a higher sell rate?

Also, great point on the higher MF/commensurate incentive increase, and of course I’d be good with that. However, I wouldn’t know how to negotiate a commensurate incentive, because I also don’t want to just pull a random MF rate out of thin air that may be completely ridiculous, and then lose all credibility. Do you ever go into a negotiation with a preset MF rate in mind, and then ensure you get there by whatever incentive they need to use to make it happen? Or, are there other criteria you deem more important to look at, and then decide if you need to negotiate an incentive offset later in the process?

As for the mark-up charge, of course I agree. However, if the MSRP is 70.45K, the discounts amount to 27K, the final selling price is 43.6K (and I don’t know about conquest), where would I identify the markup on the contract when I review it?

@max_g - so true. I should’ve said, “the local Acura dealership”. Man, the last 15 hours have been a remarkable and humbling lesson, for sure. I’ll post a LH calc shortly. Thanks :slight_smile:

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Brother, all I can say is THANK YOU SO MUCH for this! I’m so appreciative. Thank god I haven’t even looked at a contract yet, much less signed it.

I’m realizing I desperately need to update my brain’s “lease software” from the equivalent of iOS 4.2.1 to the current version. :rofl:

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Step 1 is to recognize that there is a big difference between an incentive from Acura and a discount by the dealer.

There dealer here is giving a mark up, not a discount. The selling price is below msrp because Acura is offering incentives. That is totally indepedent of the dealer discount, which is what you’re negotiating.

Youre a super supporter, which gives you access to ratefindr which will provide you buy rate for both the Acura standard rate and incentized rate.

Note that ratefindr does not show all of the direct to dealer incentives that were itemized separately on the screenshot I provided.