I’m currently in a '23 Altima SR lease that is set to end in September, currently paying 359.00/mo. Doing some early research/shopping around, and the '26 Kia K5 GT-Line w/premium package caught my eye. It has all the features I’m looking for; sporty look, with a pano sunroof, premium speaker system, leather seats. Looking to get into another 36 month lease.
I look through this forum every few days and I see some damn good deals on vehicles priced higher than the MSRP for the K5. How do you guys go about this? Do you email dealerships directly with offers (which I assume you create through the leasehackr tool, still trying to learn how to use it)? Do you let the dealers make their offers and negotiate them down afterwards. How do you find out all the incentives you are eligible for? Are there any other vehicles that have the features I’m looking for that lease well/easier to hack?
Any help, tips, or guidance is appreciated. Thanks.
It’s vehicle dependent. Some vehicles are inherently better to lease than others due to manufacturer support: low money factor, high residual value, and incentives. Others may be bad leases regardless of how big of a discount you get from the dealer.
I would say the K5 is decent in terms of lease programs. If you look at the Signed Deals section of the forum, you’ll see the most eye-catching deals are typically EVs, loaner cars, and/or luxury brands.
The first step is to create a target deal (monthly + DAS) to aim for using the Leasehackr Calculator. This target is different for everyone; it depends on your local tax rates, incentives you qualify for (use Rate Findr), your desired annual mileage, the MSRP of the car, etc. Once that’s established, reach out to dealers, ask for a quote on a specific unit, and counter with your target deal. Most will probably say no, so it helps to cast a wide net. Ignore those that ask you to go in person for a quote.
Use the forum to research what is generally leasing well and go test drive stuff. Lease programs change monthly and the marketplace conditions today could be very different from what you will see in August/September. You can consider brokers on the site, but there are also dealers that operate here and can give you quotes.
I’m practicing creating lease proposals, as my '23 SR lease matures Aug 21st. Looking to sign on something just before July programs end, or mid Aug.
I based the proposal off of the example that is on the Leasehackr learning section. I am using the ratefindr to get my residual numbers, applicable incentives, etc.
However, when calculating my base monthly payment pre tax, it’s coming out to 331. When I use the standard lease formula, it comes out to 381.55. I’m confused. I’m also unsure if my lease proposal is something viable, I dont see many K5 deals spoken about here to base my deal off of. Should I be more aggressive on the dealer discount? Should I roll more into the monthly payment to lower DAS? Lots of questions.
I’m based in Queens, NY. Any help is appreciated. Time will be up before I know it and I need to get all this sorted before college starts again.
There’s no need to itemize out how the msrp gets to be what it is. You’ve got the vin listed, which removes any msrp ambiguity.
Your gross cap cost is incorrect. Without any capitalized fees, your gross cap is the agreed upon sales price, which is the MSRP minus the dealer discount.
Taxes in your proposal are incorrect. NY isn’t a monthly tax sales tax state. You’ll either be paying the tax upfront or you’re going to capitalize it, in which case you get a round robin on tax again (and rent charge on the capitalized sales tax).
I’m confused on how to fix that, then. I have the MSRP, with all packages and shipping included, minus the dealer discount, which is listed as “adjusted capitalized cost”. Do I not include the KFA lease cash?
Also, this is a draft/example, so the VIN does not match the exact numbers seen on the website. I am pricing this out as the model I am looking for, the random model I picked was just for layout purposes.
Hope I’m not too late. I think you made a terrific effort… what a breath of fresh air! I fixed a few things in your proposal and can amend them if you like. Usually, the acquisition fee is capped instead of paid upfront. But I don’t foresee a problem. unless Kia requires acq fees to be capped for whatever reason. Here’s what I have…
I two questions, though. Do you (or someone else reading this) think that the market would allow for a deeper discount off MSRP? The current dealer discount is @ 5%. A broker quoted me 10% off MSRP but I wasn’t sure if that was realistic.
Also, 427/mo payments is a bit high for me. I was hoping to shoot much closer to 380/mo. In order to achieve this, I should pay the acc upfront, as well as try to secure a deeper dealer discount, correct?
This worksheet is based around paying the taxes upfront, and rolling the acquisition fee into the monthly payments. This resulted in a lower monthly, but high DAS.
This one is built around rolling the taxes into the monthly payment, but paying the acquisition fee upfront. Results in a higher monthly but lower DAS.
Are these numbers correct? Am I learning this properly? I feel like its making sense, but at the same time, I’m worried I have the wrong idea here.
If a broker is at 10% off pre-incentive, then yes, 10% off is achievable with the caveat that it may not be achievable with a dealer close to your house and is one of the reasons we always encourage casting a wide a net as your comfortable with either having it transported or going to get it. Keep in mind that even some of the best hackers on here still utilize the services of a broker when it makes sense.
On money DAS their isn’t as much a right or wrong as long as you know why you are doing it and can justify it being in your best financial interest. On a MF of .00229 that equates to ~ 5.5% so your going to pay interest on the taxes that you rolled into the monthly payment and your paying sales tax on the slightly higher payment amount vs if you paid taxes upfront. It’s your call as long as you analyzed it and made a decision. At 5.5% I would pay it upfront but similar to some on LH, i really try to minimize my interest costs in life and that may not be as high of a priority for you.
Yes, you are learning it properly. Honestly no one learns all of this in a week and some lessors will have different quirks then others and it just takes time to absorb it all.
