Like many others here, I have an expiring US Bank Toyota Tundra lease. I’ve been operating under the known rule that US Bank does not allow 3rd party buyouts without jacking up the dealer payoff to market rate. Bc of this, I was planning on buying out my lease then selling, so I hit up all the “easy” online tools (Vroom, Carvana, Carmax, Shift, AutoNation, etc). AutoNation had one of the highest estimates, so I started communicating with the person that reached out from my local AutoNation. He stated they are working “with their headquarter to register AutoNation portal of US Bank in order to access the AutoNation special payoff of lessee purchase price +$950”. This would save me about $2k in taxes, so I want to hear him out.
I’m skeptical, however. Has anyone heard of this agreement? I’m assuming it would be all over this board if so. On the same note, I’m not sure why he would lie about it - I’m still going to offer them the chance to buy it, so it’s not like he needs to “woo” me. He knows I’m not buying anything from him (I’ve already got my next vehicle and he knows that). It also sort of makes sense from the US Bank side - they’d get $950 of easy money this way, whereas if I buy it, they only get the residual.
Supposedly Ally has a similar “deal” in place with certified Ally dealers. However, I have yet to find a dealer who either knows about this special deal, or plays dumb about it. Let’s take an example- I have a car that appraised for 30k. Ally says the market value buyout is 29,500, but my buyout is 22k. Why would a dealer advertise they can buy your lease for your buyout plus $500 (in Ally’s case)? The dealer can say hey we have to buy it for 29,500, but they know the special deal buy off is 22k. They keep the extra 6-8k and I’m none the wiser, and then they turn around and sell the car for 33k plus dealer fees.
I hope Autonation confirms and you get a good deal, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Keep us posted and good luck!
Thanks! And yes, this is my mindset as well. This guy just texted me after our initial conversation and said “I think I can save you another $2k” so of course I’m going to listen. But I can’t find anywhere that has actually been successful on something like this. I’ll keep everyone updated on how it plays out. I don’t want to wait too long, as I’ve already bought my next vehicle and I know there will be a few weeks between when I buy my lease and am actually able to sell it due to DMV stuff.
Ha! Sounds similar to one dealer I was trying to find out if they were a certified Ally dealer. “Sure we are! Come on in and we can work something out! We work with Ally all the time!”
I asked so you can confirm you can buy my lease for my buyout price plus $500? “Sure come on in! When can you come in!”
Guy hounded me for a week but still never confirmed yes we definitely buy your lease for the special Ally price.
I haven’t heard of this agreement, but I did just sell my US Bank lease to an Autonation Dealer (BMW of Dallas) yesterday. '22 Taco TRD Sport 4WD w/ 5200 miles. Dealer payoff $36,795…Autonation offer $45,993. Walked out of the dealer yesterday with about a $9200 check.
I just want to say that it IS possible to have a dealer buyout a US bank lease and not get an inflated payoff.
I was able to get an $8000 check for a $45k MSRP 2020 TRD off-road about 2 months ago at a Toyota dealer. I did have to talk to multiple people there but once I spoke with a manager who understood the situation, they immediately wanted to buy it and spent and hour on the phone with US bank to get dealer payoff.
They did end up getting the dealer payoff and it was 3% less than mine, due to the fact they dont have to pay my states highway use tax when purchasing a vehicle.
They did make me wait until they received the Title from US Bank, but it did arrive eventually and I picked up my check just as expected.
I think they sold the truck for $50k. I do want to let you guys know it IS fully possible to do this. The dealership wasn’t even affiliated with US bank, they do business with them, but not much. From what ive read on here, it seems people have the best luck getting US bank leases sold through normal dealers, not carvana, vroom, carmax, etc. those all seem to throw up a red flag. I could have got $3000 more if I was able to sell to Carvana but honestly just getting all my lease payments back and then some is plenty and fully unexpected.
When I got the check and saw the funds in my bank, I could hardly believe my good fortune. I got all my lease payments back and then some.
