Apologies in advanced if this is super obvious. I keep reading conflicting information across leasehackr and reddit. Some people like the protection and some don’t and I don’t know enough about cars to fully understand what I’m deciding. Some threads say “no to everything” but aren’t exactly luxury cars.
I’m trying to evaluate if I need these but the price seems steep. Also trying to understand if any of these are just snake oil. All the plans total to ~40% of the monthly car payment.
You generally buy insurance for circumstances you can’t afford to fix. Ie car insurance. A car can cause hundreds of thousands in damage especially if death occurs. Or homeowners, do u have 500k in bank yo repay the bank if your house burns down? My point is can you afford a new tire? Generally speaking the house wins with these types of insurances. So in the end you will lose more money buying them compared to using them
The car should never be out of warranty while you lease, so VPP is unnecessary.
Wheel and tire: google how much a new rim/tire is on your car and do that math, my guess is that’s also a no.
Lease-end is excess wear and tear. If your children/dogs are velociraptors maybe, but at $2k I’m a hard pass. I did add it to my Volvo, it covers $6k of excess including tires/brakes and it cost me $750.
You should be able to cancel any you don’t want within 30 days. Don’t contact the dealer, find the insert they gave you for each product in your paperwork to call and cancel.
Reference:
Edit:
One of these is a valuable source of information, and the other is reddit. Now you know.
I paid for prepaid service from MB that was residualized.
And then the guys really pushed for some extras at Chevy and I decided to throw them a bone and buy the prepaid service for 160 bucks or $4.70 a month.
My kids are bad and tear up everything and paid no fees on the GLE.
Peace of mind has a value, but not 6000 that you are paying. I’d cancel and take my chances
The MB A service is expensive enough I’d consider it, especially on a 12k/15k lease. At $160 I might spring for the Chevy prepaid, would just depend.
IME there is usually at least 1 product on the menu that makes sense to add (whether for me on my leases or friends/family on theirs), but just like the car negotiation you have to say no at least once and have a yes number in mind.
Keep in mind they are required by law in most (all?) states to present the menu, and do it the same way for every customer. Usually it’s the same menu for lease/finance/cash. You have to be paying attention when you’re in the box to recognize if it makes sense or not.
If you were at the movies and ordered just a Diet Coke, and they offered extra butter on it for $1 and you say yes, you can’t grouse drinking your buttered coke - you asked for it.
Edit: also I have it on good authority that if you want the fully protected payment, be a raging jerk and grind and grind the sales people for the last penny for days and weeks. I know several who will tell sweet grandma “I am required by law to go over this, you’re leasing and you don’t need any of it”, and if you have worn everyone down on the last day of the month they will take 3 hours to do your paperwork and rip your head off. It goes both ways. (Now for all the posts about the crooks who deserve it and are still mad about the time they got beat).
Is it against the law for the FI guy to recommend against it? I can’t believe that there’s something preventing an FI guy from saying ‘don’t check that box, you don’t need it.’ Inaction is complicity.
See the edit to my post above. I’ve literally heard it through the walls before from multiple F&I managers.
If they’re good, when they prep and load the deal on a busy day: they are gauging who needs it, who doesn’t, and who’s not leaving without it. The sharks do that and will swap the order of the deals to get the backend gross and give their coworker the bullet. Often (not always) it’s both a team sport (dept gross for the month) and also an individual one (product penetration).
I’ve had that happen… said no to F&I the whole way… sales guy gave it one last shot when we were alone and said, “you sure? Those carbon ceramic brakes are pretty expensive” (hint: the car didn’t have CCB’s)
Gave him one last “no”, he picked up the phone, dialed a number, and the only thing he said was - “negative” It’s a team sport…
