Buying - how to assess what I should be paying?

Ask the Hackrs Buy/Finance
1

I’ve been leasing for the past 9 years (3 leases), you can find my deals here in the forums (BMW 328d, BMW 430i GC, Mazda CX-5). It’s time to turn in my CX-5 (I’m actually trying to sell it to CarMax, we’ll see whether it works out). And I need my next car. Not sure about leasing again vs buying, rates have gone up so leases may not be what they used to be, I’ll have to work out the numbers. But I’m also getting a bit tired of dealing with this every 3 years, so I’m considering maybe buying a car this time around.

I don’t know how to buy cars anymore :slight_smile: What are good resources to figure out what’s a good deal, what I should be paying, invoice price, what others are paying? In other words what is the art of the deal for buying?

Thanks! This forum has been amazing over the past 9 years, even though I show up only every 3 years :slight_smile:

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2

It’s the same as for leasing.

Generate a target deal based off on a well-researched pre-incentive discount, apply the programs as they apply to you, go forth and make an unambiguous, immediately actionable offer.

The only difference is the option to bring your own financing.

3

You can find this on LH and brand-specific forums

But choosing the right candidate (higher value retention) is just as important.

What type of car are you looking to buy? Pls be as specific as possible.

4

Value retention only matters in comparison to selling price. If you have an awful value retention but buy the new car CHEAP enough it really doesn’t matter.

The NET between future value and current price is what matters.

5

I’d suggest you look into a used Lexus RX 350 or 450h, if you wanna save on gas and retain “most” of the money back when you sell.

When you mention rates for leasing, buying won’t be that different unless you pay CASH.

6

No used cars for me, I’m picky that way :slight_smile:

7

Leaning towards another Mazda CX-5 (not sure about the trim yet, something starting at Carbon or Premium) as I like the car and it seems the retention incentives are there.

8

From what I’ve seen of used Mazda prices, they do very, very poorly in the value retention category

9

Not sure about that. The RV on my lease is 19.6K, CarMax claims they are willing to pay 24K for it (I believe it once I cash the check). The car was 30.1K 3 years ago (this one). Looks pretty good to me if I can repeat it every 3 years :person_shrugging:

10

Could be highly model dependent. I know i have seen some cx30s that were worth like 40-50% of msrp after 1 year.

11

Leased another CX-5, the incentives, discount and deal overall were just too good. See ya in another 3 years! :slight_smile:

12

Congrats! Could you give the breakdown of what kind of a deal you got on the CX-5 please?

13

This is for a fully loaded 2024 Mazda - CX-5 - 2.5 Turbo Signature AWD. Effective payment ~1% of MSRP.

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14

What happened to monetizing $4,400 in equity?

15

Apparently to get the $1500 lease to lease incentive you have to turn in the old car to the dealer. I could have maybe sold it to Carmax for 24K but then no 1.5K incentive on the new lease. Instead the dealer gave me 22.5K on the old car + 1.5K incentive. Dealing with Carmax is not trivial with leases, I’ve done it before on my BMW lease 3 years ago and it almost didn’t happen, I spent a whole day at Carmax and many calls with BMW FS.

16

They wrote you a check for equity and gave you the lease to lease loyalty?

17

2,858 went towards trade-in equity (22,500 - 19,642 RV on old lease). I know that maybe I should have asked for a check instead, but this was kinda unexpected money anyway, I was expecting to just hand over the keys of the old lease and be done with it. It was getting complicated, shocking they are not familiar with MSDs, they didn’t know how to enter them (though 3 years ago I had no MSD problems at the same dealership).

But yes I got $2K in incentives: 1500 lease-to-lease + 500 loyalty.

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