I’m looking to trade in my 2020 Mazda CX-5 lease for a new 2024 Mazda CX-90 lease. Today, I went to get some appraisals. Carmax gave me a great price on it, no problem.
Took it from there to the Mazda dealer where I’m trying to lease the new car. I’m in Texas, the car is registered in Texas, the dealership I’m talking to is in Texas.
Sales manager stuck to his guns on “No discount off MSRP,” which killed the deal pretty quick. But the thing that surprised me was that he was trying to say that he has to include the equity from the trade-in as a discount on the deal; he can’t just give me the cash and write the deal as $0 down.
Which makes no sense to me. He said something about “they changed the rules during covid so you can’t profit from your lease,” and I didn’t push the issue, because I already on my way out, on account of the zero discount thing. He claimed the only way to get around it was to treat the trade as a discount on the new lease.
But that’s, like…not real, right? I don’t actually have to buy out the lease myself, wait for the title transfer and everything, and then take the car back in to sell or trade it, right? I guess I didn’t ask Carmax about it, but they knew it was a lease and didn’t say anything.
I can understand that banks may indeed have written leases at some point during the covid value fluctuations to limit lease transfers and buyouts, but I don’t imagine there’s anything in my contract (from September 2020) saying I can’t collect the equity at the end of the lease if I choose to keep or sell or trade the car.
The bank doesn’t care where the check comes from, right? I negotiate the price with the dealer, dealer pays the bank the residual, bank gives the title to the dealer, dealer cuts me a check for the difference. That’s how it worked with my last Mazda lease. I signed a new $0 down lease, and the dealer gave me a check for $1000.