I think we are getting close to every lender charging dealers a market-based price instead of the lessee’s payoff amount. The pile of equity in each lease vehicle’s glove box is ridiculous right now.
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I’m honestly surprised we weren’t already there
From a lender perspective, this is the first time in history where 80-90% of the leases terminating are in a positive equity position. Normally its a LOT lower than that so lenders weren’t leaving much money on the table. Now, they are putting formal policies in place outlining their position where before it was usually an unwritten business rule.
Loyalty is the key to all of this so I think the smart way to run a lease program is to tie in some sort of trade in policy that allows dealers to get a piece of that equity (say $1k back of MMR) if they send the customer to the same lender. If is is a trade and the customer goes to a different lender, full market price makes sense.
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Similar circumstances here in CA on my ‘18 S5. Sportback Prestige. Payoff online $40600, Carmax came in more than Carvana at 41600. Went in to sell to Carmax. Audi wouldn’t give payoff for 24hrs. No call from Carmax a day later. Called them and they finally got payoff from AFS. Stunned to hear that i gave negative equity and need $7k to do the deal!! My turn in date is next week. Plan now to buy car and trade in or sell myself. What a crock.
It may not help you, but you could check around with VW dealers. I recently sold my Audi and the payoff was pretty much the same as my personal one. They purchased the car on an internal VW portal.
You may not get as much of an offer, but you may. In my case, the highest offer was Vroom and then a VW dealer came in even higher.
Call me and I’ll buy your car
424-281-5606
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Just sold my bmw to Carmax with no issue.
I have a 2018 SQ5 with 27k miles, due back to dealer in 9/2021. 36k miles allowed on lease.
Is this a car you’re looking to purchase?
yes definitely
When you call Audi FS as a third party for lease buyout, they will ask you for the miles - since they will quote you based on market value, does anyone know if you give them the wrong miles (higher mileage) maybe they quote you a lower buyout price based on higher mileage?
You should try that and see goes much the offer from the 3rd party buying your car drops also…
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I think you missed the point…
Smells like fraud…
So when you send them the odometer disclosure required as part of the transfer, would you list the wrong mileage on that too?
Hi everyone, I just got back from the Audi dealer. I wanted to buy-out my lease that is ending next month and they told me that they don’t do that service anymore because the MV was giving them problems. So they suspended the service. The sale rep told me that I would need to go to a bank, get a loan and send the check to Audi FS. This doesn’t seem right to me.
Please let me know what you guys think. I’m also just buying my car to sell it right after if anyone is interested in it. It’s an Audi A3 2018 2.0T with 40K miles.
Thanks for the help!
What state are you in? What did Audi FS say when you asked them how to buy it out?
Just experienced this. Got an offer to buy out my S5 Sportback lease from ALgo at an amount over my payoff. Audi Financial quoted a payoff amount that was $7,000 higher for ALgo.
Call me and I’ll buy your car
424-281-5606
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I did, multiple times, left message too, no call back.
Samaudibh, Is the Audi dealer buyout usually the same as the customer payoff? I was all set to sell my car to Carvana which would have netted me ~$4,5k in my pocket but Audi’s payoff quote to Carvana was a ~$3,2k deficit which means approximately an $8~$9k delta which was ridiculous.
Also, when do you expect 2021 S3’s to hit showrooms?