Corolla SE 2017 Lease

My friend offered me Corolla SE $189 w/ Tax $1000 at signing for 36 months. Is this a good deal?

You will need a lot more information for us to comment … read the sticky forum notice on what you need to provide. MSRP, discount provided by the dealer, how many miles/year, what state you are in

Well, you need to change the word “friend” to “some dude”.

Of course, you will take it to other dealers to negotiate. You will give him the first chance at refusal on the best deal you get to see if he can match it. If he can’t, then you go with the better deal.

Lets make this easy on you. Its not a good deal.

Now see if your friend can do better

so @carddicted made it easy :slight_smile:

What is your basis for this opinion? It is because you feel like $189 + tax is a good monthly payment for a Corolla? We don’t go with “feelings” in this forum …

1 Like

Even using the honcker app, I am seeing plenty of MSRP $21,534 Corolla SE’s with $1,260 at signing and $172/mo. Honcker’s a much better friend than this guy apparently.

But we all feel we need a $1000/m Maybach

You indicated “I have no knowledge on lease”. I believe therefore you should not be negotiating a lease until you are familiar with the whole process. Reading up on how to lease via the articles and forums on this site is like receiving a Master’s degree in negotiation. Just looking on the Toyota website, A Corolla SE is going for $169 with $1999 down, so your deal is not that much better. You should be able to negotiate a better deal than the one offered by your friend.
Just my 2 cents.

I’ve seen the 1% rule here often - if your monthly lease with $0 down (or the equivalent of $0 down) is less than 1% of the MSRP, it’s to be considered a good deal.

Leasehackr experts - please let me know if I’m terribly butchering this rule.

If you read the articles, then you will know that you do NOT look at the deals on the Toyota website. You have to look at the MSRP and then start working the numbers and then arrive at your lease payment once you understand how it is getting calculated.

The monthly payment number is the dealer’s game.

This “rule” is more to see if you are near or far from a good deal. This is used more to see if you are even in the “ballpark” or run away.

This is the lazy way to do it but 99% of the time, you will definitely NOT get the best deal if this is all you look at.

Thank you, @chrisgo. Yeah I think it’s more of a general rule of thumb that if your lease deal meets the 1% rule, you’re at least headed in the right direction.

I mentioned the Toyota website only to show how his friend’s deal was not that much better.
Do not focus on the monthly payment only. Knowing the values used in obtaining the monthly lease figure will ultimately tell you if you are getting a good deal. The 1% rule is a good barometer but you may do better. Try to find out the Money Factor (MF) and the residual value (RV) of the car you are interested in. You can ask here or via the Edmunds.com forums. Also, try to see what rebates/discounts are available for the car.

Not a good deal. $189 with $1K is more like a 2017 Camry SE.

Careful with Toyota, they dont offer GAP ins either, which means you’ll have to get it thru your own
insurance carrier so tack on a few bucks to your monthly payment.