I live in Hawaii, specifically Oahu and I’ve been looking to lease a new vehicle for about a month now. Initially, I was looking for another mid-sized SUV but then got interested in the more sporty Sedans like the 2025 Hyundai Elantra N, 2025 Kia K5 GT and most recently the 2026 Genesis G70 3.3t Sport Prestige. I’m not in a rush to make a purchase but I would like to make one by the end of the year.
The main issue is that I was under the preface that leasing a vehicle was cheaper than financing it. But it seems like there are very little lease incentives where I live. The best one I saw was for the K5 GT which had an $1840 rebate on it. Not much for other vehicles unless I went electric, which I’d be open to if I had a place to charge it.
People here and on other platforms were saying that this 2025 Elantra N lease was bad, however, the dealer will not budge past it. Then we have the 2026 G70 3.3t Sport Prestige that I went in to check out today and they wouldn’t really budge on the numbers. The best I was able to do is get them to honor the 0.00067 MF. The GM said they only had about 3% of play on MSRP and if I wanted to get to my price, I’d have to chose a different vehicle. I saw online that someone was able to get $570 with everything rolled in but I don’t know how credible that was. The attached photo is the dealer sheet for the g70 without the 3% off msrp.
If I want to get these vehicles or similarly priced vehicles, is this something I just need to suck up and pay more for or potentially look for other, cheaper, more lease incentivized vehicles that I may or may not be interested in?
That seems to be what I’m slowly learning. There are multiple same brand dealerships but… they are usually under the same umbrella so you can’t even negotiate between the two. KIA already dissolved a deal I was trying to get because I didn’t know they were under the same umbrella. Yet, both salesmen knew they were both fighting each other to earn my business. Once management found out, they both texted me that they were both backing out of the deal and I was framed as the bad guy.
This is an interesting deal, because Genesis does have standard programs outside of certain regions which means there could be a rate buy down by the selling dealership to obtain the lower MF (won’t know without knowing your zip code). Genesis is known to operate a bit differently based on the region with leverage not necessarily in your favor due to what appears to be monopoly by this dealership group. I’d say your power would be in your patience and seeing if they will budge towards the end of the month to hit their volume objective.
Personally, we are offering currently 10.35% off G70 3.3 Sport Prestige (every trim level has different margins associated with it). That is just to give you a reference point of where I think a dealership could get to if they really needed to get one last unit on the board to hit their quota.
Although, I don’t agree with the old school dealership mentality that has perpetuated this type of pricing being the norm in some regions, I can tell you they will almost always budge. My advice – don’t play the game of what other dealerships can do (especially if it’s just one of their own stores) and say this my budget and what I am willing to pay for it. Dealerships are more willing to play ball if they don’t think you’re just using them to gain leaverage on another deal/dealership.
Well, the good news is that I really can’t leverage deals against others when it comes to a lot of these luxury dealerships here! Why? Because not only was the GM the GM of Genesis, he was the also GM of Audi, Lamborghini, Land Rover, Bentley, Volvo and a few other brands that were in that same building.
I mean, if I plug in a 10% discount on the G70 for the 36/12 deal, it gets me exactly where I would like to pay with $0 Drive Off which comes to $566 and of course if I got that, there would be no reason for me to even be interested in the Elantra N unless they got it down to the $400s. The 2026 G70 they have is the only one they have in store and it’s been there for a month now, same goes for the Elantra N. You can use 96836 as the zip code if it gives you more info about the market.
Like I said, I’m not in a big rush to get a new car, so I don’t mind waiting a bit longer.
Putting aside the challenges that are specific to HI for a moment, are any of these even hypothetically good leases? Do you have benchmarks in Signed Deals & Tips ?
To be fair, I’m not entirely sure if those two vehicles make good leases. If I search for Hawaii (HI) in Signed Deals & Tips, there are literally only two results. Unless you are talking about something else.
Yeah it’s pretty well known, just depends what region / how deep you are in the automotive knowledge hole you are
I think that mostly applies to Toyota. I haven’t dug too deep but I’ve only seen people talking about Toyota when it comes to not allowing their vehicles to be exported to Hawaii. Continuing on that, I think I read somewhere that if you bring a Toyota with you to Hawaii that the Toyota dealerships won’t honor the warranties and services plans you may have.
I had to sign 1-year non-export agreements for two cars (diff makes) I’ve picked up from SoCal. Hawaii was specifically included in the agreement… so not surprised HI dealers are extremely protective of their territories.
edit: just realized @HersheySweet quoted an old post of mine from 2021
I’m talking about looking at mainland deals such as those in CA. You need to know whether a car is even hypothetically a good deal in the continental 48 before working on reducing the HI premium.
In general a captive market with very little competition is a terrible place to transact often. The only benefit is relatively high resale value in the private party market due to low supply. So compare the annualized costs of buying and holding for 4 years vs successive leases.
I’m talking about looking at mainland deals such as those in CA. You need to know whether a car is even hypothetically a good deal in the continental 48 before working on reducing the HI premium.
In general a captive market with very little competition is a terrible place to transact often. The only benefit is relatively high resale value in the private party market due to low supply. So compare the annualized costs of buying and holding for 4 years vs successive leases.
Well, after doing a little bit of research, I did found some on the West coast that looks like it would get me to the price point I want assuming they discount the vehicle a decent amount. I saw a thread from a few months ago and it seemed people were getting them leased between $570 ~ $680 $0 drive off. The $570’s were people who were able to get a dealer discount of about 10%. If you get a 10% discount and put in the number, you get right around the 1% rule, which I’d think would be a good lease.
