Without the aid of a credit score, I can eyeball someone’s credit report and tell you if s/he’s a deadbeat.
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The problem is that is never what happens. Anyone that knows enough to be able to pick up the differences isn’t paying attention to the score anyway. Instead, all that happens are people that don’t know come in and say “the LH score on this is a 7.9, so I think that’s good” without any context.
Basically, anyone that could use it appropriately doesn’t need to use it and everyone that uses it doesn’t know how to use it appropriately.
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The current batch of ioniq EVs have ridiculously high lh scores. I saw one deal that was a 50.
No it doesn’t. There are more important numbers that go into a lease than this arbitrary score.
A 6.9 might be a terrible score on a 3 series, but a great score on a Corvette based on the current lease programs. Seeing a 6.9 alone tells you nothing about the overall deal.
Just seeing a 6.9 score doesn’t mean it’s a bad deal in regard to a lease if you want a particular car that doesn’t lease as well as another one.
In regard to comparing scores, what happens if you get more incentive dollars in your region than I do, or my tax rate is higher than yours? I’m never going to get close to your number. Yet Billy in CA not understanding this is going to spin his wheels trying to match your deal on the other side of the country because your score means you got a “better deal.”
Personally, I’m more focused on overall lease cost than some fancy algorithm that means nothing.
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Inches! The best indicator of how good the deal is.
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Yep, a LH score of 11 in DC deal could turn into an 7 for someone living a mile away in Maryland. Does that mean someone negotiated a bad deal? Somehow the score needs to consider the negotiated deal absent taxes. All one can do is get the best sales price, buyrate MF and avoid any extra add one.
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score is useful in
- Filter out bad deal, it’s might safe to ignore deal that less than 8. A rule always has exception, but it’s good enough for most people. Let other hackr take score 7 “good” deal.
- for same brand similar car same state, measure how good it is. For two deal with score 9 vs 12, probably 12 one is better, at least not a bad one. save score 9 good deal to other people.
- A low score indicate something need improvement. for example, if no incentives support, one can choose wait or switch model/trim
off topic: 0 DAS, 1% MSRP monthly payment equals to score 9.4 (for tax = 9%, 36 month lease)
In many cases that score is useless or not that great, But there are also cases that score is helpful.
Not everyone is looking for the absolute cheapest payment on just any car. If someone was looking for a particular car that doesn’t lease well in relation to others, ignoring an 8 would potentially be foolish, and not necessarily a “bad deal”
Not necessarily. What if that 12 was unattainable anywhere else in the state, but someone got lucky. 9 might not be as bad as you say.
Again, that’s not going to necessarily be true.
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The points in your post had already been refuted before you wrote it.
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I personally use the LH Score as an alternative way to evaluate leasing. If it would take 12 years of monthly payments to reach the MSRP, I would definitely lease the car instead of buying/financing it. If it would only take 5 years, maybe I would consider buying the car (if I really want it), or I would look for another model to lease as I am not ready for ownership. To that extent, yes it is for self-referencing and entertainment purposes only. It’s not meant to be a universal benchmark, just like real GDP per capital doesn’t measure happiness and safety. Some folks use the LH Score as a metric for comparison based on the marketed value of the car for fun and for the bragging right, but I do acknowledge that it may be misleading for newbies.
What is a good or bad deal is highly subjective. It depends on what you value in a car and where you are located. It is more important to understand what the score measures than contending how effective it is (no it’s not effective), though I do find the conversation here constructive in pointing out the pitfalls and in sharing different points of view towards leasing and the shopping process. 
If it is indeed doing more harm than good, we will consider putting a disclaimer pointing out that the score is no more than a simple formula and should not be used as the ultimate tool to evaluate a lease offer, though the disclaimer would be longer than the formula itself…
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Does’t mean you are correct.
yeah, but what it is telling you is that the Corvette is a crappy lease. It may be the best possible lease for a corvette, but its still a crappy lease, you’re paying a lot relative to MSRP. That whole category of cars leases poorly, so it may be the best of a “bad” situation, but it might also be telling you to buy the car.
Hey, you can definitely poke holes in the LH score as to why it is not the perfect way to analyze a lease, its just a point of information combining a number of leasing factors. There are real situations where you can point out why a lower leasehacker score is still a good deal on that particular car.
You need to define “crappy lease.” That could mean a different thing to 100 different people. I can calculate out how much I’ll be paying for the lease over the duration and determine myself if that’s a “crappy lease” in my eyes. A score isn’t going to tell me squat.
The final score should be re-calculated based on a 0 drive off, even when user elects to pay everything upfront. Then it will be more relevant, i.e. a deal with 0 DAS can have 9 and the same deal with $4,000 DAS - 12, but 9 will be the base line score based on the total lease cost that can be compared apples-to-apples to similar cars.
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No, one should not be looking at an LH score as an indication to buy the car.
When a car leases poorly you have to do the math for a purchase with very realistic assumptions about ownership duration, resale value, how much effort you’re willing to put in to actually realize that theoretical value, taxes, financing costs or opportunity cost, etc.
I don’t see how the LH score should ever come into it.
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It’s already a good lease if it’s 1% anyways.
This is sarcasm for anyone that reads this in the future. Max lives and dies by the 1% rule
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I don’t see how the score has anything to do with buying versus leasing, especially in terms of ownership cost. Yes a low LH score makes for a “bad lease” of course, but I think it’s important to consider all of the factors that go into it.
Leasing and financing typically have different interest charge/rent charge. This can make a huge difference in finance charges.
Most vehicles have a real world residual that’s different from the RV. It would be pretty dumb to buy a car instead of lease where the RV is 65% but real life 3 year old examples sell for 45%. Unless…
For many makes, purchase rebates are different from lease rebates in some cases very substantially.
Just an easy way for someone wanting a particular car (Porsche Boxster, for example) and who is not sold on either buying or leasing to compare.
How though? There’s no corresponding “finance score”. It means absolutely nothing. All it does it relate to MSRP.
What if MF is .03 but APR is 0%? Or vice versa?
What if lease rebate is zero but finance rebate is $25k?
It’s a complete in-a-vacuum metric, just like the 1% thing.
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Compare what to what? How does LH score help one compare leasing costs to ownership costs?