GM offering 0% financing for 7 years, deferred payments amid coronavirus outbreak

I can tell you from experience, all of those have happened to me in the past. Granted, I live in the rust belt with some of the worst roads in the country, which makes things hard on me here. I might have had 1 leaky strut or one bad outer tie rod, but some of these things, when they go, it’s smart to replace both sides at the same time. That said, and point being, it’s not going to be smooth sailing for each and every one. I’d agree some will get through unscathed. Not everyone though.

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I don’t know if lease deals will disappear entirely. No one’s gonna be buying Volvos/BMW’s brand new in a down economy. Toyotas? Maybe.

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I can assure you, if you are waiting on 30% off 250/mo BMWs, you will be waiting a long time. Demand will wane, yes, but the dealers aren’t automatically going to drop their pants when FS turns off the spigot of cheap lease deals because THEY don’t want to take the loss in 3 years. Supply will also tighten as well.

I also never said deals will dry up entirely. I wouldn’t expect fire sales on any and all makes/models though, unless, perhaps (assuming finance incentives increase) you want to buy it.

People still bought bmw and Volvo in a down economy before. Maybe not at current sales levels, but it happened.

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My vibe is that this window may present the last half of March…well see. I have been able to get 24% off on loaner/demo 2019s but havent pulled the trigger. I may try and lock in very late in the month so as to have the option to use April programs (just in case…)

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You’re right on the money. I was reading another thread where someone said they “needed” a 3 row SUV just because they had a new baby.

#FirstWorldProblems

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If you’re referring to the GX thread, that’s not first world problems. That’s first class stupidity.

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That all makes sense but I am not sure how most manufacturers are going to be able to sell anywhere near the number of cars they currently produce without lease deals. Difference between 2008 and 2020 is that leasing has grown 2x-3x

Specifically for brands like BMW and Volvo, if they significantly decreased lease support and we had a recession, who knows what kind of sales reduction they would be looking at. 20%, 30%, 40%.

Then there are the American manufacturers who now depend almost exclusively on expensive trucks for their profit margin. Like the Germans, can they sell enough of those trucks to survive.

I’m sure Honda and Toyota are happy they have a plethora of offerings under 30k they can sell profitably

I’d be surprised if it was actually 7

I think this is spot on. I don’t know what their percentage is overall across their footprint, but when I asked my local BMW dealer what percentage of cars were leased versus bought, he stated it was north of 80% leased at their center.

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If anything NYC metro area dealers jacked up their prices recently. Friend of mine reached out to a bunch re: a RAV4 and the best $0 DAS offers were $35x for a $29k LE and $37x for a $31k XLE

It’s nuts.

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They won’t. Manufacturing WILL decrease. It’s already started

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I advised OP to pay down their personal debt since they stated their 620 credit score was low cos of high credit card utilization.

Although I am no financial expert, common sense tells me that if your score dropped more than 100 point in a short period of time, then you are not managing your money properly.

I assumed so, but I am unclear why GM refuses to shut down it’s plants for two weeks.

Nevertheless, once this passes no manufacturer is going to want to sell 40% fewer cars than they have been doing. Fixed infrastructure cost isnt gonna change (absent a huge bailout). Have to find a way to move metal one way or other.

I get that this is a lease site, but I can’t believe with the world all but shutting down, people are more worried about getting a steal on their next lease vs where to find a loaf of bread. It took me 4 supermarket stops yesterday to find one. It took me 6 to find an overpriced pack of chicken breasts.

I am now finding myself overbuying stuff I am finding just for the simple fact IDK if it will be there the next time i need it. And I’m the first to tell someone not to panic buy like many are doing.

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Casinos are asking for bailouts. You don’t see car manufacturers eventually jumping on the bandwagon?

You’re right, they won’t. If 20% of people are now looking for, or just getting back to work, they may not have a choice.

Many people still don’t get how serious this is gonna be. I know plenty of them. In certain areas of country supermarkets are still stocked and life hasn’t come to a standstill. Personally, I wouldn’t be leasing a car right now unless my lease was up and I couldn’t do without a car in the short term. Even then, I probably would be looking at the absolute cheapest vehicle I could find. Base Fit LX anyone? Maybe a base Hyundai Elantra lease.

As for bailouts.

  1. Yeah maybe we Americans bail out Chevy and Ford. (Chrysler is harder being Italian owned).
  2. But do the Japanese bail out Honda/Toyota. What about the Germans and BMW/Audi+VW/Mercedes. I can’t see us bailing these companies out even with their American manufacturering presence. Sending money to Stuttgart or Tokyo is not gonna be a good look.

I also believe bailouts are an appropriate topic now because those need to be decided on soon. No one needs a luxury car but GM might need a bailout ASAP to avoid mass layoffs.

I think regardless of bailout, there are going to be mass layoffs. If GM, Ford, et.al. are not seriously scaling back or have plans to do so, they deserve to die. From a pure economic standpoint, if demand isn’t there, there’s no need to produce as much product.

True true :frowning:

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They also abandoned smaller gas powered vehicles concluding they were never gonna be profitable and reaped significant short-term profit from it. Now they want a bailout partly because of that decision, but of course will not returning the short term profits from getting out of the sedan/hatchback business.

I’m against bailing them out this time because GM and Chevy are screwed in a recession/depression. Regardless of scaling back production, they don’t have smaller cheaper vehicles to sell. In a recession, people buy cheaper smaller cars, not a 50k SUV or truck. Sure they have cars in Europe to bring over but that will take many months and won’t solve their big weakness which is in engine design. They just don’t have the four cylinder gas engine experience that Toyota and Honda has accumulated.

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I haven’t seen many staying away from stock buybacks. It was all the rage for them for the last 5-7 years.
Just like in 2008. Buybacks stopped when market dropped. Perfectly opposite of “buying low, selling high”.

As for 0% loans - if only new car prices have not been inflated, what feels like, two-fold since 2008 show.