Help my niece lease her first car

Ask the Hackrs
1

I’ve always bought my cars but stumbled upon this forum a few weeks back and have been absorbing as much as possible for when i’m ready for my next vehicle. Fast forward to yesterday when I found out my niece, who just graduated college, needs to return her leased (in her grandparent’s name) Jeep Patriot TOMORROW and will need a new car. She’s going straight into graduate school and I think another lease makes the most sense for her. We’re in Sacramento but can travel to the Bay Area if that helps.

I’m going to start reaching out to some dealers today and have just a few questions I’m hoping you folks can help out with.

  1. Do the rebates that apply to purchases always apply to leases? For example, if a dealer is advertising a $5,000 dealer discount and $4,000 in rebates, should those apply to a lease too?

  2. Which of these vehicles could we most likely get the best deal on: Corolla, Camry, Civic, Cherokee, Cruze Altima. Any other suggestions? Only real requirement is automatic transmission.

  3. What brand offer the college grad discount for leases?

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

2

Most of the time the purchase rebates don’t transfer to lease.

$750 college grad with Toyota I know.

3

That’s a very broad range of brands and models but it sounds like you are leaning towards sedans? What is her budget? What is her preference on a car? Many brands have college grad rebates so narrow down the cars she actually wants and then worry about how incentives factor in.

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4

You will need to look at the fine print. The ones I looked at for a friend required proof of income.

5

They normally require a lot of docs.
Toyota wants:
Proof of income / Job Letter
Proof of Residence
No Recent Delinquencies (Regardless of score)
Graduate within 6mo or Graduated within 2 years
Finance with TFS

6

So I’m guessing someone going straight to grad school won’t qualify?

7

Depends if they are working part time and have enough income to support payment than it would work. Toyota generally would want payment to be less than 20% of income

8

Thank you for the replies thus far

I’m working on getting her credit score and income now. I don’t think she earns much at all which I know is going to be a problem.

I think the Patriot fits her lifestyle well now but I honestly don’t think she cares as long as she has a car. Safe, cheap and decent mileage.

9

Either extend the Jeep by a month or keep a good poker face as you email dealers to get something by this week or 5/31 latest.

I might be in the minority here but having seen a few friends in the same boat, they ultimately came to regret the false sense of economy in leasing. You have plans of finishing grad school and getting a great job to earn X per yr. When you actually do, you see between 401k contribution and mostly taxes you’re taking home 0.5X. And that great job is in an area with a high cost of living. Any student debt takes another vicious bite out.

You’re much older and a little wiser than when you graduated college. You’re thinking about buying your first house. Suddenly it seems wiser in retrospect to have financed an inexpensive car a few years back and come close to paying it off, thus significantly lowering your DTI at a crucial time.

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11

@max_g Thank you, does this mean an additional $750 off of the sale price he lists on his spreadsheet? I sent him a PM

12

Yeah that’s roughly another $20/month

13

Thank you to everyone that has helped out. Here is what I’ve come up with at a local Toyota dealer in the Sacramento area.

2018 Toyota Corolla SE
MSRP: $20,179
Sales Price: $17,000
Rebate: $1,900
College Grad Rebate: $750
Residual $10,291
Term: 36 months/12K miles
Monthly $180.80. Not sure if this includes tax, we are 7.75%
Zero Down, but not sure if that means $0 DAS?

I don’t have the money factor but does this look good so far?

14

No way to evaluate a deal with such ambiguity