The Porsche Finder website has a lease calculator, and when you apply certain settings, you can view pricing for all vehicles using those settings. It’s a handy “apples to apples” comparison.
But does anyone know how accurate it is? I assume the “Estimated Monthly Payment” it shows excludes all taxes and fees you’d need to pay. I also assume it uses some sort of estimated money factor that might be different for each dealership if they mark it up.
Is it somewhat accurate, or is it generally off by hundreds of dollars monthly?
It doesn’t include taxes, most fees, 99% of dealers mark up rate, and I have also seen it just be straight up wrong sometimes when compared to doing the actual math. Couldn’t really tell you why, just what I have seen first hand.
I built my own calculator which is very consistent with the one here on Lease Hackr — it returns the same pre-tax value. And then added functions to calculate the tax and fees, and then another function to roll everything in.
But I find that sometimes my calculator matches what’s on the Porsche site within a few dollars, and sometimes it’s nearly $100 off — either over or under. For the same model year too!
Since their calculator doesn’t offer any insight into taxes, money factor or residual, it’s hard to pin down what’s causing the variance. All I can think is that the money factor or depreciation curve I’m using is different from theirs.
When I try to calibrate the payment to one car, I can get it within a few pennies, and then it’s totally wrong on another car.
I figured if their calc is pretty accurate, I’d take their payment value and then use my calc to add taxes. But if theirs is way off, I’ll stick with mine overall
Here’s an example of the Porsche calculator showing odd values for nearly identical Macans…
Same year, identical selling price, only $40 difference in MSRP values. The miles were about 7k and 9k, so different, but pretty close. One is jet black with black interior, and the other is white with black interior. The jet black has more miles, 2 owners, and costs $40 more per month.
Both cars have the premium package with 2 upgrades. My calculator shows these as $1 difference in leas price. But the Porsche lease calculator shows them as $39 difference per month.
Cheaper 1 is from TX, the more expensive one is from CT. Pretty odd to me.
I highly doubt they made the calculator so sophisticated that it adds money based on “premium paint colors” or other features.
It must be something simpler like money factor variations by dealer that don’t show up in the calculations. Maybe the dealer can specify those when uploading the cars.
Dealers use proprietary software that integrates Automotive Lease Guide (ALG) data to generate specific residual value projections based on the vehicle’s make, model, trim level, options, lease term, and mileage allowance.
“Numerous variables affect the actual residual value of a vehicle over a multi-year lease term. Examples include mileage, quality/reliability, options, and feature sets, weather, and macroeconomic environment” J.D. Power
I’m pretty sure Porsche uses ALG to calculate residual value — it’s the industry standard. That means each individual vehicle gets run through its API to return a specific residual value, which is then incorporated into the simplified lease calculator.
If that’s true, then I’m confident in the numbers it provides. Then, you’d just need to calculate the taxes and fees on your end to know how much is due at signing. Or you could divide the taxes and fees by the number of months in your lease to get a ballpark “zero drive off” estimate.
That said, I assume the Porsche lease calculator uses a standard MF, and individual dealers may set theirs higher or lower, so the final lease price is still an estimate and not a guaranteed amount.
