Hi fellow members. I have a few leases over the years but still feel pretty new in this game. First ever lease was for my parents for a Mercedes GLS back in Feb 2018. It was a demo gls from Mercedes of Manhattan. I knew nothing of leasing and it was a first for my parents as well. 800 a month for 42/10k.
Later was a lease swap from swapalease for a c63s edition 1 which seller was offering money on top and original MSDs with 2 years left.
Leased a Mach e GT, and most recently GLS for my parents again that were both from brokers. Curious on what’s the trick to doing it yourself. The first gls for my parents was a friend recommendation to the dealer which he ended up calling us back months later when he had demos. What was your first “hack”.
Like anything else, it’s a task and the amount of time you expend on it goes up exponentially against the savings being attained (diminishing returns), especially if you’re particular about the equipment and color preferences.
My first was a 2017 Challenger Hellcat $725/mo back in 2018, missed the $500-$600 deals on these…hacked another 9-10 cars since-most for $$$ profit-none to term, during COVID
I wanted a fun car that was outside my budget. Then I discovered something called leasing that would afford me to enjoy the car while it was fun without paying for the full price of the car. The rest is history.
Of course not. Brokers work hard to find the deals. When I was sourcing my venza during the peak of chip shortage I called around 20 dealers in NJ, NY, PA, Virginia, Maryland to find one at sticker with no dealer add ons or mark ups.
Do you just call up dealer and ask them are they doing for example the 11.5k plus rebates on a gle450e.
Call? Email only. You want things in writing. Even if a sales associate says we need a phone number to chat about the #s, I decline and request email only. If this is not an option I move on.
As for my start in hacking it was either a CPO BMW lease ( it wasn’t worth it ) or a Tacoma back before Covid. I’d argue their is a large overlap in Hackr’s that have figured out society is trying to extract as much money from you as they can and in turn it’s up you to keep as much of your money as possible or to extract as much value as you can out of the price you pay.
We all want new cars on here and we will spend money to do it, it’s the effort on here to get the new car at the lowest price and keep as much of your money as possible. Many on here optimize the credit card / points world, I was pretty involved in bank account bonuses, while doing a new credit card sign bonus on occasion.
I’ve seen a variation of this sentence every so often on here and I guess I’m curious what the strategy is?
If you’ve looked in the marketplace on LH and are looking for $150-$200 less effective cost per month and for the sake of the argument let’s say that would be an additional 5% off the MSRP than the marketplace is currently offering. That’s unlikely to happen and for one to even get close you would need to start emailing dealers an offer. Perhaps start 500 miles away and work your way back towards your house. If one says yes, you need to be prepared for either shipping or immediately leaving a deposit and departing for that dealer within 24 hours at the most.
As @max_g mentioned you have to be going after something hackable in the first place. An example we see frequently on here is that once a month someone wants a Tahoe / Yukon / XL / Escalade…it hasn’t ever really been a hack nor will it ever be. The “run the numbers” crew on here will almost always advocate a CPO version 3 years old that is already depreciated. The person looking for said Yukon then says they are a “new car person” at which point they either need to retrench and find something or else or go the other way and say, “the heart wants what the heart wants” and you forgo a deal and you have a new $1400 month Yukon in your driveway
For me it started back in the early 2000s. At a time where I imagine knowing money factors, residuals and incentives was uncommon. My dad worked for a company that installed software at car dealerships. In doing these projects, he got to know a lot about the mechanics of leasing. Every time he went to lease a car for himself or my mom, I was right next to him. It was all back and forth negotiating in the sales room down a few dollars or even cents sometimes, but it was “hacking” the old fashion way. 6 hours at a dealership really sucked when I was a kid, but those lessons and negotiations taught me a lot. #1 - have good credit and #2 - know the deal before you walk in.
