I so often see posts of how “x is under a $200/mo car!” And then when you read the fine print it comes with like $4k down and is only a 2 year lease… so with taxes this thing is more than $500 with no money down?? Seems like a pretty bad deal, now. I know the 12 mo CPO Porsche’s I see all over the place for $5k down/12 mo’s are a different game… but still.
Anytime I consider a deal I use $1,000 for drive offs, maximum. So I can get a true apples to apples.
Am I the only one who wants this?? Brokers, care to flame me in the comments??
Thanks all…
Btw I’m in California and only look at California deals (for tax purposes)
Usually deals in CA are around 3-3.5k down, this is inclusive of our insanely high registration, acquisition fee, $85 dealer doc, and first month’s payment. Since you pay registration annually, why would you finance your first one for 3 years? I totally agree with you that anything beyond that point…4k, 5k down are just hiding the payment particularly on used cars/loaner for example the Mercedes C300 loaners with a 40k sales price and a 3.5k-4k drive off.
It’s easy. You pay no attention to the monthly payment someone posts and only use the pre-incentive discount as an input into your target deal since no matter how much they have down, unless their situation is identical to yours, the monthly payment given is irrelevant.
If you’re basing anything off just the monthly payment, you’re already doing it wrong.
It’s advertising. One broker does it and everyone follows to be “competitive”. Theres a reason they use this gimmick bc it makes the payment look cheap to people that math isn’t their strong suit…
I personally hate it but I also agree with the free market and buyer beware so I don’t want any rules banning it as long as it’s disclosed.
OP, the fees, taxes etc are always present in the deal…a $0 DAS lease just means you are choosing to finance them to pay over time vs. paying them up front. Always check the finance charge and the cost to carry that extra $2-3-4k etc.
I still think we should be able to market anyway we see fit as long as the down payment is disclosed. I think brokers that do large down payments are just creating more work for themselves anyway. A lot more people will message them that can’t actually afford the vehicle.
Can’t imagine how many people message for the $499/mo cayanne “special” and when they see the sign and drive payment go to $1000+ they ghost
I managed dealership sales departments for years. I wrote the ads. The plain fact is that the vast majority of clients see the payment before they see anything else. To a large extent, the whole art of car sales revolves around getting the client to focus on the affordability of the payment to the exclusion of the down payment, trade in, or cash price. That’s what the old “four-square” was all about. Leases are no different. In fact, back in the 80s when consumer leasing first caught on big time, it was because the finance payments had escalated beyond many client’s budgets. For the newly popular “luxury” imports like Mercedes, BMW, Audi and so on, leasing became a vital tool. The fact is, if you wrote your ads with “all in” and the competitor had 5000 down, and a 225 dollar a month lower payment, you’d see little traffic. It’s the same way store prices always end in “99” instead of an even number.
I don’t think that’s the issue. At least a few times a year people make suggestions about standardizing how offers are presented, thinking that their preferences are more universal than reality supports.
We generally advertise with upfronts (fees, reg/tax on rebates if applicable) due at signing, when it’s locale specific tax is either built into the payment (when paid on monthly) or due upfront (when due on sales price).
