Still learning the basics of leasehacking, and I understand the approach is to construct a deal proposal to submit to dealers. I was testdriving some cars recently, and guy was eager to share numbers with me at one dealership, so I figured I would take a look. Comparing to RateFindr, the RV was a bit lower and money factor was a bit higher than what is published on the site.
Should I try to negotiate those? My understanding is the RV was set by the lender, but can dealers then deflate that for profit? And are the rates that I see on RF like a standard thing that can be cited? Like “hey this program has this MF and RV, why does yours not match that?”.
Or is it just take what they give, and try to negotiate for a dealer price separately? I am just trying to figure out what it means when RV and MF don’t match what is on Rate Findr.
What manufacturer were you shopping? A few brands can use more than one lessor ( CDJR ) comes to mind where they can use the captive: Stellantis ( which would be what you see on Ratefinder ) as well as US Bank, Ally, or perhaps one other lessor.
The base rate is set by the captive lessor ( example: BMWFS for BMW ) and is what you see on Ratefinder, dealers are allowed to mark it up for additional profit. RV is set by the lessor based on the term ( 24/10, 36/12 ) and so on. Make sure you guys were comparing apples to apples. Pretty sure most of this in the LH 101 Tutorial & video on the main LH page if you want to dive in further.
A salesperson’s job is to sell you a car even if you just want to test drive it, they are going to build excitement and get you to come in and talk numbers. The way to overcome this is to have an offer in your back pocket, and say, “Hey, not sure if this is the right car for me but if it is, this is what I would be willing to pay.”
Most dealerships operate on the marketing / sales principle of “Anchoring” - AI ( Gemini, CoPilot, etc ) has a pretty good explanation on it if you are curious. By being the first person to put a number down you avoid a dealer doing this to you.
The MF and RV are model and trim specific. MF will be base, some brands allow markups for additional dealer profit, with a cap on the markup.
Also MF, RV and incentives often change monthly, and there’s generally a dead space at the beginning of each new program month while the new programs are being updated.
