I know car prices have risen greatly, avg transaction price is higher, interest rate are higher, inflation..& 59 other things impacting the economy over all ..
But I have started to notice many more car companies doing 7.5k miles leases than ever before which I thought was more of a luxury car company MO (BMW. Mercedes etc) not Toyotas’ & Hondas’ lol
So I guess Shrinkflation has finally come to the auto lease industry (or may be I’m just noticing it)
must be something in the water…
Lol I literally clicked on that thread before creating this & ppl were talking about charity, volunteering & grocery stores over there…hahah
You’re just noticing it now, it’s been prevalent on this site for a few years maybe more when brokers started presenting deals with 7.5K. If more manufacturers offered 5K leases, they would have shown those. The average consumer is complicit too in that they get enticed by the lower payment and hence it’s stuck around.
More importantly than a 1% of msrp difference (which is what this amounts to), look at the build quality of new cars vs a few years ago. The 2017-2018 volvos i did were far nicer than the 25/26s today. cheap materials, no leather, etc. My 25 rs etron gt feels cheaper than my 24 rs etron gt, despite a $16k msrp increase. Manufacturers have been absolutely crushed by inflation / tariffs and are doing their best not to pass on the full cost. This results in crappy build quality and cheap feeling / looking cars. Pretty soon, you’re going to see Porsche (absolutely decimated by tariffs) have the same panel gaps that a garbage tesla has.
Yeah..that 70k Aspec ZDX lol
But it’s all part of the shrinkflation.
prices and rates balloon across the board, and then you have situations like this:
I sat in the new face lifted Panamera a few months ago. Definitely lower interior quality than my 2018 and this was a turbo vs my 4S. Lots of plastic on the lower half of the interior, where it was soft touch or leather before. Back seat area was a noticeable drop too. Things that were definitely metal before feel like metal painted plastic or some other material. I wonder if the 911 has gotten the same treatment. Most recent I’ve sat in was a 2020 and it felt pretty good
xc90 inscriptions used to say “inscription” on the headrest. the rdesigns had sport seats and steering wheels. the list goes on. this is the real shrinkflation - it’s not 7500 mile leases, which are fairly common in the tristate. our driving distances are smaller, and many people don’t drive to work.
Pay more for less and be happy!
there’s a gif i’d post here, but it would result in being placed in LH gaol and cost me a lot of money. that said, even the usuals have stopped posting here for the lolz b/c i think even they find our country unrecognizable and its current situation dire.
I think the 5K mile per year and 7.5K per year leases are more about giving the people what they want and selling more cars. So many people are work from home or they have to go in once or twice a week. Even though as @aronchi said, the residual is only 1% better people think that a 10K mile per year lease is wasteful when their current car is 3 years old and only has 12K miles.
nearly across the board
Its the American way.
can you blame them?
Honestly, the 7.5k isn’t as appalling as this new trend of many of the broker deals having a $3k down requirement.
You can always request to change the structure of the amount down and if they don’t want to, there’s others who will. Porsche might be an exception but if IAC_Scott can offer them with no large downs upfront then anyone can IMO.