Is Lexus / LFS Restricting 3rd Party Buyout?

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1

I was attempting to obtain buy out quote from Enterprise Sales but they notified that LFS has suspended 3rd party buyout starting August 1st. I googled and landed on Lexus Club supporting his statement.

I proceeded to Carmax and accepted their offer however they want to speak to LFS before closing the sale (pending til Monday). They did not mention LFS blocking them but I did see this sign at Carmax.

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Any supporting or counter data point that LFS has suspended 3rd party buy out?

2

Wow, interesting. I had heard the rumor about Aug 1 and hurried to have my Lexus lease bought by Carvana in mid-July just in case. Haven’t seen any other confirmation of the restriction being in place, though.

3

Wouldn’t shock me if it was true, but there have been lots of false reports from different brands lately, so I’d take it with a grain of salt until it is confirmed.

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4

Nope. TFS isn’t restricting it, why would LFS restrict theirs?

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5

I think it might have been false alarm. Dealer has spoken still proceeding forward.

Off topic but still relevant. LFS gave Carmax payoff that is lot lower than what it shows me online (almost close of RV). I am thinking there 2 possibilities

  1. Dealer buyout is lot lower than lessee buyout (VERY unlikely)
  2. LFS made mistake and quoted RV as dealer buyout (off by few $$ from RV).

Dealer is cutting me check for the difference, Should I say something or just take the check and deal with aftermath later?

6

The aftermath is the dealer coming to you to cut them a check for the delta between what they thought the payoff was and what it actually is.

I would absolutely sort this out now rather than wait and see what happens.

The difference in payoff between what you see and what the dealer is seeing could be partially due to taxes.

7

Post transaction follow up:

I followed @mllcb42 advise and asked them to double check buyout. LFS gave them corrected buyout. Carmax has added few more captive lessor to their naughty list (Mercedes-Benz IIRC forgot to picture).

Another off topic question but related to this transaction about lease and personal property tax.

  • So LFS passed $2K property tax bill by month 10 of lease. That was shocker (since this was my first lease).
  • They claimed they paid city and county taxes but were never able to provide any supporting documents.
  • I left the balance outstanding while trying to fight it off for couple years.
  • I was convince they will deduct taxes form MSD but to my surprise, in final bill, they voided the property tax amount and refunded the whole MSD amount.

Question,

  1. is it common to get stuck with $2k yearly tax bill on $50K lease? (DFW TX)
  2. how come they charged property tax only for year 1 but not in year 2 or 3? I asked LFS but they were never able to answer it.

Search is not returning any relevant results. Appreciate if anyone has any insights into it?