Is this a good lease deal, and the meaning of "effective monthly payment"?

Ask the Hackrs
21

Also just to summarize. There are two options for you here.

Option 1: Go through the brokers and see which cars and payments you are comfortable with and chose one. Pay the broker fee and let the broker do all the work.
Option 2: Do the legwork. Get the calculator. Figure out which cars are leasing well for that month(check the signed). Pull up RV, MF, incentives, etc for each terms. Run your numbers and then start hunting the car/terms you like the final payments on. You would have to contact dealers and ask them to match your numbers and not ask them for their best numbers.

There is no guarantee that Option 2 would give you lower payment than Option 1. But people do end up signing some unicorn deals using Option 2 (e.g., the $350/month EQS 450 deals, etc). Although it is rare to sign a unicorn. It can also take you a bit of a time to get a good deal using Option 2.

22

Not the OP but still need help. What is a good response when the dealer responds ā€œwe canā€™t discount the vehicle $x,xxx under invoice because we paid $y,yyyy for the car.ā€ Now I know they generally do pay invoice for a car but there are all sorts of levers behind the scenes that help them sell cars thousands under invoice all day long, and what they paid vs How much it is currently worth right now are honestly two different things. How do I best respond to a dealer who Iā€™m confident can go lower, but is looking for me to justify the reason?

I know I can move on to the next dealer but Iā€™m very specific about trims and color thereā€™s usually no more than 3 dealerships within reasonable driving distance that have what Iā€™m looking for.

23

Take a step back: how much of a discount off msrp are you asking for, and how does that compare to recent signed deals?

24

5-7% off MSRP (before rebates) and it aligns to recent deals

25

They elect to go lower or they donā€™t. Thereā€™s nothing that you can say that will change that basic fact.

If you wonā€™t move on for some reason and insist on keeping what is mostly likely a dead-end conversation going, tell them thatā€™s all you can afford.

Donā€™t keep dragging this out longer than it needs to be. Either both sides agree or they move on after they reach an impasse.

26

ā€œThank you for your time. If youd like an easy sale to close out the month and change your mind about getting to my price, give me a call.ā€

27

Thank you, this is helpful. Iā€™m not going to say " saw it on leasehackr"

28

Iā€™m talking their first response here, via email. Itā€™s not like I spent an hour test driving and now Iā€™m haggling over $10 a month. They are asking me to justify my offer and I have no way to know if itā€™s in good faith.

29

Thank them for their time and move on. If they want to move for the sale, theyll let you know.

30

I did. Forgot about it, then 3 days later out of the blue got this email:

Have you found anyone that would be willing to discount their vehicle $4,000 to support your expectation?

31

Then move on. Most dealers are going to say no. If you were making an offer every dealer would say yes to, it wouldnt be a very good offer for you.

32

Thank you. I never thought of it that way. Itā€™s just hard to separate the emotions and the business. Iā€™m trying, but I only do this once every 3 years.

33

Whoa. Kind of unnecessarily snarky from the dealer (IMHO).

34

Thank you guys for all your helpful advice.

35

The $3917 due at signing from the website does not include TAX! They donā€™t know the tax rate in the county everyone lives in! So that is going to be extra on every lease, unless you roll it into the monthly payments. Do you follow what Iā€™m saying?