Learning Lots About Leases

[ResidualMistakes]

TL:DR - Are two-car deals a thing? How “certain” are these leases? and what’s up with Florida?

At one point in our car-owning backstory, a Toyota Camry lease fit our needs perfectly, and the whole process was rock-solid, including turning over the keys after our term and walking away. Since then, it’s been back and forth financing and paying cash for much older cars. In general, are these LeaseHackr deals just as solid as that Camry deal from 13 years ago? We sign the papers and then can walk away after the term? I know about the mileage limits and if there’s major damage, but anything I’m missing?

Secondly, We’re in Jacksonville, Florida, and my daughter is about to drive to Birmingham for college. A trusted mechanic says her old Ranger won’t make it back and forth, so we’re looking for a vehicle for her. After lurking on LeaseHackr but buying a cash car ('12 Volt) a few years ago, I’m back now looking for the next phase, so it’s time I ask: if we’re looking for a reliable car for her and can find something that fits for me, do dealers (or brokers) do any two-car lease incentives? Does our credit (mid-high 700s for me, low 800s for the wife, little to none for the graduate) limit that as an option?

I’ve been scouring and reading a lot over the last week, and I will continue learning about the calculator, money factor, and everything else, but I welcome any advice. As far as specifics, I’ll say I’ve loved the Ioniq 5 since I first saw it, though I haven’t driven one. The Kona also looks good. The first car I bought was an Elantra, and I drove it until the handles fell off (literally), so perhaps I could convince my daughter to go that route if it’s a good enough deal. We’re about 3.5 years into our Palisade and love it, so Hyundai runs deep. I’m game for an EV, but I’m ignorant about her having one and driving the 500-mile trip to school and back. She loves her truck and would love a Jeep, but I know those can be much higher in cost. I’ve got a lot to talk with her about, but I at least want to know if this particular avenue would be worth driving down.

Lastly, where do the pre-negotiated deals in Florida come from (if that’s allowed). I just need to know if we’d be driving far off to pick up a car or if they’re close enough to Jax. Clearly, the deals aren’t as good as ones on the West Coast, but that’s the way it is. Is the FL panhandle or central Alabama any better for deals?

[IAC_Nick]

I do Hyundai in the southeast, along with a bunch of other makes. Do all your test drives first and then text me when you’re ready. 516-550-3707

[IAC_Scott]

@ResidualMistakes

if we’re looking for a reliable car for her and can find something that fits for me, do dealers (or brokers) do any two-car lease incentives?

Generally speaking, if you’re actually getting a good deal, I tell people that my dealer would have no reason to want to lose extra money just to sell two cars instead of one, we won’t discount the cars more just because you’re getting two. We may offer a fee discount, but for the dealers, on a bottomed out deal, it makes no sense.

[ResidualMistakes]

Ah, that makes sense. So, as a possibility, the same broker for two different dealers/makes could be good - a Hyundai and a Jeep, for instance- but not for two at the same place. Would it be the same case (no reason for them to “bundle” two) if we went straight to the dealer for their advertised leases?

[ResidualMistakes]

Yeah, that’s step two: trying to see what we actually would want to drive and can pay for over the next 2-3 years.

[max_g]

@ResidualMistakes

At one point in our car-owning backstory, a Toyota Camry lease fit our needs perfectly, and the whole process was rock-solid, including turning over the keys after our term and walking away. Since then, it’s been back and forth financing and paying cash for much older cars.

Why did you do that? New car financing is way cheaper than used car financing. Obviously if budget was an issue then maybe the new car was out of the question. In which case leasing a new Camry just to return it at the end, that doesn’t make sense either.

This is not to rehash the past but to make sure you’re not repeating any of the same mistakes.

Personally I’d do an EV after 3+ years of happy EV driving but you cannot manufacture someone else’s enthusiasm. Unless your daughter is excited about an EV you’re just going to hear 500 miles of complaining every time she comes home.

Look into financing something from the HMG (Hyundai Motors) stable such as a Venue, Soul or Seltos etc. Because 99% of ICEV leases suck right now.

[ResidualMistakes]

Oh, I wasn’t clear on that: back and forth financing new and newer used cars and cash buying cheap old cars:

(In case you want to know)
new '02 Elantra financed
borrowed a friend’s truck for a couple years
used '07 Explorer financed when we he needed the truck back
leased the '12 Camry when gas was stupid high and I needed to really focus on my work rather than a big payment, issues, maintenance, etc. on my wife’s car
cash for an '06 Pathfinder (one problem after another) before moving to FL
used '08 Sonata financed when we moved and couldn’t take the Elantra to FL
new '18 Explorer financed when the Pathfinder just quit
new '20 Elantra GT financed (miss that guy)
Traded in Explorer (first time I wasn’t upside down in a car!) for '22 Palisade
Sold the '20 Elantra (net $2000 paid for 2 years of use) and bought '12 Volt for cash
Bought '02 Ranger for our daughter for cash but then put the new transmission on a 0% card.

Dang, writing it all out looks makes it look like we’re car-hoppers, but this was over the last 24 years. I owned that Elantra from Spring Break 2002 until Christmas 2016 when it wasn’t clear she’d make the 13-hour drive here. Since then, it’s been a revolving door.

@max_g

you’re just going to hear 500 miles of complaining every time she comes home.

Yeah, you might be on the right track. And double that from my bride if there’s ever an issue with it.

@max_g

In which case leasing a new Camry just to return it at the end, that doesn’t make sense either.

For us at the time, it 100% made sense, but that’s because our focus was elsewhere. What’s the typical goal at the end of a lease? Why do you say leasing to return (in general) doesn’t make sense?

Thanks for all the help and for looking out for us.

[max_g]

@ResidualMistakes

What’s the typical goal at the end of a lease? Why do you say leasing to return (in general) doesn’t make sense?

Because nothing exists in isolation.

A hacked lease you return and lease another hacked car. Thats the only cycle where leasing makes sense 99% of the time.

Otherwise you would have been better off buying the unhacked car in the first place. For example instead of leasing/returning the Camry and then financing a bunch of used cars such as the Sonata you would have been better off buying a brand new Camry or Sonata in the first place.

[trism]

I think I’ve seen just about every state mentioned as follows:

“I can’t get a good deal because I live in _____.”

Of course there is variability from market to market, and this might be true if you’re just calling around asking for prices, as even in Southern California I’ve had absurdly bad “quotes” stuck under my nose ($5k DAS + $985/month on a Charger Daytona, anyone?).

We got our ~$220/month Blazer EV in Ohio, and this is from the first dealer I contacted.

With enough knowledge and some reasonable flexibility, a great deal isn’t out of anyone’s reach.

[ResidualMistakes]

@max_g

Otherwise you would have been better off buying the unhacked car in the first place. For example instead of leasing/returning the Camry and then financing a bunch of used cars such as the Sonata you would have been better off buying a brand new Camry or Sonata in the first place.

Okay. I think I’m with you. Apologies if this next question comes across as rude. I do not intend it that way: is this your opinion, the general consensus on LH, or the prevailing wisdom of the times?

In my mind, I’ve got my 9th grade teacher telling me to buy a car and drive it until the wheels fall off (my first Elantra and that Sonata - years of no car payment). Then I’ve got “unnamed finance guy” telling me not to go into debt at all (the Pathfinder and Volt, with no car payment but definitely some issues). Then I’ve got my wife and daughter needing to get from point A to B with the least chance of breaking down, having a solid warranty, etc (Explorer/Palisade/whatever is happening now). It just seems like everyone is coming from a different point of lowest total cost vs base needs and low payment vs new and dependable, which might account for our back-and-forth nature.

A lease seems to hit the immediate need of a lower payment with the reliability of a new car, but we lose out on all the equity over the course of that lease. Is this what people go through every new purchase, or are you saying many (LHackrs especially) are in the lease game and effectively lease their cars on the cheap over and over again, and that’s why this site exists? And your advice is (or would have been) to buy new because we would’ve spent less in the end. Is that correct?

If money were no object, the girl would jump into a Jeep or maybe one of the newer Rangers. Looking at reliable used, the payments would be near double or more than some of the lease deals on here, and money is definitely an object while she’s working on a degree. I think a $350 truck payment plus higher insurance because it’s not a paid off 20 year old truck is way more than she’s expecting it to be and more than she’d be earning while trying to do school as well. That’s why I’m looking back over the site the last few days.

Thanks again.

[max_g]

@ResidualMistakes

Is this what people go through every new purchase, or are you saying many (LHackrs especially) are in the lease game and effectively lease their cars on the cheap over and over again, and that’s why this site exists? And your advice is (or would have been) to buy new because we would’ve spent less in the end. Is that correct?

A hacked lease is what this site is all about. It’s a lease so cheap that even successive leases are cheaper than purchasing and trying to accumulate equity over, say, six years.

Take a Mercedes EV for example. Someone paid $400/m in 2022, returned it and leased another in 2025 for $500/m. So it cost them around $30k over the course of six years but the car depreciated by $50k+. So they came out well ahead.

What are the typical pre-requisites for a hacked lease like that?

Huge gap between cost and sticker: potential for huge discounts.
Few purchasers: so big incentives from OEM, plus favorable RV/MF combination to entice leases
Huge real world depreciation, hence the few purchasers

That dynamic doesn’t exist in the meat of the ICEV market and cannot exist. It simply isn’t possible because there’s not that much meat on the bone between cost and sticker on an Elantra or Camry or RAV4 or Palisade.

Lease hacking began as a luxury car game and is now mostly an EV game. It just isn’t possible in segments where those pre-requisites don’t exist.

[Kctham18]

@ResidualMistakes

we went straight to the dealer for their advertised leases

Best to ignore dealer ads. The fine print is always excessive, does not detail taxes, fees, add-ons, and many include or stack rebates/incentives that are not applicable to buyers/lessees.

[jeisensc]

@ResidualMistakes

It just seems like everyone is coming from a different point of lowest total cost vs base needs and low payment vs new and dependable, which might account for our back-and-forth nature.

You ultimately decide which trade-offs to make, but that doesn’t change the value proposition of a particular lease-vs-buy scenario. It’s good you’re asking questions, I’d figure out your compass direction on this before I go much further.

If you search this is been discussed in detail before, e.g.

Leasing vs. Buying a New Car

Clearly the author hasn’t run into a leasehackr “Generally, two three-year leases will cost thousands more compared with buying a car (with a loan or with cash) and owning it over that same six-year period. And the savings increase for car buyers if they continue to hold on to the car, say, for another three years for nine years total—even factoring expected maintenance and repairs.”

but to summarize:

• some people want the absolute cheapest $/mi utility (my personal hero @joeblogs) and are not ashamed to step out of a Fiat 500e or Bolt/EUV, will tolerate a Taco, or found the Aria surprisingly nice - but it’s cheap cheap
• some want something nicer (car vs deal) and want to get the most utility for the least $ and will return it. These are your luxEV leasers or anyone who could afford to buy but would rather pay a fraction to rent and return
• We NEVER lease to over-extend ourselves. If we can’t afford a 3 series and were shopping something down market, leasing to impress is never the play.

If you’re shopping a specific vehicle (vs a deal) like a Corolla, which never leases well, the lease-vs-finance decision will almost always land in favor of buying (always do the math). But if you are shopping that segment, I bet there is a Elanta/Somata or Crosstrek or something that leases well vs buying.

Is it bad to lease? - answered by a "financial guru"

I would further caveat it with “purchasing an (affordable) vehicle and holding it for a long time is better than changing vehicles often.” Strategy only works on cars like Camrys that will, on average, drive a long time and have very manageable maintenance costs. Make it an X7 and the math is very different. Something of a non-sequitur but for what it is worth, I think I might be able to achieve a TCO comparable to buying S*** boxes by buying new Japanese sedans/compact SUVs at a decent disco…

The professional finance talking heads like Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman and whoever is Toking these days will probably say leasing is always a waste of money. Lots of cost analysis and experience reports from members who did both over the years here (if you search and increase that read time).

The general LH rule is always do all the math. In some cases like this example, the math usually goes in one direction. But you have to decide if you want a $3000 2yr/pay Equinox or whatever might be in your short list.

Suggestions:

• Read Leasing 101 EDITORIAL | Leasehackr
• browse the Marketplace
• Make a short list of cars to test drive (and a short list of decision criteria). Don’t ever talk numbers with the dealer, just test drive.
• When you pick something, put together a target deal and make offers, don’t ask for prices.
• Post here and have any deal reviewed before signing.

If you don’t want to learn the math then choose something from the Marketplace here or PND.

[ResidualMistakes]

@max_g

Lease hacking began as a luxury car game and is now mostly an EV game. It just isn’t possible in segments where those pre-requisites don’t exist.

Gotcha. So, after the $7500 back stops at the end of September (though I’ve seen people say makers and dealers will still need to get them off the lot and will be offering new incentives), do you anticipate a turn away from EVs and back toward luxuries? Or just continue to search for and find the best of what’s out there?

While I’d love a new EV for myself, I’m glad there are other options and examples listed as we’re searching for her new car.

[ResidualMistakes]

This info is so helpful. Thank you for taking the time to write this out and pointing me in the right direction. I knew about the stickies and some of the broader resources on the site, but these conversations have been very insightful.

[EC99]

@ResidualMistakes

do you anticipate a turn away from EVs and back toward luxuries? Or just continue to search for and find the best of what’s out there?

One would expect leasing to turn back to luxury since, as Max says, there usually just isn’t the meat on the bone between cost and sticker for a mainstream ICE vehicle.

I have been here for years though and except for a couple of the COVID years there have always been vehicles that were leasing well, whether the Q50, GM subcompact SUVs, C300s or something else. Factors align to cause an OEM to need to move metal and one way they do that is good lease numbers.

[9benua]

If your daughter is ok with ev, plenty 2-3 yo Ariya, iD4, ioniq5 selling for 20-25k

[max_g]

@ResidualMistakes

do you anticipate a turn away from EVs and back toward luxuries? Or just continue to search for and find the best of what’s out there?

Who knows

Predicting the future isn’t a particularly fruitful avenue to getting a new car into your driveway. Stay laser focused on the mission.

The one other variable that most people forget because they’re at a different point in their lives: you want to set up your daughter to achieve some financial milestones. Investing goals, buying a home, etc etc. That means spending less on a car + insurance for now. And not having payments that affect the DTI on a mortgage application.

From that perspective a lease is out of the question for your daughter’s future goals. Only question remains whether you want to buy a used car for cash or finance a brand new car for 48-60 months.

[WeakestLink]

@ResidualMistakes

Ah, that makes sense. So, as a possibility, the same broker for two different dealers/makes could be good - a Hyundai and a Jeep, for instance- but not for two at the same place. Would it be the same case (no reason for them to “bundle” two) if we went straight to the dealer for their advertised leases?

I would focus on getting the best deals on 2 cars that you want rather than spending time on a bundle discount. That term “penny wise pound foolish” comes to mind.

[ResidualMistakes]

She’s okay with an EV, but my wife is not a fan because of some recent experiences. The biggest issue is her driving 500+ miles away to school and the uncertainty of charging stations along the way. I think a PHEV (I’ve got an old Chevy Volt) could be an option. They are a great car for those who stick around town but occasionally need the range capability to make it a long distance with ease.