good evening!
i have never leased a car, ever! i did some math and found that in buying my 2008 Cadillac DTS, i have paid over $500 per month to now to own it. i have had many trips to the repair shop and had to get rides to and from, including a full week to fix rust! replaced battery twice, tires, water pump ($900) brakes twice, etc, etc. etc. wow. i drive about 9000 miles per year and take great car of my cars.
my friend always leases cars and never has to fix them. he argues quite vigorously when he gets a lease, and does pretty well.
i would like to lease a Cadillac CTS sedan. i live in massachusetts. does anyone have any idea what i can expect?
cadillac web site says 4300 down and 450/month gets me a CTS. my friend will likely come and argue with me.
does anyone have experience leasing this car? any advice?
Go to the search (magnifying glass icon on upper right) and type cadillac CTS, there are some old posts in there.
You have to do your homework (to get all the numbers), read the 2 articles below completely if you are new, it will be worth the 30 minutes you spend on them to see if a lease would work better for you than a purchase
The prices of any ads you see is a starting point for negotiations, you can usually do a lot better than that. As a rough, rough, rough rule of thumb, you should expect your monthly payment (tax included) to be < 1% of MSRP with $0 down and 36m/10k miles (which should work for you)
If you get all the numbers and use the calculator, you should be a lease expert in no time!
In addition to what Chris said, you will need to find out the MF (money factor) and RV (residual value) of the CTS trim you are looking at.
If you post under “RV/MF” in the forum, Michael or someone will get back to you/us with those key numbers. It always takes a few extra days at the beginning of the month, but the numbers start becoming more accessible after that.
Banish these numbers from your head now that you are here. First of all, they are bogus in the sense that the fine print hides hundreds or thousands more dollars in fees (bank fee aka acq fee; doc or dealer processing fee; Tax, Title & License aka TTL, etc.)
Second, we negotiate based on selling price and money factor being the most important items. Getting those down to the lowest possible is what results in the lowest lease payment.
I can post the GM Financial lease numbers here once they are available. Should be another day or 2. They may be available to dealers now, but I don’t have access to them.
THANKS EVERYONE! this week will test drive a caddy CTS and an infiniti Q50. my friend is leasing his SECOND Q 50, and loves it, and says it is a great value lease!
