The LeaseHackr (LH) calculator doesn’t do the calculation correct for Toyota Financial Services (TFS). The problem is that LH assumes you pay your 1st month separately. But Toyota deducts the first month from your down payment. This changes depreciation, and it’s complex due to taxes. Cap Cost Reduction = (rebate) + (down payment) - (1st month) - (sales taxes on rebate + 1st mo). It didn’t make a huge difference - mine was $488 on LH vs $504 from TFS, but enough to drive me crazy to the point of creating a full spreadsheet duplicating the TFS calculation. I don’t expect LH to fix this, but I hope it will help others who actually want their numbers to match what the Toyota dealer comes up with. I actually caught a $600 unapproved markup in my Agreed Price because my numbers didn’t match their numbers after going through this process. Thanks, LH, for giving me confidence to challenge their numbers.
Can you post your calculator and your contract?
I think this is state to state dependent. Many states don’t pay tax on monthly lease payments. There is another $600 in the deal somewhere to have a $16 a month difference in payment. It is probably because the first payment is rolled into the cap cost and not paid separately as you state. Did you use the $0 DAS feature in the LH calculator?
Here’s a link to the spreadsheet: Toyota Lease Spreadsheet
Here’s the redacted contract:
2024-03-08 Redacted contract for LeaseHakr.pdf (204.0 KB)
I’m not understanding what the $0 Due At Signing feature is but it doesn’t seem like that will do it. I will be paying $3000 at signing but part of that is paying off the 1st month.
Calculator does Toyota just fine
Good job. So the trick is to subtrack the first month from the down payment and feed that into the calculator. Might be nice to just have a “Toyota Lease” button to do that… lot of Toyota’s being leased.
You are misunderstanding the terminology and how to use the calculator. This has nothing to do with a Toyota lease.
1st month payment isn’t a down payment.
No, there’s no special trick going on. You just arent differentiating between “down payment” and “due at signing”.
Your contract has $3000 due at signing, not $3000 down.
TBF, dealers’ using these terms interchangeably leads to the confusion.
100% agree