Not only that, but if you put any $ down and god forbid your vehicle is a total loss from a very bad accident, you won’t recoup that money. At the very least I would only pay first month DAS only, and roll everything into the monthly lease payment. Otherwise first month, DMV and dealer fees if the MF is high.
That’s why it’s important to get the OTD price (itemized detail) first, negotiate it down. Then inquire about their lease program based on the final selling price you have negotiated, which is part of the very lowest OTD pricing. Make sure to ask for a lease worksheet.(See videos from Car Edge who explain all of this in lengthy process).
Unfortunately from my experience many brokers here don’t truly care to help find you the best deals. And if you challenge them and ask to work harder to truly earn that $700 plus broker fee they tell you to look elsewhere. It just happened to me with one of the big broker companies.
Yes! Well said. Making sure you get the best deal is long and hard but worth it because almost everyone out there cares to maximize their profits and pockets.
OTD pricing doesn’t apply to leases. This is a term based on purchase incentives with purchasing taxes. Asking the dealer for this number and then flipping the script to a lease is bad advice.
You’re asking a dealer for their price, which already puts you at a disadvantage from a negotiation stand point, it removes the ability to leverage additional dealer profit mechanisms for increasing your discpunt, and then it opens up the opportunity for the dealer to hide money when you convert to a lease due to differences in incentives, taxes, and costs of financing.
You keep spouting this across multiple threads as if it’s a strategy that even makes sense, much less is a good thing to do, but you’re asking for a number that doesn’t even apply to leases. Taxes, fees, incentives, financing costs, etc, are all different than in what an OTD number would be.
You keep talking about negotiations on a lease with the out the door which is so irrelevant.
I will give you a specific example.
Let’s take a look at the Lexus RX450h. Let’s say you walk in and never mention a lease, and just argue and negotiate 10% off MSRP. Now, you tell the dealer I want to lease and I want the same out the door. The dealer can now rid of the dealer discount and use the lease cash to get the same out the door. Also, an out the door price on a purchase includes tax on the total selling price. So now, with rebates and not taxing the entire purchase amount, all the dealer needs to do is use the rebate & potentially even add after market products to reflect the same out the door on a lease. This is what happened to the guy on the Honda thread you commented on.
You talk abt brokers earning their fees but fail to see the misconception you have abt how to negotiate a lease. Now, if you are trying to say negotiate a dealer discount & then focus on the rebates and programs — that’s a given and every single broker does that but the entire verbiage and argument you are using with the phrase “OTD pricing” is flawed & makes you sound extremely uneducated.
Also - if you hit up a broker asking for better than they are advertising saying that “this is not the best price” you should go out and negotiate on your own. We all advertise the best deal we can and that’s why this is a free market. You can pick the broker that has the deal you want and makes sense to you. What you cannot do is ask someone who gives their best up front to “go negotiate more” because you find the deal unsatisfactory.
I do have clients who say “hey this is $10 above my payment range, can we make something happen” and more often than not I do go back to my dealer and try to make a deal happen. But if someone says “this is a horrible deal you can do better & you need to negotiate more and you don’t have the best deal” I don’t want that type of client because my team and I never advertise deals that are not extremely aggressive.
I get where you’re coming from—OTD pricing is traditionally a purchase metric. But in my experience, asking for the lease-equivalent of “out-the-door,” meaning the total due at signing, all-in, can still be a useful data point when evaluating multiple lease offers.
I’m not ignoring the fundamentals. I always analyze the full lease structure: cap cost, residual, MF, incentives, etc. The drive-off amount just gives me a quick way to surface anomalies, like padded fees or markups, and helps normalize quotes across dealerships that may otherwise package numbers differently.
It’s not about locking in a number prematurely, it’s about using all available information to identify leverage points and ensure apples-to-apples comparisons. When framed properly, OTD can absolutely support smarter negotiations, not undermine them.
I respect brokers who operate with transparency and put genuine effort into structuring aggressive, well-rounded lease deals. But not every broker plays at that level. In my case, I was quoted what appeared to be a strong monthly payment—until I looked closer at the DAS numbers. Government fees and DMV charges were padded well beyond actuals, and certain incentives that should have applied were left out entirely. When I brought this to the broker’s attention, rather than correcting the issues, they told me to go find another deal. That’s not service, it’s avoidance.
If someone’s charging $700 for their help, they should be doing more than emailing over numbers and walking away. It’s not just about the monthly—it’s about verifying incentive eligibility, understanding local tax structures, and ensuring no margin-hiding through the drive-off. Otherwise, what’s the point of using a broker at all?
I get that brokers don’t want to chase tire-kickers or deal with people who demand miracles. But there’s a big difference between being difficult and being diligent. If a client flags real inconsistencies or wants to better understand how the numbers were structured, a good broker should see that as an opportunity to build trust, not an excuse to bow out.
Then why not just keep it as is rather than round it up? To me it shows transparency and honesty. Remember every penny counts and given the car dealer history with scamming buyers, having a honest and transparent broker on LH is very important.
Great then give it to them from the very beginning and don’t make them work so hard for it. As you know buying, leasing or financing a car is hard enough when I make it harder for us?
Read my reply to OTD again and it will make sense.
It’s alright for a customer to have a different expectation from a Broker, and for a Broker to pass on a potential customer due to those expectations.
I think at LH, most brokers just present a pre-negotiated but competitive lease deals. They don’t negotiate after taking the customer’s money because that might be too much work without a guaranteed result leading to unsatisfied customers.
I think the terminology you’re using might be causing some confusion. If you say ‘first negotiate the dealer discount’ instead of ‘first negotiate itemized OTD price,’ people would be more agreeable.
Here is where you’re giving away all your negotiating power. If we ignore the fact that asking for an OTD price means something specifically and instead say what you’re really asking for is an itemized lease breakdown, you’re still just asking the dealer what they want you to pay. You may be getting greater clarity as to what their offer is, but you’re still just asking them for an offer and letting them drive the negotiations.
That’s great if your negotiation strategy is to just ask a couple dealers for quotes and see which one is the least bad, but that doesn’t usually get you a good deal, just the least bad deal some is willing to offer. It’s a strategy for those that won’t take the time to actually do the research and approach the negotiations from the standpoint of being a well-informed consumer.
It is reasonable advice for CarEdge to be giving to the lowest common denominator of customers. Do you want to approach your negotiations as the least bad of the lowest common denominator of customers or do you want to actually negotiate a strong deal?
You shouldn’t ever need any pricing info from a dealer at all. You should be telling them what your offer is with all the details properly included. If you’re making unambiguous offers, you should be telling them what the lease cost you are offering is. At absolute best, what you’re suggesting here can be distilled to “make sure you get an itemized lease breakdown after negotiating on ambiguous terms to make sure everyone is on the same page”. The much better solution there is to just not negotiate on ambiguous terms, but that requires one to have a well-researched target deal first.
My response was to your comment about running up numbers rather than giving the exact dollar amount. I’m not questioning how you do business and only going based on what you commented here.
Yes thank you and I’m excited to get in my new car before Tuesday!
