Lease Shopping - AA-NJ's way

Yes they do but in MD so don’t think it helps those unfortunate enough to live in Jersey. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I always tell people from MD that get jealous of the NJ EV rebates & tax exemption “don’t worry, you’re still saving money on taxes by living in MD!”

Demand for these Ioniqs varies a lot based on region, but utility of that car is about the same whether you live in NJ or MD. At any higher payment than what you got, it’s a tough sell, hence the meatier dealer discount to make up for lack of state subsidies that are responsible for moving these in other states.

Same with OP’s Volvo deal. The discount you get on an EV has a lot to do about where you are. If you’re in a more urban environment with chargers nearby, the cars are more useful. If you’re in a locale where 170 miles of range is crippling, you see much much steeper discounts on EVs.

I’m actually in PA, we do get $750 from the state if you apply. But best part is no tax on the substantial rebates. Sorry about jackin’ OP’s thread.

why does this thread exist?

Aliens GIF

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Because AA-NJ hijacked XC40 thread in Share deals

I wouldn’t say hijacked, and you can totally close/delete this if it doesn’t fit. I won’t be offended. I would say, someone that’s new at leasing asked “Should I care on which factor they [the dealer] are making their margin?”

I answered and stand by the answer of “No! You don’t need to care. Not knowing this breakdown doesn’t mean you got a bad deal, and you shouldn’t feel bad for not caring!”

I’m not saying that people are wrong to try and shop their way, I’m just saying that both approaches can absolutely yield the same result.

Could breaking down a lease deal maybe help someone else? Yes, but only for a limited window of time in a certain locale.

The problem with the “Share a Deal” section is that if someone posts a price/deal that is deemed “too high” for the community, those threads get littered with “coulda done better” or “look what so-and-so got in a different market”. And those comments come often without emperical data. The site energy disincentivizes people from posting lukewarm deals, because posters don’t want to get roasted in the comments section, which skews the few “data points” that are posted here unfairly towards “too good to be true”.

Those threads get piled-on if the numbers aren’t low enough, so posters have an incentive to only post the lowest deals on LeaseHackr. This at-scale social behavior skews Leasehackr posts towards one end of the market, making LeaseHackr not the best place to find relevant and accurate data points that reflect the greater market.

When there isn’t reliable data (I think most statisticians will agree that you need somewhere around 30 samples to get reliable data), my price negotiation approach is sound. Receiving multiple quotes and making multiple offers across multiple dealerships will prove as a reliable method for finding the best deal, in the absence of having more complete data upfront.

I fundamentally disagree with you (I’m sure we’re all shocked).

I look at this as you have two choices:

  • You can be an informed consumer, and understand the deal
  • You can be an uninformed consumer, and go in blind

What you’re suggesting is that the better approach is to ignore available data, ask dealers what they want you to pay, and then make blind offers without supporting data.

I think that’s asinine and I don’t believe for a moment that you take a blind approach like that.

I agree with you that the deals that are posted here tend to be better than average deals… and that’s fine. We’re all here to learn how to get better than average deals. If we wanted what any Tom, Dick, or Harry could get off the street, we’d just go ask the dealers what they want us to pay. This is about leaning how to get an above average deal.

Now, LH isn’t the only source of data to pull from. One can, and are often recommended to (particularly in cases where data here is more limited) go to brand specific forums, etc to pull information from. When doing so, it is even more important to have the tools to properly normalize the data. At least here, there is a somewhat shared framework for posting deals to guide to normalization.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; it is never preferential to know less about the deal than more. Your knowledge and understanding of what is going on is the only leverage you have.

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Disagreement is healthy, and I’m not advocating for being blind.
I’m saying that you can just ask the dealers for the numbers, and they’ll give you what you need.
If they don’t, go to the next dealer and try again. You’ll get every number you need by comparing the results of the quotes and offers that you ask dealers for.

I follow the exact same approach whether I’m leasing a car, renting a car, or buying pretty much any big-ticket item.

Can you please lay out your approach for renting a car on vacation? How does it differ (if at all) from your approach to closed-end car leases?

But they won’t. They’ll give you what they need.

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Sure, so then take what they say, undershoot, and use that new number to make your next offer at the next place.

This is no difference than Enterprise telling you what they need to rent a car, or the grocery store telling you they need $4 for a gallon of milk.

The big different there is that enterprise and the grocery store and such are generally rigid priced transactions where as car purchases/leases, for better or worse, are established as being negotiable purchases.

I disagree about Enterprise being rigidly priced. You can open up 3-4 different tabs, throw in different codes like Costco/AAA/USAA, check at different times of day, and the prices are all over the board. It takes a lot of comparison shopping to know you’re getting a good deal, and prices vary wildly even at the same day/time.

Renting a car for 2-3 weeks is actually very similar to renting (leasing) a car for 2-3 years. I get deal-hunting vibes every time I need to book a rental car, for sure.

Does this discussion have anything to do with someone sharing an XC40 deal in Share Deals? Here is your answer. You probably wouldn’t want this in your Marketplace thread either.

No debate on your moderation call, feel free to delete/move as you feel appropriate.

Since we’re here, I think the best thing to focus on is the difference between shopping best deal for Daily Rentals and Closed-End Leases. I maintain the two are very alike.

You’re not getting different prices, you’re normalizing for different incentive structures.

No where in what you’re saying have you done any negotiating.

This is like saying “I got a full MSRP lease, but my monthly was lower because I qualified for costco and loyalty”.

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I’ve also done IRL actual negotiations with the manager at my local Avis counter. He’s a ninja in “command-line Avis” and can absolutely handle “make an offer” situations. In that scenario, I still negotiate based on daily (or weekly/monthly) payments, not based on what Avis paid for the car.

The only place I’ve ever seen suggest that you should negotiate things based on what the dealer is buying the car for is realcarbuyingtips.com

Using known deal details, such as market based selling prices normalized for individual lease situations, is not establishing your target deal based off of what someone is buying the car for. It may be using baselines like msrp as a means of contextualizing the numbers, but it isn’t a broad stroke “I’ll always only give them 1.2% over their triple 0 cost.”

This whole “Avis paid x for the car, I don’t negotiate based on that” is a strawman argument.

I’m sure if you knew that Jimmy at the next counter over got upgraded to an SUV for $20/day, you would make you real life negotiations based on that, not just “I think $35/day sounds like a good price for an upgrade, don’t you?”

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Not to support either side of this argument as it way to convoluted to follow, but there is a way to not know shit about a deal and still land pretty close to a deal. That is go into marketplace, assume that those deals already survived all the data scrutiny, then call the nearest dealership and ask for exactly that on das and monthly basis. Depending on the market situation that may actually work and you’ll be roughly where the LH marketplace would lend you. If the customer is not concerned with equity or anything else, they wouldn’t care at that point how the numbers are structured, as long as das and monthly are what they wanted.

But I just don’t see why someone with the broker tag would promote this way of thinking.

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Yah, that may work, as long as all the deal details are directly applicable to you, and there isn’t any change in incentives, credit, taxes, etc. You’re rolling the dice that the numbers are appropriately normalized, and if not, you may be leaving significant amounts of money on the table (or asking for a price that’s so far away from reality that you’ll get laughed out of the dealership).

Throw a dart in a dark room and you’ll occasionally hit the dart board. Doesn’t make throwing darts in the dark a good strategy.

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For vacations, I usually just accept a market-based price. Shop Avis vs Enterprise vs Alamo, vs whoever. The advertised only prices and “compare” sites allow me to see where the market is at.

For local rentals, these are usually for business, and I usually have a fixed amount of $ I can spend on car rental that I can bill to the customer, before I have to go out-of-pocket.

For this, I usually need to get a bunch of printouts, and then go to my local counter, and do an actual in-person negotiation.

For example, say I need to rent a Ford Expedition or Suburban.

So I go online and get some quotes.
Online will say something like:

Expedition, I could drive to the closest and rent it for $2000 for 1 month.
I could drive to the next closest airport and rent it for $1500 for 1 month, but that one is further away.
Then I see my local guy, has it listed for $2200 for 1 month via the Avis website.

So I roll into the Avis and I say, hey, Mr. Manager, I have 2 comps here that are cheaper than yours. I can save $500 by driving 40 mins away or $700 by driving 90 minutes away. Can you close the gap? And so, he comes back at $1600 for 1 month of the Expedition, and I am happy, as it is among the lowest prices I could find, but also with the minimal work.

It really is the exact same interaction I had when I leased an Ioniq EV for my mother.