Lexus RZ early buyout

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1

Hey guys, I’m looking into leasing a Lexus RZ450 to take advantage of the $15,000 lease credit. My dealer is taking $7,500 off MSRP and applying the lease credit so effectively $22,500 off of $67k.

Lexus MF is high and monthly payments still in the $700-800 range with no money down. My question is, could I start a lease and buy it out right away (within a few months)? If I do this, would I just be paying residual, taxes and fees, and depreciation? As I understand, I wouldn’t be paying the monthly taxes or rent charge during a buyout.

Any help would be appreciated. I don’t normally lease so everything is new to me. And I know the car has low range and doesn’t have great reviews, but it needs my needs and id consider it a good deal for $45k. Thanks!

2

Please take a look at the used pricing on the RZ around you, in my zip they already retail for low to mid $40k range for very low mileage used ones. I would absolutely not want to own any EV due to unpredictable depraticiaon, especially the RZ due to its lackluster range. It is a good value as a lease, but you might lose significant amount of money on it if you purchase it with the intention of selling it in the next 1-2 years…

3 Likes
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Yes. Best to do it within the first month.

You would owe something very close to your adjusted cap cost on the lease:

MSRP
Less discount
Less incentive
Plus:

  • acq fee
  • any reg or upfront tax you chose to roll in
4

Isn’t PA one of the state which require the buy out to be processed by the dealer and the dealer will add some fees to process it?

5

That sounds pretty normal considering the effective new price is $45k.

All of that is not really relevant to someone who doesn’t lease, ie holds their vehicle long term.

Would love to see any evidence that 6+ year depreciation is meaningfully worse than any other mid $40s ICEV crossover like an X1, GLA, QX50, etc.

The value proposition as a $700+ lease is terrible. Hard pass on leasing one for 3 years.

TLDR lease to buy it out immediately, otherwise forget this car.

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6

Some fees wouldn’t be the end of the world if I’m able to secure the $15,000 lease rebate

7

I disagree, I passed up on a $485/month+tax with $485+tax plus MSDs DAS deal at the end of the year with similar $7.5k discount and $15k lease cash at the end of last month for a 27/7.5k lease on an RZ. It is a great lease value but I would not hold onto an EV with 196 mile of range long term. You can look at Nissan Leaf values if you want data around deprecation on low-range EVs. In my opinion, it is too risky to own an EV (especially a low range one like the RZ), I would gladly pay extra money to dump the deprecation risk to the captive.

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I’m not sure if that’s applicable to the OP if that was a December Hail Mary and/or included an extra $5k from Colorado

9

This gets asked a couple times a week. Lots of related discussion if you search, e.g.

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Nope, this offer has been on the table for me the last 2-3 months and I kept asking for more, which they would not agree. I am fairly confident, they would still offer this deal, RZ units are not moving. Also the quote I shared is not factoring in the $5k CO state refund.

OP has pretty much the same deal with the only difference being they have a higher MSRP Luxury trim car versus my RZ was a lower spec Premium car.

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Before I got my benz, I was trying to get lexus Rz as well n buy it out asap. I found out I have to process the buyout at the dealer n it will add $1-2k on dealer fees.

12

Why did you have to process the buyout at the dealer?

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In some states, including PA, you have to process buyouts at the dealer. I assume the dealers lobby is responsible for this law/rule.

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14

PA doc fee is capped at $399 iirc

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15

Not sure about that, a local newspaper made a story about this. One Kia dealer charged $1k to process the buyout.

16

I wasn’t sure whether to revive an old thread or start a new one, but I’ve been eyeballing the RZ with the new 2025 prices. It seems like a solid deal to me… MSRP for a RZ450e around mid $50k with $18,500 lease cash offers. A used 2023 RZ300e is around $35k right now.

I guess people think the problem is that in 2 years, a 2025 RZ won’t be worth $35k, but even if it’s worth only $25k in 2027, wouldn’t that have ended up alright (not the greatest, but it’s not a huge loss/cost)? Am I missing something on the general math, other than just that the EV market is unpredictable?

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There are tons of better EV deals

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Doesn’t matter what the msrp or lease cash offer is. What matters is how much DAS & Monthly. For that reason, there are better ev lease deals out there. It doesn’t help that Lexus RZ, while it’s interior is nice, its ev capability is on the lower side compare to other ev in its category.

19

If you purchase a lease mid way through the contractor you only have to pay the residual? So if I lease a car today (just using numbers here) for $500/ month and I leased in Jan 2025 for 36 months and I want to buy the car in April 2025. I can buy the residual price which was 30k? I only pay the 30k. What happens to the 500x~30months remaining?

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You will need to log into your account and see what’s the payoff amount is. That amount is your current residual, not the residual at the end of your lease.