My wife just got a job that requires her to commute to the Eastside of Seattle (25 miles per day). Looking for a lease for her that’s under $300.
Which cars would you recommend? These are our initial list:
She’s so used to driving my A5 that she hated the Mazda 3 when she drove it. But we’ll see how the rest goes. Ideally she would love an BMW X1 but not sure if that fits within our budget.
Jettas can be had around $200/mo so that shouldn’t be an issue.
Audis don’t lease very well in general compared to other brands.
If you want something more luxurious do a search for the recent 3 series and C class loaner lease deals posted on this forum. Many were sub $300/mo.
Yes what @305Hackr said ex c300 loaner ex 3 series loaner and ex x1 loaner if I were you I would extend my search to the Portland area also move fast because support for the 17 models end soon I believe
Sorry I’m a noob but what’s an ‘ex’ loaner?
It’s the cars they give you when you take your car for service or test drive cars they are not tittle so the are considered new for bmw try to find one under 5k miles because after 5k it takes a huge hit for Mercedes under 10k is the discount is good @28firefighter has some insight on the Seattle area because he was recently car shopping that area
Someone rang?
First, if you are new to leasing in general, I would read up on all the moving parts and read some of the threads on this board. You need to understand all of the moving parts before you can try to understand loaner leasing. Leasing is not for the uninformed, let alone trying to hack leasing on new or former loaner cars.
Second, Short answer is this: the loaner leasing game in Seattle is extremely difficult, but not impossible, if you have time, patience, and flexibility. It took me 4 months before I found my deal.
As @empirestate outlined, former loaners are cars the dealer used as courtesy cars or demos that have miles on them, but can be sold at a pretty significant discount due to the fact that they could have several thousand miles. You can search the forum for ways to identify a former loaner, but here in WA you can see in the carfax that it says “Dealer took title while in inventory.”
BMW loaners can be leased with new car rates and incentives, with the exception of OL code incentives and Fleet, if they have less than 5000 miles on the odometer. The residual value is reduced by $.25/mile for every mile over 500 that the car has on the odometer.
Mercedes loaners can be leased with new car rates and incentives if they have less 10,000 miles on the odometer. The residual value is reduced by $.20/mile for every mile over 3000 that the car has on the odometer. You can also still put down multiple refundable security deposits (MSD) to reduce your overall interest rate.
Here is the tough part:
(1) I highly doubt you will find a BMW loaner in your price range in the PNW. Just my experience over the last few months.
BMW Seattle is not an aggressive dealer in terms of deals. They generally do not discount their loaners that much. Occasionally you can catch a deal at BMW Bellevue, but as an autonation dealer, they do not haggle and will mark up the money factor. Therefore, you have to wait until they publicly reduce the price to a number you like and then you can go in for the kill.
You may have better luck down in Portland with Kuni or BMW Portland, but even they aren’t that aggressive in terms of discounts.
(2) Mercedes is a similar story. MB Lynnwood and MB Seattle are not volume dealers and will not discount. Your best shot in Seattle Metro is at Mercedes of Bellevue - they will discount their loaners pretty aggressively if you wait long enough - I ended up with a great deal from there, but there was no haggling at all except on the money factor. Your best shot for a quick deal is probably down in Portland with Wilsonville Mercedes or Mercedes of Beaverton. My thread is around here somewhere so you can read the details.
Happy to help with specific questions. You mentioned an Audi A3 in your PMs to me - Audi in general just does not lease competitively.
One last thing - lease support for 2017 BMWs and Mercedes could disappear at any time now. Move quickly if you see something priced competitively. If you get a quote from a dealer, you’re welcome to post it here and we can help you dissect it - just make sure you post all the relevant components of the deal (MSRP, Sale Price, Rebates, Term, Mileage, Money Factor, Residual etc.).
My friend just got a TLX base for about 319 after WA tax this past weekend.
Do you have any details on the original MSRP, sale price, etc? Was there any money brought upfront and, if so, how much?
Awesome bud great response very informative thanks for helping our fellow hackers
0 down. I believe he got it down to around 26k after discounts. Also 36/12k.
Sounds like a competitive sale price but not a super competitive lease relative to some of the other deals out there…probably at or near the 1% mark which is about as good as it gets on the TLX.
MSRP was around 34k, so definitely under the 1% mark even after tax. Plenty of deals on here, indeed.
If the dealers don’t negotiate much, why not just do a deal with a dealer in SoCal or NYC? Maybe even with a broker? Then ship the car over? From what you said it seems like you’d end up saving money this way.
I have done that. I have bought in Portland and I have bought in California and shipped to Seattle before. Shipping from the east coast mitigates any savings usually.
The other thing is that a lot of dealers, more than we realize, do not want to deal with the hassle of an out-of-state deal, shipping etc. It requires a lot of hunting and looking and negotiating, and even then, doesn’t end up a hackr worthy deal.
I’m not saying it is impossible. I’m saying it is a lot more challenging than a local deal.
Geez this sounds depressing. I’m moving from NYC to Seattle in a month and I’m not excited 
I guess I should try to pull a 15k lease and just drive it out there haha
If you’re going to need a new whip and want something hackr worthy (particularly from BMW, Mercedes etc.), lease it while you’re in NYC - for sure. You guys have access to some great brokers on the east coast - personally I’d be working with @nyclife.
That said, everything else about living in Seattle is pretty great. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you need any advice.
Everything there is amazing except the rent prices and that new sugared drink tax!
Is this still true in 2019? I saw some X3 loaners at BMW Seattle just under the 5k mark and I was wondering if it was even worth trying to make an offer.
If you don’t ask you don’t get. Don’t be surprised if they act insulted OR offer you 10% on a loaner with a max markup on the MF.
Good point. What do you know about Audi Seattle? I take my car in for service and I’ve talked to the internet manager, but I haven’t made an offer on anything yet (mostly because I’m preferring the X3 over the Q5)