It will most definitely introduce more confusion and make life harder for mods and also create more threads asking for #s to be explained.
I agree with the above that folks need to understand the calculator and make their offers based on the output. Let the dealer find a way to get there.
No one needs to be concerned with how the sausage is made as long as the right sausage comes out at the end.
I believe that putting in big bold text next to the output would help:
If your monthly payment does not match the dealer, your inputs are wrong
Personally it annoys me when people post about how a dealers calculation is wrong, they argued with them, bla bla bla. Literally every single time they have incorrect inputs. And it goes back to a basic misunderstanding of how a lease is calculated and what the inputs are. THAT, IMO, is the problem. Adding more outputs and more complexity is not going to fix that. If you can’t calculate rent charge by hand, you haven’t learned enough to make all of these outputs actually useful.
That said, I would like to see a basic breakdown of the payment in the calculator. E.g. base payment $X, rent charge $X, taxes $X. I think this would be useful. Just like how the DAS is broken out.
I don’t understand how or why people think that a calculator will give the “right answer” if they type the wrong numbers into it, but this seems to be a common issue 
We already have a Leasing 101 guide for how to read a lease contract. My opinion is that if you don’t understand how the numbers are calculated in a contract or even what they are and cannot double check them, you shouldn’t be signing it in the first place.
Having a program similar to what dealerships use, that would allow you to create model deals, and learn how deals get structured, would be awesome. Seems like it would be different, or out of scope, for the calculator.
For the calculator a simple “information” button next to the number showing how the calculator got there, would the trick. I would consider expanding on the information buttons, and maybe add a few more. So, under the pretax monthly for instance, you could put an information button showing the calculation detail, and also link it to the calculate by hand page detail. Helpful, interactive learning for the non finance peeps. 
There is nothing needed that the current calculator doesn’t show to put together a target deal with all the information required to communicate it.
The issue that I have here is that the value added by this information to someone that can’t already get it is negative. The only thing it will serve to do is further confuse and complicate things.
Agreed. That is why I mentioned it as “out of scope” and “different”. However, personally, I would not mind having access to something like that, as a modeling tool, or for interactive learning. I think it could have some value. Again though different than the calculator here, and I would not confuse, or intermingle the two.
With the understanding that everyone doesn’t learn things the same way (wife is visual, and gets lost in text, preferring video, for example), I think a well-thought,produced video presenting the info Matt and Chris have already collated (bang-up job to you both!) would go a long way to demystifying the contract, and could be linked in the Calc page.
TBH probably the most common mistake is assuming the dealer is using buyrate.
Second is taking the advertised price off their website and not taking any embedded purchase-only incentives out.
This covers easily 99.9% of mismatched calculators. None of these are helped by having more details, except maybe having the expected rent charge to compare.
@michael is the pretty face of LH videos 
but yes that’s a good idea. He already did a calculator video.
The problem I see is that people misuse the calculator due to not really understanding how a lease is calculated, and instead of understanding/learning/asking - they insist that their incorrect calculation is right and the dealer is wrong. This issue is 100% avoidable by just entering the simple info correctly.
Agree on all counts. Just that ‘watch this vid’ may be more effective than ‘read How To Use LH Calc’ and ‘read Leasing 101’ as endless copypasta responses. The two topics are intertwined enough that I think (optimist) a well-crafted vid would be a knockout punch to a lot of the recurring issues.
You need to be able to calculate the lease payment you want and the lease payment the dealer gives you. Once you call the dealer out on their lies, it can go either way.
While I like your idea, it won’t help bridge the gap, in my experience. As I detailed in the “ridiculous replies” thread, I had one Finance person, even after showing him all manual calculations, to which he agreed had all correct inputs, say that the output was wrong, but couldn’t tell me why or how and wouldn’t show me his own calculations. So, if you have to get to that point in the negotiations, it ain’t gonna work out. IMHO, they are trying to pull something and don’t want you to look behind the curtain.
I could, however, see some value in sending it with your original proposal, I suppose. But, really, is it that hard to just type out a few numbers? My proposals are all rather straightforward: “using .0xxx MF, XX% RV, sale price of $xx,xxx, incentives of $XXX, I arrive at a payment of $xxx, including NJ tax and title/reg fees, with only first month paid at signing.”
Please see my above story. And I’m not exactly new to this. And I did get the deal from another dealer using the same calculations.
That’s fine, you’re the 0.1%. And as you know - just move on if the dealer is playing a shell game.
That’s why I stick to monthly payment/DAS only. No point getting into the weeds IMO. If they ask I tell them, but otherwise, let them play with their inputs to get my output.
I disagree. The reoccurring issues usually aren’t a result of someone taking the time to process the instructions, it’s that they don’t put any effort into actually following instructions. Something more hands off certainly won’t help that.
This’s been discussed many times before and I think DAS and monthly works best. Once you start talking to dealer about how they mark up m.f. etc., they get really defensive and usually outcome is not good.
Just looking for ways to turn that around, I think a wall of text might be the issue. Youtube vids certainly (and expeditiously) helped me understand and complete EIDL and PPP grants and loans for my business, with the only reading towards ‘fine print’ to make sure it meant what I was being told it meant, as I applied. Had you given me a wall of text to navigate those issues, I likely would not have ‘put any effort’ into either. And I consider myself a ‘book learner’, since it’s easier to search/refer, especially online, much tougher buried in some vid somewhere. I sometimes had to watch a vid 2-3 times to finally put the puzzle together.
I think it may be more ‘hands on’ in some way, as in the vid follows the instructions for you, leaving you to simply comprehend. It’s like a formatting issue…a few minutes of concise description on a topic versus a series/walls of text. I may be making more out of it than it’s worth, though.
edit: indeed, your interaction yesterday got me thinking about this, and inspired my meme-within-meme art piece entitled ‘LH Abacus’:
Dealer’s wrong meme-check
Manually create your deal meme-check (abacus)
Inputs off meme-check
because blue pill is easier than red pill meme-check
hilarity ensues-not so much
I added the breakdown for the monthly payment on the calculator. I hope the addition would help those who are eager to learn better understand the composition of each payment. For seasoned hackrs, the breakdown might help to troubleshoot the non-matching dealer quotes. I made the breakdown a collapsible field – only for those who are interested.
I really like it. Great job!!
That is sick ! Thank you
100% Agreed, Always works. No need to waste your own time or a dealers time going through all the technicalities. At the end of the day, if you are achieving your worked out deal, that’s all that matters.