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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I really like it. Great job!!
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.
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This is excellent, and I think very helpful! 
The new calc details are great, so I won’t dogpile but couldn’t agree more with the buy rate comment.
I think some people see a MF that inherently looks small like .00093 and they think it can’t have THAT much impact. However that 40bps markup could be well over a $50 monthly increase on a $75K car.
People get too focused on the discount % and forget the number with a bunch of zeros. When in reality a 10% discount with a .00093 MF is essentially the same thing as a 12% discount with a 40bps markup.
If you asked most newcomer which is the better deal, I would venture to guess 80% would say the 12% discount, which is why the lease 101 info is so important.
I’d take 12% at .00133 vs 10% at .00093 if given the choice.
Interesting.
The 12% discount and marked up MF yield a higher monthly, albeit by a few dollars…
Point being is that just because it has a decimal and zeros in front of it doesn’t mean it has a small impact on the payment
It’s essentially the same, but the larger discount instantly gives you more equity in the vehicle should you want to buy out/sell. That advantage closes as you approach lease maturity, but any time you can get a higher mf with a commensurate discount, it puts you in a stronger position.
But yes, I agree that the impact of the mf isn’t trivial.
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