Asked the dealers to beat it. Only a handful were willing to play ball.
Visit the 1st dealer. Got 36/15k quotes at 1%.
Took the quotes to a 2nd dealer to work out the numbers on a car with the color I wanted.
Called a 3rd dealer during negotiations to see if they can beat the 2nd dealer.
Decided to sign at the 2nd dealer since the difference per month was less than $5.
At the end of the day, the dealers willing to play ball all had similar price floors and wouldn’t budge beyond a certain point.
Note: The 36 month lease is certainly the sweet spot on this car as I was given deals that beat the 1% benchmark, at 15k miles year.
PM me if you want a referral to a dealer who can get you a similar or better deal. I can also help you negotiate a deal for a “donation” of whatever you wish.
Thank you LeaseHacker community for letting me know about the $4,000 cash rebate!
For anyone else looking at these cars, also check out the Fiat 124 Spider, which is built on the same architecture in the same factory as the MX-5. I’ve seen some great dealer discounts on the Fiat, but I don’t know how the RV and MF compare.
It’s just that your monthly payments are <1% of the MSRP. Its a very general rule - there’s a lot more that goes into seeing whether something is a good deal or not
Not sure! Total cost of ownership on the MX-5 is slightly under $5k per year. My MB C300 total cost of ownership is about $4.3k per year but LH score was 16.1. I know the calculator only factors in lease specifics but there’s room for improvement.
The 36/15k offers I got were at 1%. I assume the 36/12k offers are well below 1% due to the added 2% residual. I decided to go with 24/15k because it works better for my situation.
What jananth1 said. 1% rule is just a general rule of thumb. I prefer to benchmark against total cost of ownership between my different leases to judge the quality of a lease.
Congrats! I got the same car (Machine Gray with red top) except with a manual transmission. Your discount was much greater — looks like I could have saved $2,000 had I tried harder and cast a wider net. What kind of Leasehackr am I…
Your post paved the way for the rest of us, so thank you!
I’m hoping to see deals with bigger discounts the closer we get to the $4k rebate expiration. I contemplated waiting to the last day but no time to hack onsite during a weekday.
Sure is a blast to drive! Feels like a go-kart with the top down.
Unless you live in a sunny state, where you can drive the car year-long, I’m wondering if waiting until end of the summer to get a lower monthly lease really saves you money as you will have very little driving time until next year while you are still paying the monthly lease. At least for me, in the North East, since it is a third car to be used mostly for summers, leasing didn’t make sense, especially not at the end of summer. Of course, this is not the case if you are in Florida or California.
As far as I can tell, the good (i.e. .00001 or .00014 MF) MX-5 soft top leases are only available in Florida and California anyway, so that makes it easy. It’s very rare to see a low MF on the MX-5. I’m assuming they only did it where they had especially large amounts of inventory to burn through.
I just got notice from Maita Mazda in Sacramento, CA is offering $8,000 off MSRP on their four Miatas! Now I wish I did wait until the day before the $4k rebate expired.
