Idk why everyone is way over complicating this. It’s not that hard to just say hey, look into Volvo, they have a good Costco rebate. That’s it. That doesn’t take anyone’s “hard work” or time.
Why help each other out?.. This site can just be a place for brokers to post their deals and other people to post their horrible deals where then they get ridiculed and they try to defend it.
But never mind. Just lock this post. I thought this site was supposed to help in people getting their own deals. But it’s clear that it’s just people wanting to monetize themselves getting deals.
There in lies the big issue. This is suppose to be a resource to help people get their deals. Where heads start butting is when people want others to put in all the legwork so to get their deal. I can’t count the number of times someone has asked for an evaluation of a deal and got upset when they were told that they needed to go gather the rest of the data and wonder why we wouldn’t just do it for them.
A thread like what is being suggested here feels the same way to me. It’s moving further away from the “teach a man to fish” baseline that is being a resource for people to learn to get great deals and closet to “give a man a fish.” Well, maybe more of “give a man a fully cooked fish dish, then cut it into bite size pieces and feed it to him”
Probably because it’s not as simple as you make it seem. Just knowing 1 piece of a deal is still not enough info. When that Costco rebate became available and known, there was a thread about it. Do we really need to make another thread to list that info again?
I feel folks are taking this suggestion to personally. It’s an idea that may or may not Be viable long term, however I believe it’s a very nice premise. There is no reason to overcomplicate it, to have a forum that informs others which cars / companies are having aggressive rebates/ residuals for the month ,can only be a positive. It is not meant to be a guarantee for a super high discount off of MSRP, nor is it a guarantee that your individual trim level is included in model incentives., or a guarantee that your region is covered by the aggressive incentives.It would be a baseline information center, that could only help , with little to no downside. I would certainly contribute , and my guess is it would become one of the more popular threads
I’d think the biggest problem with this thread is folks (like me) will get so hung up on missed opportunities from past months, and will wind up running in circles chasing their tails to replicate them.
That is not necessarily true. If you want to find some good deals without having to do research, look at some of the broker offerings. There have been some amazing deals being offered to LH members in exchange for (at most) a small broker fee.
A “unicorn” is given that title because it is simply that. A one-off deal that is highly unlikely to be replicated. I wouldn’t let a read-through of the Trophy Garage posts lead you to believe that these kinds of deals are the norm, but rather a dedicated place of showing the benefits on putting work into finding a good deal.
Unfortunately over time this forum has been less about helping each other and teaching how to get a good deal into brokers advertising their deals like you mentioned.
This forum used to be a great resource to learn but over time the replies are just “use the search bar, get a broker, etc… etc…”
For someone new to the site that can be confusing and overwhelming. New users just get ridiculed and told to use a broker.
Nobody wants to help anymore or “teach”, but rather monetize their ability to get a good deal.
I’ve never personally used a broker nor have needed to. I’ve been in this forum for a long time now, and over time learned what I needed to but this forum is definitely shifting into a more broker oriented group.
This is true to some extent, but broker deals have gotten so good that it has just become to go-to recommendation for someone that is completely lost in the process or is asking to be spoon-fed information. I try my best to help, but it can be difficult when people ask “What discount should I get?”. Fortunately, brokers rarely jump into a thread telling them that they can beat whatever price that was quoted, which keeps the forum at an equilibrium. Also, the broker fees help to make this forum possible, as running the back end is not free.
A lot of great and active discussion comes from threads created with the OP understands pricing, lease deal structuring, and how to find most of this information on their own and needs some help or another pair of eyes to make sure that they are not getting screwed.
New users that demonstrate that they only want to be spoon-fed get told to use a broker. New users that demonstrate that they have an interest in learning usually aren’t (other than perhaps a passing comment of “if you don’t want to take the time to deal with all this, here is another option.”)
I think we all agree that the primary purpose of this place is for sharing information so people can learn and approach the leasing process from the strongest standpoint possible. I’ve learned a ton being here and try to share as much of that with new people as I can. As the community grows and awareness that this place exists, however, we get a lot more traffic from those just looking for an easy solution. I agree that there are new people that we are short with. The vast majority of the time, those are people that have logged on, avoided doing any reading or searching, and just post asking for someone to do everything for them. I go out of my way to not only help new people that ask reasonable questions, but to also thank those that demonstrate they took the time to help themselves and do some reading first. If we treat this as a place where people come to learn to fish, then we can help people grow their understanding. If we just do the work for them, no one learns. It doesn’t do them any favors and it doesn’t so us any favors.
I think the idea of this thread isn’t bad in concept. It’d make for some interesting cliff notes for those that already understand the basics. The issue I think many have is that it is basically setting up an all you eat buffet for fish. All it’s doing is streamlining the spoon-feeding we are trying to get away from.
Where else on the internet can you search and find (for instance): which brands allow you to residualize PIOs, dealer installed options, or wheel upgrades?
Where else are they discussing non-captive leasing (eg US bank and Ally)?
Where are they discussing credit bureaus and scoring models, and how you get A Tier financing?
AND if it’s been detailed in the past three months, why is it such a chore to search for it here like you would any search engine? By the way, most of the time I check the entire Internet for more answers to questions like that, they come back here.
Great discussion here. I used to do front page articles similar to what folks here are describing. Here are some examples:
Ultimately I’ve stopped writing them because: 1) they were very time consuming, 2) they assumed a certain discount (i.e., “dealer contribution”) that was not precise and highly variable and dependent on numerous factors like region, inventory, time, etc., and 3) lease programs alone (i.e., RV, MF, incentives) are arguably no longer the primary determinant for how good a deal is.
Back in 2015 and 2016, this was a plausible exercise because GM had crazy conquest incentives, VW was fresh off Dieselgate and discounting across the board, and some captives had unrealistic residuals (~70%+ for 24 months), and this resulted in huge variation between brands and models. I don’t see this anymore.
Whether it’s a Genesis or a Mercedes or a Lexus or even an Audi (of “Audis don’t lease well” fame), the programs for high-volume cars are all about the same IMO with few exceptions. It’s less vehicle dependent and more about the dealer discount (i.e., how much money they are willing to lose on a unit) and conditional incentives that you may qualify for (e.g., loyalty, conquest, healthcare hero).
So when I’m searching for deals, I now go on the Marketplace and browse offers from dealers and brokers. These are actual deals, not hypothetical calculations that generate unrealistic expectations for someone halfway across the country (as my old articles would do). The benefit of this platform is that these deals are all pretty good – otherwise the commentariat will point it out – and they do still indicate which models can lease well (assuming your individual circumstances match those in the offer).
From a ten minute browse of the Marketplace, I’ve found…
$106K BMW M4 CS for $662/mo in CA
Volvo S60 from $209/mo in the Northeast
BMW 330i for $297/mo in OH
Porsche Macan for $539/mo in the Northeast
Honda Pilot for $280/mo in FL
$30K Subaru Outback for $225/mo in Northeast
$77K Audi e-Tron for $549/mo in CA
Nissan Murano for $212/mo
Grand Cherokee Overland for $318/mo in Northeast
Audi A6 for $399/mo in CA
$90K Lexus LX 570 for $672/mo in Northeast
Just from that, I got a pretty good understanding of “what cars lease good” based on location and other criteria. (I would love a S60 for $209/mo but that’s simply not gonna happen in CA.)
All in all, I’m not opposed to a “monthly cars to hack” thread – it would be helpful indeed. But I think the fact there are 59 replies to this thread, and no one has taken it on, is telling.
