Moving to Louisiana Baton Rouge first week of July.
Looking to lease in order to have a reliable car with out the high interest rates and payments of buying.
I went into the process wanting to leave an EV or Plug in hybrid so I could get the tax credit and after seeing the insurance hike for EV, I thought plug-in would be more realistic. Though now I am finding there are essentially none in Louisiana.
I have been solely looking at Toyotas, I trust Honda and Suberu’s build quality but Toyota has the most affordable EV/ Plug in Hybrids. I am having trouble settling on a single car to focus on and reach out to multiple dealers about due to lack of availability.
Since youtubing, looking at this forum and the subreddit version, my dream lease would be less than 300 a month and $0 down. Honestly I can barely afford that on my income I will be making as a graduate student.
I began the process of emailing but am thinking I should wait until a week before I get there and organize multiple appointments with their quotes in mind and go in to negotiate.
I have been emailing with one sales person and when I brought up just one piece of negotiation, to remove the “optional” accessories (as it said in the quote), she said that was not able to be removed as it was installed in the factory.
main questions:
Should I give up on the idea of a plug in hybrid? Is there one that is kept in stock that by July I could use the tactic of emailing multiple dealers and having them negotiate over each other? Or is that a pipe dream, even though I saw it recommended on one of the 101 articles on Lease Hacker?
I can not find anyone discussing Louisiana leasing on lease hacker? is there something I am misunderstanding?
When reaching out, I get messed up with what I should and should not come forward with right off the bat. I saw Car Edge on youtube say you ONLY debate the MSRP and do not talk about the monthly, but then at what point do you begin arguing that?
Over email, they don’t see my credit score (FICO 780) so how could they give me a real offer with out seeing that?
-Is my FICO even good since I have never loaned or leased a car before? Am I just screwed on getting a lease because of this?
TLDR: I have a lot of questions and would very much appreciate guidance on filling in the blanks of my research on how to do all this. Any guidance is appreciated.
I would suggest getting a used car which is the path I took during my graduate studies. With the leases, there are a lot of other fees you often get stuck with like higher registration, higher insurance, etc. Could be riskier given you might not have the emergency funds required to take this much liability. $300 a month might be a little low of a payment to obtain too and would require some hunting. Buying a used car while you are a student and then selling it at the end of your studies has a minimal cost as opposed to leasing. During my studies I bought a used car, drove it for 50k miles and then sold it for a $500 more than the price I bought it for.
These are all cars that finance well. People keep them for a long term. Their leases are not that attractive. I would suggest looking into cars that actually lease well.
Depends. Why do you need a plug in hybrid to begin with?
MSRP is fixed by the manufacturer, You cannot change that. You can negotiate the sale price. This is a good place to start. Get all the pre-incentive dealer discount negotiated before moving to MF and no hidden accessories/costs.
Just assume you have the top tier FICO score while negotiating.
Insurance in Louisiana is very high, regardless of what kind of car you’re driving. As others have said, just get a beater. It’ll be a lot easier for you.
My thought with leasing was to have a in place payment that when/if something went wrong with the car (outside of accidents), it would be serviced in the cost of what I payed monthly.
My fear with staying in what I am used to is getting a beater that then breaks down on me and I once again have to dump a ton of money into it to keep having a car, where a lease I could have a cost I pay each month that gives me stability.
What makes a lease more of a liability than a beater that I buy outright?
Thank you for your detailed response, it is very much appreciated.
That you are you paying for depreciation at the steepest part of the curve and will have nothing to show for it at the end of the lease. Decreased flexibility in terms of getting rid of the car “early,” if needed.
If income is an issue, is public transport + supplementing w/ ridesharing a viable option? No need to deal w/ insurance or maintenance costs, either.
What you’re looking for most likely doesn’t exist.
If you want you can convince yourself that a little higher payment and a little more down and having it shipped from the Marketplace makes sense.
However when all is said and done you’re probably looking at $15,000+ spent over 3 years just on payments and due to the insurance requirements on leases maybe an additional $6-7000 on insurance.
By choosing wisely you can greatly reduce the possibility of that happening.
You will have to do the math yourself to see if it makes sense for you financially.
Option 1: Lease a new car. Pay for higher registration, insurance with comprehensive, etc. This could all easily be over $15k for 3 years.
Option 2: Buy a beater. Pay just the liability insurance, maintenance and fixes. Then sell it after you are done using it.
My beater last me 4 years and I had to put around $2k on it for fixes, maintenance, and new tires. I got 50k miles out of it and sold it for $500 more than I bought it for (covid inflated the prices).
