I currently lease a 2019 Nissan Altima SR. I would like to do a lease buyout as there’s about $3K of positive equity in the car right now. NMAC of course doesn’t allow 3rd party buyouts, and according to them, because they’re only a finance company, they don’t sell the car directly to the lessee. You have to go through a Nissan or Infiniti dealer to process a bill of sale.
I’ve secured my own loan on a 3 year term with an interest rate I am good with, but I’m finding so far that many dealers won’t help me because I won’t finance through them or buy a new car from them. I’m not asking them to facilitate the buyout for free. I understand there’s gonna be a doc fee or some sort of lease buyout fee. I understand the dealership has to make money some how. But I’m just not financing with them.
One dealer did offer me .5% better on an interest rate, but the term was for 60 months and I don’t want 60 months. Also tried to package a 7 year, 100,000 mile warranty in there, which I also don’t need or want. If NMAC won’t sell the buyout directly to me, and dealers won’t facilitate it because I’m not financing with them, what’s a fella to do? Any advice? Am I making things too complicated by choosing not to finance with the dealer?
I didn’t have any immediate intentions to resell the car once the buyout was completed. A possibility in the future, but that’s not necessarily the end goal right now.
they must have changed their rules on not allowing buyouts. I had a lease with them back in August and sent NMAC a payoff and waited approx. 2 months to get the title. They did allow direct buyout from the leasee. check your NMAC account and click on payoff amount - use the chat feature and ask them where to send the amount to. Hopefully you will get a different answer.
So, I did call NMAC to let them know what I was experiencing. They are currently escalating on their end and said they’d be in contact with me in 24-48 hours. From what I was told, I guess they’re trying to escalate to see, in this situation, if they’ll allow me to pay them directly. So I’ll see what they say. I know they definitely stopped allow 3rd party buyouts I believe on 5/1/21. Hopefully, it’s different if there is no 3rd party and I’m trying to buy it directly.
When I go to check my NMAC account, they do provide a payoff quote and payoff letter. But in the letter it states: "As a captive finance company, Nissan Infiniti LT cannot sell leased vehicles directly to our customers. The fastest way to get your title is to pay with a cashier’s check made payable to the Nissan dealership."
I suppose we’ll see what NMAC gets back to me with.
You’re in PA, I can reach out to a friend whos a manager at a central PA Nissan dealer if you’d like to see if they’d do a buyout just for the dealer fee of four hundred something. @aronchi may also be able to help with a buyout I’m sure through his dealer.
From the article: “warning them against some practices that put the brand’s reputation at risk.”
Think the ship has sailed on that one. I think we are going to see many more of these posts with different brands of dealers, as more leasing customers try to buy at the end of their terms.
If the 60 month term that the Nissan dealer is offering .5% better than your getting elsewhere than take the 60 month term and pay it off in 36 if you want. Lower interest costs and retain flexibility. I’d just work on getting the doc / processing fee as low as possible.
It’s rare to see a pre payment penalty on an auto loan but read the fine print first.
Now that you mention it, I would require Finance to highlight the prepayment clauses, as that would be one of the main reasons to even proceed with their financing in the first place.
Yeahhh, so this is what I meant when I asked if I was making things too complicated, or maybe being too stubborn to refuse the dealer financing. It was just so frustrating I guess. I had the cash in hand, and I just wanted to write a check and be on my way.
I guess the idea of having to apply for a 2nd loan was off-putting for me.
One of the first things they said to me, was there would be no prepayment penalty. They offered me a 60 month term, at 3.99%. I have a 36 month term through LightStream already and that’s at 4.49%. It’s probably even going to get paid off sooner than 36 months.
All of this being said, we didn’t even get to the finance office to look over the overall OTD cost. The 60 month term he offered included a 7 year, 100K mile warranty and I didn’t even get to see any of the other possible fees he’d try to tack on in that new loan they wanted me to get through them.
If your inclined, research a few Credit Union rates as well…even if you do have to finance it with the dealer option, perhaps re-finance at a credit union in a month or so…many in here mention DCU w/ rates less than your being quoted. PenFed and I’m sure a local one may be competitive as well.
It is frustrating, no doubt. I’d apply for a second loan any day of the week if it meant saving another .5 - 1% on the rate.
My thing is, I don’t really know if I’m looking at this as like a money making opportunity or anything. My end goal, is to get this car paid off as quickly as possible and not have a car payment anymore. Try and increase my monthly cash flow. Working remote now, I don’t drive nearly as much, and would expect to have this car for the next 5-7 years. The car is nice. It’s reliable. I like it. And that 2-5 years of no payments would be very nice lol.
But idk, like I said, I’m pretty new to shopping for cars (and I kind of hate it tbh). If there’s a better alternative to my end goal of having no car payments in 2-3 years, I’m not opposed to shopping new.
The financing structure has very little effect on your TCO (total cost of ownership).
Let’s say you spend $20k on the purchase option + taxes and fees, and in 1 year it’s worth $13k. You’ve spent $7,000 period. Whether you’re making payments or paid cash is a rounding error here.
This was the response from the dealer regarding the entire situation:
If they were fully ready to process the buyout at the numbers determined in the contract, with no stipulations on financing, and I was fully ready to make the purchase at said numbers using my own financing, how does a deal not get done? lmao
