I like where this is going!
Soooo, the way I understood your complaint, it wasn’t about it being absolutely impossible to get the data, but rather that it’s inconvenient and you have to click too many times and wait for too many page loads to get to it. I also looked at the usage stats and found a large bounce rate of users on both home and model pages, which often means they’re disgusted or confused.
Connected the dots, and thought I should make things a bit simpler.
However, putting everything on one page wouldn’t be good from the SEO point of view, and I would also like to add some ability to see and compare data for multiple trims, instead of one-by-one. So, I took a slightly different approach.
That’s what I ended up with:
- On the home page there is now a shortcut: you can choose model/brand/location and go directly to the mode’s page instead of filtering and scrolling. Here’s what it looks like:
https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/kokajambo/search.jpg
- On the model page there is now a table of trims with msrp, rv, mf, etc fields. When you select a trim, and calculator/incentives are updated. Screenshot:
https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/kokajambo/leasedeal.jpg
Does this looks closer to what you had in mind?
Bring more suggestions and concerns please
Also, for the brave ones who are going to view leasefindr on their phones - brace yourself, scrolling is coming. If you come up with a clever idea about how to squeeze the whole trims table into the tiny phone screen - please share.
@JJD might have something to suggest here…
Boom, much better! 20char
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You can split the model year and trims into 2 separate fields to make it shorter. It adds a step, but maybe if you add a default of the latest model year you have in the DB, you’ll save that step to most users.
E.g. a user selects Maker=Subaru and model=Forester in NorCal. The next page will show a drop down for model year with 2018 already selected, and below that another drop down menu populated with only 2018 trims. -
Within the same model year (e.g. BMW X5, you have only 2017 values), I think that your approach is good. It shows 5 trims nicely on an iPhone 7 screen.
Have you ever thought about listing the top few cars that are leasing at the best value? I classify value as the lowest monthly payment against the highest MSRP.
A few years ago the website RideWithG use to do that and was always a good gage of what a good deal vs. great/hacked deal was.
Yeah, on the main page they are sorted by: MSRP, divided by the effective monthly payment (monthly payment + down payment / duration).
It’s not explicitly stated, because I actually don’t think that it shows the best value. So far I haven’t came up with a better solution though…
I’ve been wanting to separate the production year from the trim for a while, to be honest. I didn’t think of it at the very beginning, and now I’m kind of scared to mess with the db structure, it’s probably going to cause a bug avalanche. But I’ll have to get to it eventually
Technical debt already?? 
The lease formula visual is very nice. Great work!
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FYI…
I’m told FCA Dec leases are 27 months, not 24. WA state MF .00022, residual at 12K miles 58%. Different than your #s.
If pressing top button:“The requested URL /lease-deals/Alfa Romeo-STELVIO/ was not found on this server.”
Thanks for catching it! Just fixed.
This is interesting.
For FCA brands, I’m getting my data from the dumbest source - reverse-engineering calculators on manufacturers’ websites. And FCA calculators don’t even have the 27 months option at all…
Also, MFs and (espacially) RVs vary a lot between models/trims/locations etc. The “usual” MF has been 0.00193 for a couple of months now.
What model did you get your numbers for?
Stelvio Ti Sport. Asked for 24 months, was provided info for 27 months, 12K miles. In WA I think the incentives/rebates were $3500. (not $3750. as in the other states you show).
Thanks.
PS: If I want to adjust the cap cost for a discount off of MSRP, do you suggest that I just put that amount in Cap Cost reduction field? Or, is there a field that I ought to be using to enter the negotiated price? (I’m on Safari browser, which may be an issue.)
Yeah, just put in the Down Payment field for now, it should be still accurate.
However, If you add extra incentives to the Down Payment field, it won’t calculate the taxes for them.
There are more UI updates I’ll be rolling out soon, that will make this stuff more convenient.
About the incorrect mf/rv/incentive issue - looking at it right now.
Down payment (CCR) should be taxed (at least in CA), so you should probably have different fields for dealer discount and CCR/taxes incentives.
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So, I made some changes, and now there are fields in the calculator that can be edited (when it makes sense). Edits are recorded in url, and will be picked up again when you copy-paste it.
For example:
Assuming that you negotiated sale price to 40K, with 0 down it should look like this:
https://leasefindr.com/lease-deals/Alfa_Romeo-STELVIO/?state=WA&trim=2018_Stelvio_Ti_Sport_AWD&salePrice=40000&mf=0.00022&rv=58&customIncentives=3500&downPayment=0&customDuration=27&mileage=12000
I’ll make those urls shorter in the future
I’m thinking about adding another field “Due at signing” that would show (down payment + acquisition fee)*(1 + tax rate).
Also, at this moment I’m rolling taxes on incentives into the monthly payments. I’m not sure if it’s a right way to do it, and I’m not sure if it’s allowed in all states. Could you experienced folks please give me some guidance about it?
didn’t think that couple of days will take more than a month.
Volvo is back: https://leasefindr.com/?brand=Volvo
Should be accurate this time.
I used numbers from this thread as a benchmark, they matched.
PS: Leasefindr’s numbers also match monthly payments from a calculator on Volvo’s website, if you add $695 to a sale price. It’s the acquisition fee, that Volvo’s calculator rolls into the monthly payments.