Signed: 2021 GLE 350 4MATIC - MSRP $63828, $2500 DAS, 48/7.5k $807/mo

Found a loaner with the options I was looking for at my local dealership. Decent discount and some loyalty cash. Tier 2 credit currently, so the MF could have been better, but I needed a new vehicle as my '17 c300 was just not cutting it with a growing family.

Year, Make, Model, and Trim: 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLE 350 4MATIC
MSRP: $63828
Selling Price: $58465
Monthly Payment: $807
Drive-Off Amount: $2500
Months: 48
Annual Mileage: 7500
MF: 0.00215
Residual: 48%
Incentives: 1274.74
Region: Midwest (OH)
Leasehackr Score: 6.7 years
Leasehackr Calculator Link: Link

Why didn’t you just buy this? You’re paying 40k to lease a 63k SUV for 4 years

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Now this is not an example of bad market rather than bad mathematics

probably one of the worst leases i have ever seen!

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The comments are only helpful when you tell me how it could be better. I am new to this. Just saying that it is bad math doesn’t help me. Where could the “math” been improved? MF? Putting down MSDs? Wouldn’t my rate have been just as bad with a traditional loan given I am not in a great credit place.

The only way to find out what straight financing would be rate wise is to see what’s available. There isn’t a direct correlation between leasing mf and financing rates available.

Something like msds definitely would help here.

Ultimately, the real issue is that the lease programs on the gle are really rough. Even the “best” possible deal offers a really poor leasing value.

Some vehicles just make poor leasing candidates and no matter how hard you try to push that boulder up a hill, you’ll never get anywhere.

Yep, thanks for that. After some further browsing it looks like similar advise to buy the GLE has been given time and time again on here. It just doesn’t lease well. That is way more valuable a comment than, this is a terrible lease. When someone says this is bad math or a terrible lease, it makes it seem like it could be hacked. Which I don’t believe is the case on the GLE. You live and you learn.

Merc is notoriously horrible on the lease side, someone I know traded in a 2013 E class for like 10k and still pays 1100 a month on a 2020 E53 AMG. Not even the 63 lmao :joy:

I really don’t think you could have done much better by yourself, the brokers on here may have been able to assist you but I don’t know your region so can’t say

Op, you did ok. It’s a terrible lease with respect to how much it costs to finance the car.

But if you are set on leasing a GLE, in today’s market, there isn’t much room to wiggle for that car. I dont think anyone on the forum scores much better on GLE today.

This is a fine lease. Don’t pay attention to the people here who say things are a horrible lease without actual knowledge of the market or the car. You could have gotten a different car for less, but quite clearly you wanted to get a GLE. I do not own one but can confirm it is a great car based on experience.

To the point that you could have financed this… you still have the option to buy this at the end of the lease for the agreed upon residual. At worst, you will lose the bank fee which is about 1k. You are also minimizing the risk of the FMV of your car going down because of market forces or because of something negative on the carfax report.

Enjoy the car!

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And all the rent charge you pay due to that .00215 mf vs the likely much lower interest rate that could have been had.

Yes he/she could have gotten a better interest rate if it was financed. Could have also gotten a better interest rate with MSDs (not sure on the rules in OH). However, with the investment market today, he/she may be better off just investing the money separately rather than a large down payment or 10x MSDs.

This is, of course, completely irrelevant when discussing the cost comparison between leasing and financing, if you’re comparing them based on the same initial outflow.

The point is that the cost comparison is not as simple as just looking at the acquisition cost difference.

One needs to look at the differences in fees, the cost of financing, the differences in tax liability, etc

How likely would it be for them to leave the dealership with essentially no down payment and get a decent financing interest rate? Actual question - I have never financed.

Likely not that big of a deal

I have financed before with manufacturer supported 0% APR. When manufacturer didn’t have good finance support I brought in by own lender and the dealer gave me a better rate to finance through them. All with 0 down. As long as there is no down payment requirement from the lender it doesn’t matter to dealer how much you are putting down.

Discount is getting back to normal. And they have loyalty now?

I don’t think there is any loyal cash or lease cash available for any model other than S-class from MB since July 1st. This “loyal cash” is basically a dealer discount which dealer marketed as loyal for returning customer. I’ve been getting this type of “loyal discount” emails from my MB dealer the last few months. There is a lease pull-ahead program though for existing MB customers. You can however get fleet discount as listed here: MBUSA Incentives | MBCA. I was originally exploring MB for another lease but moved away as the my local dealer said that it may be Q1’22 when we can start to see any good lease program from MB. And if you observe the last 3 months, lease programs from MB gradually got worse every month.

Can confirm this was my existing dealer giving me a “loyalty” discount because I had my c300 through them and all service done there.