Here is my long Lyriq journey! It was a ton of work, and I don’t want to think about how many hours I spent on this… but we ended up with 2 Lyriqs.
I spent the month of April hunting a Hyundai Ioniq 5 Limited, which I wanted to get for $9k one-pay. I’m glad that didn’t work out, as May 1st I saw that Cadillac was added to the Costco rebate incentive, combined with a large conquest rebate. ($4k total).
Looking around on dealer websites, I noticed a Tech rwd trim at a dealer far away that mentioned an additional $4k in rebates.
I contacted my local dealership, who had one as well that qualified for the same rebates. The dealer had dozens that had been sitting for months on the lot. They gave me a quote for a 24/10 lease totaling $19,500… so I thought this was dead in the water.
I decided to contact a few more dealers before giving up, and ended up talking to almost every dealership in Northern and Central California, identifying their specific VINs that met the rebate requirements, and working out what kind of discount they would entertain.
I decided I wanted to target a AWD model, as it would allow us to replace our other SUV for the few times a year we visit family in the snow. The AWD model only qualifies for $6k in rebates, so it was difficult to find a great deal. After massive amounts of negotiation I found a Lux 1 AWD for $10,800 24/10 one-pay. I drove 2 hours to the dealership and once I arrived, they had just sold the car to someone else who was clearly willing to pay more. I decided to stay respectful but firm and work on the only other unit they had on the lot that qualified. Got them down a little further and ended up at $10,200 + dispo on a 24/10 one-pay. $450/month effective.
Over the next few days, some of the dealers I had been talking with kept calling me offering slightly better than their original offers.
So I did some math, and figured out depreciation alone on my wife’s 2016 GLE350 would be around $6-7k over the next two years. I thought I might be able to replace it with a Lyriq and end up with lower cost of ownership vs keeping her 8 year old Merc.
After countless hours I found a dealer willing to cut deep on a single unit that had been on the lot the longest - a black Lux 1 RWD. Only problem was my wife didn’t want a black one.
Took me another few days of nearly full-time work, but I was able to recreate nearly the same deal on a white sport 1 RWD. $6,900 + dispo 24/10 one-pay. $315/month effective
I would call both of these one-offs and probably not possible to recreate at this point, unless you have further rebates. Nearly every dealership is wanting to sell these near MSRP and not willing to play ball. The few willing to negotiate only had a couple units each that had the extra $2k rebate. Of those, only a couple dealers were willing to cut deep enough to make these numbers possible - and only on these specific cars because they had been sitting longer. As of last week, I knew of 3 RWD cars that can likely get in a similar ballpark (under $375/month effective). I posted on the leads page and have sent a few people to that dealership, so those could be gone now.
Overall, I like the cars. They ride nice. The AWD model is very quick, but they have the acceleration tuned far differently than a Tesla. It accelerates more like an ICE car with build up, vs the immediate full torque off the line that Tesla uses. In hindsight, I’d skip the AWD and save the money with another RWD instead.
Another note is that the sound system is pretty terrible. You have to go Lux 2 or Sport 2 to get quality audio. Neither of mine have supercruise, which we decided we wouldn’t use much.
They seem to still have some quirks to work out on these cars. One of them got a “check engine” light on. On-star support told me to turn the car off and on a few times and it should fix it… which it did.
