Term: 24 mo/12k mi
MSRP: $55,155
Dealer discount: $2,425
One-pay lease: $9,547
Rebates: $15,500
HMF lease cash: $14,500
Aged inventory: $1,000
Not qualifying for loyalty, conquest, etc.
SIGNED! link: here
Calculator link: here
This was my first experience with buying/leasing a vehicle from a dealership. Not quite a good a deal as VictorVauxhall’s due to three factors:
- No personal coupon ($500)
- Higher sales tax (~$200)
- Inexperience negotiating (~$300)
It wasn’t quite as frustrating as I had expected. I’d been browsing Leasehackr for the past couple months to get a target figure to shoot for. I used the Calculator to get the MF and residual and confirmed it with the forum post at Edmunds. The shopping process spanned eight days, with only four of them actually doing something.
First, I tried making two physical visits last week. The first dealer actually verbally accepted my first offer—which was a few hundred dollars less!—but attached a bunch of delivery conditions that spooked me. The second one rejected my offer immediately and declined to do business saying we were too far apart. As I walked out I overheard the manager saying to the salesperson that the first dealership was probably low-balling me.
Wising up, three days ago I reached out to five dealerships via website forms. Four of them responded, with three of them saying that they would need to see a written quote backing the figure I gave them before they would try to match/beat it. The last one countered with a somewhat higher price and tried to sweeten the deal by offering to pay for Lyft (I live an hour away). After looking up the cost of that ride I asked that they instead discount the lease by that much, which they agreed to do.
Picked up my car on Saturday. There was no attempt to upsell me on any additional products or services, and the salesperson proactively helped set me up with Bluelink and Electrify America. The only downside was the amount of time spent waiting for the finance person to be ready with the papers despite the salesperson saying I was the first person that day making a transaction. Compared to the horror stories I’ve heard, I had a fairly reasonable experience. If every sale/lease transaction were like this one, I’d probably be okay with just handling it on my own each time.
The range of quotes I was otherwise given was $11,800 to $14,500, although those came with a choice of color. I figure I can live with a black car for two years, and if I decide to keep it I can always get it wrapped.