Updating the calculator link to reflect the actual deal details. I’ve seen better deals on here in other parts of country, but this was the best one I could come up with after discussing with a dozen or more dealers within about 250 miles (up to 500 miles in one case). Most of them were offering no discount off MSRP and adding dumb accessories and whatnot. One of them wouldn’t budge from $865/mo when I laughed out loud. The local dealer we’ve bought from twice previously was also stuck at MSRP and seemed skeptical that I could sign anything in the range of 3-5% discount that I was requesting. The winning bid was 3 hours away in Houston, but conveniently near the family we happened to be visiting that weekend.
Wife is coming from her second CX-5 lease. She was set to just buy out the current one and keep driving it, but she’d like to have the extra room for carpools. There are lots of 3-row SUVs, of course, but she does a lot of city driving for work, so the extra gas mileage of a hybrid helps (I think 25 miles of pure EV should get her most of the way through her day…usually), and she likes the “feel good” virtue signaling (so to speak) of a PHEV or EV. I’ve been trying to get her into a minivan like the Pacifica Hybrid for years, but she’s just not having it for whatever reason.
There aren’t really a lot of other options in the PHEV space for 6+ passengers. I don’t want a Tesla. I briefly explored a Volvo XC90, but we don’t qualify for enough incentives to make it work with our budget. I considered having her look at an MDX or a Q7 or similar gas & MHEV SUVs (probably used), but she likes the Mazda, it checks the boxes, and it’s pretty affordable in lease form.
There aren’t really any electrified vehicles I would feel good about buying right now, considering the rapid change in tech and valuations, so another 33 months with a new leased Mazda feels good. And with the EV rebate + equity from the CX-5 coming, the cost is totally doable. And I’ll justify the cost of installing a 220V charger at the house as something we’d probably need to do eventually, so might as well take the city rebates now and cross it off the list. (And selfishly, I could use the extra power for my woodworking machines in the garage.)
Taught my sales rep something about MSDs today. He didn’t know what I was on about, but he asked his GSM and says $5k in MSDs should lower the payment by around $60 per month. I guess I know where my trade-in equity is going. If the real program is 0.00008 MF each, with up to 9 MSDs allowed, then by my math
$5850 in MSDs = $1950 in savings over 33 months
$5850 in cash down = $600 in savings over 33 months
That’s like an 11% APY on that investment if my [admittedly feeble] math is right. I could borrow the money from my HELOC at 9% (I won’t) and still come out on top.
I think I just blew this dude’s mind with that science.
That’s not really the case in Texas as much as it is elsewhere, because of the tax situation. I’m going to pay $2791 in sales tax regardless of the lease term. So, yes, it looks like a 24 month lease might save me a whopping $8 per month, but the effective savings are negligible, because that tax bill is spread out over fewer months. Then I have to go back in and start over with a new car, and pay the taxes again, just 2 years from now. Over time, that faster cadence means a lot more paid in sales tax. If I’m committed to leasing, and the monthly difference isn’t huge, I’m more apt to choose a longer term because of this—might as well get as much out of the car as I can if the taxes (and effective payment) are the same regardless. Not to mention if you ever want to buy out the lease at the end, you’re gonna pay tax again on the residual purchase price. Texas is great for some things, but short-term leases don’t seem to be it.
Do you know the current 24/10 or 24/12 residual for a premium plus Phev by chance? With the increased loyalty rebate, I seriously thinking about kicking some tires…
Signed this today. Will return with final details once I get a copy of the contract. But the terms were just that: 33 months, 15k miles, $0 down, $690 per month.
Shitty dealer experience. First they tried to put my trade in the deal and hide the fact they were giving me $700 equity for it instead of the $4000 we had agreed. Didn’t end up selling it to them in the end, upon which the GSM spent another 5 minutes lying to me about how no one else would be able to buy out the lease, either.
Then they tried to say the surprise $619 down payment was actually the first lease payment, because “that’s how the math works out.” Rolled my eyes through all of that.
Cleared that up in F&I who made it seem like he was doing me a favor taking that off. Then nobody in the goddamn dealership knew how Mazda MSDs work. This, after the sales guy confirmed with his manager yesterday that they could do it and it would lower my payment. So I basically lost out on like $2k in interest savings because of everyone’s incompetence. And my wife was already getting super irritated because she had plans she was late for, on account of all this slowness and rehashing things we had already worked out earlier in the week. So I just had to let it go for the sake of expediency.
In the end, I’ve got two Mazdas now. Wife is happy with the CX-90 PHEV, and now I’m stuck driving the CX-5 three hours back home because these fools lied about wanting to buy it at the Carmax price and then balked. During the time that I sat there, Carmax actually raised their price $500 over the appraisal I got from them last week. So now I have to deal with that on Monday, too. All because this Houston area Mazda dealer couldn’t get a single thing right. I thought they’d have it all set up, and when I got there, you’d have thought we had just walked in randomly off the street. Literally the only thing I’ll give them is the sales rep, true to his word, had the car detailed and gassed and charged when we got there. It was all downhill after that.
But I walked out with a nice car at a decent price, and hopefully I can sell my old car fairly painlessly and all will be right in the world.
It was so obnoxious, and if I didn’t have a ton of urgency around the whole situation (including a prior lease ending + most of the other dealers with higher prices ghosting me anyway), I would have told them to F off for wasting my time. But we got the car, all’s well that ends well.
I just updated the original post to reflect the actual lease numbers. Main thing that changed is that the dealer discount is smaller than advertised; they had just disguised that in the fees in the original quote. I was assuming the same in my analysis, and the monthly payment was accurate in the end at $690.
Fun addendum that I mentioned in another thread: When we got home, both cars (the new one and the intended trade-in) endured a severe hailstorm, but I was able to sell the old one in spite of the damage (Thanks, Carmax!). Now I have to go about adding the new car to my insurance policy, immediately starting a new claim, and waiting probably 3-6 months to get it fixed (assuming I can find a Mazda body shop that works with Progressive and can access the needed panels and trim for this brand new model).
Wife just sold her previous car with 44,600 miles on it after 36 months, and at least a year of that was during Covid lockdowns when she wasn’t even driving for work. So we need every bit of 15,000 miles per year for the foreseeable future. Buying and financing this car wasn’t an option because of the rebates.
But you’re right, in that a 24 month lease would indeed have saved me a negligible amount of money over the 33 I chose. But I prefer the longer term regardless. If the car were for me, that would be a different story, but my wife doesn’t really care what she’s driving, nor does she get antsy every 1.5 years like I do.
It was. I know multiple people whose cars are destroyed. It smashed windows and windshields and sunroofs all over town. One friend was ripping out drywall and carpet at their house yesterday, because the hail came through their roof, which I didn’t even know was a thing that could happen.
This is a photo from a family member about 4 miles from here. I was driving when it struck (we were trying to get home from a soccer game), so I don’t have good photos myself, but it was the worst I’ve ever seen, and we get a fair amount of hail here historically.
Sorry about your new car, but luckily you and the fam came out of that unscathed. That is hail from hell man. Insurance companies must’ve took their phones off the hook by now. I can’t imagine the amount of calls they’re receiving about this.
I’m working through the same deal in the northeast, except a 24/12k.
Same $54,275 MSRP. Dealer is offering a $1485 discount off MSRP, and I’m waiting to hear back about any additional S-Plan discount.
A separate dealer offered $28/month off for S-Plan. Assuming the same S-Plan benefit is applied here then final monthlies should land about $580/month including tax - $542 + $38 tax to be exact.
I haven’t had the opportunity to approach the MSDs yet. I suspect it will be a struggle, but if the result is similar to yours then it seems like I could be close to a good deal.
My goal was to try and construct something sub-500, but the best I can do there is on the Preffered trim, and I think I’m set on the second-row captains chairs.
Other than that - my scenario is the exact as yours (even down to the XC90, but $$$s push it above where we want to be and we are already happily driving a 2019 V90). This fits the bill for a baby + grandparent hauler.
