I leased a Volvo S60 Recharge Inscription last month, trading in an '16 TLX which I bought last year for more than I paid. The T8 Inscription was/is a hard model to locate (more Recharge Expressions than Inscriptions). I tried to use brokers here as I’d been a lurker for years and had never leased a car. I owe apologies to Mike (bostoncarconcierge) as he found a better deal on a T8 recharge expression but I wasn’t flexible on trim. I also tried to reach out to the NYC metro brokers but the one with inventory couldn’t sell the only 2 cars they had in NJ to Massachusetts. Fortunately, my local dealer was still offering some discount on the car (4.5 vs the ~7% broker discount and my target of 6% that the Aplan had before a change in May 2021) and made a good offer on my trade.
I paid 555 out of pocket, put 5k to 10 MSDs and had the trade equity cover the other costs. I tried to account for the trade-equity as follows: Using 17,000 as the base trade in value (Carvana and Vroom) and 14,700 as my payoff on may 1st In the calculator, I put 1k in untaxed rebate which was how much more the dealer gave for my trade than my expected value. I also made an car payment days before the trade-in which reduced the trade-in balance by 325, which I account for through the higher downpayment.
I don’t disagree in theory. In practice, the dealer seemed to overallow and allow negotiation for the trade relative to the 3 internet and 2 in person quotes I recieved. I had initially targeted 43,100 (6% off, pre-May 2021 A-plan preincentive discount) on the selling price vs a 17k vroom offer, with the equity aligning to the 0 down due at signing amount. They never budged on the 43,900 which I tried to negotiate without a trade but, to get the deal done, budged on their initial 17k trade-in value by 800. I initially balked at their money factor markup which caused them to move the trade in value slightly higher. I wanted to capture that $1k excess trade-in/over allowance over the next best option because it was the piece used to get me to accept the other pieces.
In hindsight, I would have been similarly well served ($31 better in total lease cost, $481 monthly, still 8.7 score) to get the 17k at vroom, no bonusdrive, 43,920 selling price ($795 down, 3,155 total due at signing + 10MSD) with the base money factor of .00116 if that had been an option (never in my negotiations did I get a base MF based payment and the dealer explicitly said when I challenged them that they are using the markup because there is little to no profit in the deal for them… which I knew not to be perfectly true but also knew that there wasn’t another T8 inscription available within 200 miles (suburban Philadelphia closest car vs my metro Boston). I’d been best served to have gotten 1k less for the trade at the dealer, base MF and still done bonus drive ($531 better, still $481 payment, 8.9 leasehackr score). I had no concept that price and MF could be connected and if not, then the sales manager did a great job of disarming me from challenging the finance manager and getting a lower MF.
This was my longest (two weeks from 1st visit to close at local dealer including 3 broker contacts and 2 other Volvo dealerships contacted. Dealership wise, one dealer in CT was very good but had a preexisting deposit on their one car. They offered to do a dealer swap and get my targeted discount but my contact went on vacation for a week and his coverage dropped the ball with 5 unreturned calls putting me at risk of not getting the May discounts as the cars within 200 miles of them excluding the one by me dropped from 5 to 2 over that week. The other volvo dealer was in IL being the slimiest new car dealership with whom I’ve ever spoken. They advertised a post-incentive lease price of 42717 on a 57225 as their selling price on T8 inscription demo on their website. I could work with that as I’d been evaluating lease deals and all thought I needed to know was whether that price included loyalty (which I don’t have) and was real. I contacted them because the deal was 25.4% off vs the 20% I was stuck at. I figured I would buy the car and have it shipped at that level of savings. That dealership gave me the runaround for hours before first saying that translates to a $600/month 10 MSD lease price with 2400 at signing) and then saying someone else bought it at that $600/month price with their crazy MF markup.
This was not an enjoyable car purchase/lease experience because I never felt like I’d gotten the best deal possible. If I lived in CT/NY/NJ/PA or been willing to have an R-design Expression in state, I’d have a brokered deal with 9.3-9.5 score and have saved 10-15 mostly unenjoyable hours of dealership communication.
It’s still never an incentive. You could make an argument that it represents a greater dealer discount, which may be valid, but incentives are from Volvo, not the dealer. It’s a matter of semantics in the direct output of the calculator, but it makes a big difference when you’re cross shopping against other dealers.
Dealers can still play dumb (or be smart) and apply a-plan. The worst that can happen is they lose $500/$750 (before June). The upside - they get 2% if it sticks with Volvo.
