Hi all, potential new leaser here looking for a bit of guidance.
Long story short - I was the victim of a hit and run a week ago. I’m fine, but my trusty 08 Rogue that I’ve owned since 1/2009 was declared a total loss. I just got the valuation today and I’m netting ~$6k after taxes and fees.
Initial thought was to just take whatever I got from my car and buy another similar car. The original plan my husband and I had was to take the next 2 years and dump all of our extra $ towards our student loans, and when those are paid off I’d buy myself a nice new(ish) truck.
Doing some browsing I see there are some pretty sweet lease deals on 2018 F150’s ($199/month w/ $4,999 due at signing for 36 months). Similar for Ram 1500 as well it looks like.
A monthly payment like that or up to $250 would easily fit the budget (including increased insurance/reg/gas fees). My thought is since I was planning on spending $30-40k on a truck in 3 years, why not lease one now for a low monthly payment (that doesn’t take away from our other debt payments) and buy out if I like it at the end, or just turn it in if I don’t?
Does this sound like a stupid idea? I am new to leasing obviously so have been doing a ton of research (husband is on the fence as it is because he is default leasing=bad).
I notice some of these deals I’m seeing end on 1/2/19. If I do plan to lease would it be wise to try and do it before these deals end?
Are there any other deals I should be looking at? F150 and Ram 1500 are what I’ve seen but I’m not adverse to Chevy/GMC or Toyota half tons.
Thank you guys for whatever advice you have! I shall keep doing my research in the meantime.
Well, here at leasehackr, we’re all about ignoring the factory or dealer lease offers and hacking out the best deals possible. Here is what you should strive for - 2018 F150 XLT $328 24/10.5, $0 Driveoff MSRP $51495
Note that the cash due at signing is 0. Personally, I don’t mind putting a little down, but most people are against it for liability reasons - in case you total your car.
Wow what a deal! Thank you for the link. I wonder how hard it would be to replicate this at a local dealer…I’ve read about 0 cash at signing (and how it’s ideal) - I guess ideally I’d use the $ from my Rogue to get the monthly price within what I’d like to spend monthly. Again so very new to all of this. When I purchased my Rogue I was only 21 and my husband did all the negotiating, but I’m a big girl now and trying to do make sense of it with my own googling and lots of browsing this forum
As @Chi_Ahrens said, you don’t want to use your Rogue payoff money to fund a lease.
You never want to put your money into a lease because if you get into another accident or have it stolen, you will never see your money back.
Use the Rogue payoff to payoff your loans, etc…
When negotiating for the Ford F150, you have to cast a net far away to get a good local deal sometimes.
When I was looking for an XLT trim, I had to go out of state to get a published low price (try eBay). Then I approached my local dealers with the numbers and got them to match it.
Right now, the XLT trim with 2.7L Ecoboost with 302A package are going at an extremely good rate.
Open a savings account to put this money into and then set it to autotransfer into checking each month to “reduce” your payment. Isolates you from the risk of losing your down payment and you can earn a bit of interest too
Sent you a private message if you would consider Toyota. Being that they’re prob the most reliable truck, buying out at the end of the lease term would be least risky with Toyota imo.
Others have given good advice about never putting down money, and I’d also urge you to not ‘payment chase’. The payment is an output (result) of all the lease variables like MSRP/selling price/MF/RV/etc, not an input, and dealers will twist you in circles if you payment shop without doing your homework and making offers based on sales price and incentives that get you to the payment you wan to be at. Become friendly with the leasehackr calculator.
One comment unrelated to your lease but could net you more cash savings than a good lease negotiation - the first offer from an insurance company on a total loss is very negotiable and is typically a pretty big low ball. If you have not yet cashed the check, make sure the valuation is in line with not only KBB/Edmunds/etc, but also what a comparable replacement vehicle would actually cost. Go on autotrader and find 2008 Rogues in the same trim with similar miles/condition listed at local dealers, and fight your insurance company with that information. Maybe it is $6k, but maybe it is a lot more.
To give you an idea on a much larger scale - I had a homeowner’s claim last year, the first offer from the adjuster was $12k. I eventually ended up with a $53k settlement. Insurance companies can be really horrible to deal with, but the good ones value customer satisfaction and every state has some form of insurance oversight that they are terrified of having to deal with.
Thank you for the advice! I did do that with my Rogue and ended up getting about 2k more than I thought I might get initially. I lost some to the deductible which I’m not counting on getting back at this point.
So ideally I would use the calculator to get an idea of what cap cost/incentives etc I’d need to get within my desired monthly payment?
A bigger related question I have is how to approach the dealer, I guess. Do I email them that I’m interested in car X and would like to lease, no money down, 10k mileage, 36 months and see what they can offer? Then do I negotiate from there? If they don’t/won’t get to where I need to be, do I take their offer to a different dealer and ask them to beat it? Do you mention that you’re interested in buying out at the end of the lease?
Thanks to everyone who has commented so far, this has been super helpful.
Others have given good advice about never putting down money, and I’d also urge you to not ‘payment chase’. The payment is an output (result) of all the lease variables like MSRP/selling price/MF/RV/etc, not an input, and dealers will twist you in circles if you payment shop without doing your homework and making offers based on sales price and incentives that get you to the payment you wan to be at. Become friendly with the leasehackr calculator.
One comment unrelated to your lease but could net you more cash savings than a good lease negotiation - the first offer from an insurance company on a total loss is very negotiable and is typically a pretty big low ball. If you have not yet cashed the check, make sure the valuation is in line with not only KBB/Edmunds/etc, but also what a comparable replacement vehicle would actually cost . Go on autotrader and find 2008 Rogues in the same trim with similar miles/condition listed at local dealers, and fight your insurance company with that information. Maybe it is $6k, but maybe it is a lot more.
To give you an idea on a much larger scale - I had a homeowner’s claim last year, the first offer from the adjuster was $12k. I eventually ended up with a $53k settlement. Insurance companies can be really horrible to deal with, but the good ones value customer satisfaction and every state has some form of insurance oversight that they are terrified of having to deal with.
Still new here too, but wouldn’t you also want to consider adding in something like Extra Wear & Tear for the truck? I’m not sure what it is called - but, it basically adds on extra protection again scratches, etc. I just assume any truck is going to be used as a way of hauling materials. So, it will get pretty beat up (at least the truck bed will). Just a thought.
Definitely would be getting a liner in the bed. Otherwise the primary use besides getting me to work will be holding hunting, camping, and diving gear, along with an occasional trailer tow, definitely not planning on beating it up at all!
Makes sense! Have you considered some of the less expensive options for trucks from Nissan / Toyota rather than the $40k+ models? There are quite a few in the $20k range now, and some in the $30-35k range.
Edit: Leasing-wise, you’ll want to reach out to find the lease price as the actual price of the vehicle isn’t as important as the residual or available incentives.
I just had to go with that litteraly two weeks ago. Didn’t have to fight as the report included 10 comparable cars from dealerships around and their current listed prices. I was pleasantly surprised and the offer was in line to actually get the same car that was a total loss rather than simple trade in value.
I’m also relatively new at this, but that sounds “right” as long as you heed @chrishs2000 advice about not chasing the monthly payment. $4999 is (in an absolute sense) a lot due at signing. Depending on what the interest rate is on your student loans, why put money down on a car, if it would be better to pay off your student debt? (although, if the student debt is low and you got a good interest rate, maybe putting a little more down might make more sense?)
I generally agree w/ those who suggest you not put your $ into the lease, though… But only you and your husband know what will really work for you.
Colorado/Canyon and 2018 Silverados seem decent right now. Especially the Silverado on a purchase. Dealers are clearing inventory for the 2019’s. If it was my money though, I’d pay more for the awesome new Ram.
Take a look at the remaining 2018 Toyota Tundras.
They have a super low MF (0.00076) in California plus a huge dealer discount which makes it a bargain !
Ask @Cody_Carter for a great price on some great leftover 2018’s
The f150s dont lease as well as some of the other brands, although in my opinion they are the bar in terms of tech and engine specs and they look nice, a supercrew base xlt with 4wd is at least 40k and you are probably looking a 300s lease payment on those(same for most 1/2 ton trucks) , not sure your hauling needs but the 5.0 coyote and 3.5 ecoboost are absolute monsters, we just used our 3.5 ecoboost to haul 3000 lbs of tile roughly 90 minutes, the truck was sitting lower but no difference in acceleration and still got 18 mpg on the highway. It all depends on how much you’re willing to pay monthly, the rams are also very nice and lease well too. Not a big fan of gm and chevy I feel like they are behind ram and ford even after their new redesign. The toyota tundra is really reliable but the truck looks extremely dated and they will be refreshing very soon, not sure if a dated look bothers you. The Tacoma got refreshed a few years back so they probably wont go into their fourth gen until 2025, again if dated looks matter to you the tacoma would be better as its not far into its new gen. Either way best of luck!
