I have been on LH for some time and while its great to see a number of dealers and brokers offering deals that users trust, like and sign up to, it is often hard to decode deals which has led to dissatisfaction, and sometimes, frustration.
Noting the website provides a wealth of information on every component of a lease, and everyone’s needs are different with regards to monthly payments, down payments, drive offs, etc., would it be of any benefit to benchmarking deals across the board, or across regions? As an example, limiting dealers, brokers, deal posters to strictly posting deals with $0 due at signing (DAS)? Of course noting monthly payments can be lowed with money upfront. May be an oversimplification, but will this help people compare deals between posters, increase transparency, and maybe…increase competition?
The issue is that you can’t compare deals across the board. Incentives, taxes, fees, etc all vary by region, different people have different situations that qualify for different incentives, etc.
The best thing one can do is become proficient in understanding how a lease is structured, what the key parts are, and how to pull the relevant data out for their own situation.
There’s really no getting around that if you want relevant data. Streamlining the data only makes it more likely that people will neglect to normalize the data for their situation and try to infer relevance where there isn’t some.
Really the best thing that we could do to make the deal information as universal as possible is strip everything out but dealer discount percentage.
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It is already a competitive and efficient marketplace. I don’t understand how it leads to frustration.
- Reach out to a broker
- Obtain quotes
- Compare
It is 3 easy steps…
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I have been in this industry for 13 years. Your idea is awful because:
SALES TAX IS NOT UNIVERSAL.
For example:
Dealer A: located in manahattan posts a 0 DAS lease (using their rates)
Dealer B: located in NJ posts 0 DAS using NJ rates.
Assuming the same MSRP/resid/MF/rebates and selling price, guess whos price is going to be better?
And since buyers like you are confused by the current system, what are the odds that YOU will take it a step further to look at the differences in tax rate when YOU find the current situation too “hard to decode”?
The SOME of the users on this site already have issues reading plain english, what are the odds that those users will decode sales tax rates?
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I think OP is already accounting for the regions, But to everyone’s point, yea he’s asking to quantify confidence for something that is arguably already rather simple to deduce on your own.
I think the high-level consensus will be:
- Not hard already: everyone needs to pay their dues by learning the basics or use a broker and pay hard money dues
- Too nuanced to accomplish well
Thank you for all the responses. All the different views makes sense and have merit. I should have mentioned that I personally haven’t had any issues, its just from what I pick up reading on posts. And maybe it is readers who don’t speak english or don’t understand tax rates are the ones who we could help with a standardized approach.
I agree it is too nuanced to apply broadly, even to a region, and as @mllcb42 said, deep down all that really matters is the dealer discount percentage. Everything else the buyer should know or should be able to find out whether its qualifying for incentives and rebates, TTL, mf, rv, etc. Also, I think my suggestion of using $0 DAS was probably not the best considering the frequent misconceptions associated with the term.
Aren’t brokers deals already tagged by region ?
Tax varies significantly within a region. Incentives can as well, depending on individual circumstances.
This topic has been discussed ad nauseam but besides tax which is state and locality specific for the most part incentives can be factored in imo. And I think brokers would have a lot easier time if everything was rolled in besides tax, but then those headline numbers wouldn’t look so amazing which is what brings the customers.
I just try to at least be consistent. I structure everything the same XXX/mo + tax with X,XXX due at singing which is ALWAYS 1st month, acquisition, dealer, and plates/reg.
So all of my ads are usually base monthly plus tax with 1st and fees at signing.
