None of that has applied for the past year, and won’t until inventory levels return to ”normal”. If you have to lease/buy, the best time is now. If you don’t have to lease, wait.
See also
If you do it right, your lease should always be under warranty. Some brands also include all standard maintenance during that period.
As Matt mentioned, read Leasing 101. You are going to need to do math to evaluate each lease, after getting specifics from Edmunds. A little education will go a long way in getting the best deal possible.
You couldn’t be entering into the market at a worst time for buying or leasing.
That being said, IF you REALLY need a new vehicle, it is not to say you can’t find a decent deal if you really do you homework. If you’re really in a need for car & are sceptical about doing all the HW in a short time, you may want to read the broker reviews & their offers for your area & use a broker, you won’t regret it.
If none of the above is applicable, i would suggest wait.
That is absolutely one tactic (cast a wide net), assuming you understand all the components of the deal AND do the math to evaluate it - whether it’s local out of state.
I’ll just add that there is absolutely no shame in scanning our Marketplace broker forum and finding vehicles from competent brokers in your area, who often have better numbers than you can do on your own. Even experienced hackrs rely on their fav broker from time to time.
I’m really glad I was able to get my mother in law into a Lexus ES300h at the end of June. Managed to get $1.5k off MSRP via Costco pricing + the $2k factory rebate. Won’t be surprised if dealers are marking up the car now above MSRP.
Thanks for the advice!
But it does seem that there are not a lot of brokers in Bay Area, and I am not sure about leasing from either a different region in California or entirely out of state. But I will take a look.
Most posts I’ve seen forecast prices worsening. I have a Honda Pilot Lease maturing in December, there is no equity when looking at Carvana buyout (the car is significantly over miles) and dealers offering worse than Carvana. Any tips or strategies if I am looking to lease again? Now vs. December, other recommended routes? Thanks!
ah, good thought! Is there precedent on max months they will extend? I’m not doing a ton of driving as WFH mostly but I also have to consider the .20/mile overage, which I am already over.
I don’t know off hand what Honda will do. Best to call and ask. If you’re driving a lot less right now and they proportionally extend the mileage allowance with the extension, you may find that your allowable miles starts to catch up with your actual miles, reducing the over mileage charge. Different banks handle that different as to if they extend the mileage limit when they extend the lease.
Hell, just buy it out for the residual. Then see how much you can sell it for, and if the price is right, flip it. You can be 50k miles over mileage and it won’t matter if you buy your lease out.
Just another random anecdote on pricing, but my uncle sold his low-mileage 2019 4Runner to Carvana to $41.5k back in June (which he had paid $38k for when new…almost two years ago!) - they turned around and listed it a few weeks later for an eye-popping $46.5k.
Since then, the price has been slowly falling, and it’s listed at $43.5k so far. I still don’t know who would pay over original MSRP for a 2+ year old vehicle, but hey, there’s a sucker born every minute.
And everyone thinks it will last forever. One day it will stop, no way it can continue at the rate it has. The money printing is why we are here today seeing a shortage of cars on the market. No one will fully understand that reasoning but there is a connection related to this situation at hand.
For my MDX they just extend for a year (and on a month to month basis) which was awesome of them. Best of all the worlds. Makes me want another. They do have to approve (ie assuming made the payments on time)
