Looking for help to decipher an EV lease agreement. In particular, how is the DAS I’ll pay $995 but this number is not mentioned anywhere in lease agreement?
Let me know if I’ve missed any info.
According to your lease agreement, section 10(b) shows the amount to be paid in cash is 1817.29. That’s your DAS. 
EDIT: Where did you get 995?
I actually paid $995 and wondering why on this agreement it said $1817.29. When I asked the dealership about the discrepancy in DAS, they said that they are essentially eating the difference. However, my guess is that they are getting the difference from somewhere else in this lease, but I can’t see where.
I recently had a similar situation on a posted C300 deal. If you started higher and negotiated lower, dealer may have decided to leave the already created contract as is and eat the difference. As long as you paid the agreed terms and all is settled, there should not be an issue.
Why on earth would they “eat” the difference? Doesn’t make any sense. Dealers don’t eat anything except unprepared customers. I don’t see any impropriety in the numbers shown in the agreement. Nothing is capped in the lease as all fees are paid upfront. Looks like you got a very good dealer discount. However, there may be some incentives that the dealer is getting in addition to the discount they are giving you.
I would ignore TSRP.
I thought the same with my deal, but my brother in law confirmed beyond a doubt that only the agreed $489 DAS was paid. When I backed into the contract using my own sheet, I identified they were using their originally presented counteroffer as the contracted payment/DAS. I did ask for eyes on the contract before signing but you know how excited people get 
. Either way all’s well that ends well. Looks like a similar situation with OP. I’m sure some would have demanded a redrawing of the contact. I left it alone.
If they are eating the difference its technically shown wrong on the contract but if it funds then it really doesn’t matter.
The part that you are not paying should show on the Rebates and nontaxed credits line
Yeah, something outside this lease is what I suspected but didn’t know how to confirm.
If that’s the section where the missing $880.21 (1875.21 - 995) would usually be, is there a common label used for the rebate/credit?
I’ve seen it called “dealer contribution”.
This kind of thing is not uncommon, it all depends on how the dealer wants to structure the contract on their end.
I did a $0 DAS sign and drive on my last lease with Mercedes, however if you look at the contract it shows $950 DAS. The dealer just paid that out of their own pocket.
Really nothing to worry about, as noted as long as you paid the $995 and the deal funded then you’re good. The dealer isn’t going to come after you for another $880 or anything like that.
Curious – that seems to imply that there’s another, back-office contract that wraps my contract to cover the difference. If so, what would that contract look like? Would it only wrap my contract, or could it bundle that day’s contracts and spread some from another leasee’s DAS to mine to cover for my short DAS?
No, I don’t think there are any other “contracts” involved.
It’s just a backoffice dealer accounting exercise in how they want to account for profit/loss on each deal (and on deals where the dealer may be paying more of the DAS than what is shown on the contract).
You’d really need to talk to a dealer accounting or finance manager for more details. I’m sure it varies by the dealer and the deal.
For some states, BMW won’t validate with $0 drive-off. The deals are then structured as the first month at signing, and the dealership pays it on behalf of the buyer. The buyer pays nothing, and the contract matches the agreed upon payment, so it does happen for those reasons too.
Exactly, you see this a lot with $0 DAS deals (as was the case with my MBFS deal above).
this is the correct answer
if sum of rebates isn’t enough to cover first month you’d have to show $950 on the contract (or whatever 1st month is) and accounting does the rest. The COD is just
“shorted”
@j_e_f_f @AutoNinjas @BimmerCarDeals thanks for all of the insights – I find this interesting.
Couple follow up questions:
bonus > loss?For context, the demand for these EVs isn’t high but this car was only sitting on the lot for a couple days. However, Subaru had revealed a hybrid version of the Forester several days before.
No, just because the dealer paid $822 of the DAS amount out of their own pocket doesn’t mean this deal was an $822 loss for the dealer.
Say you do a sign and drive lease on a BMW at full MSRP, $1k per month. As noted the dealer writes the contract so that it shows first month $1k DAS but they’re really paying that out of their own pocket.
A full MSRP deal is most certainly not a $1k loss in spite of the dealer paying $1k more than shows on the contract.
Again you’d need to talk to the dealer finance or accounting manager if you really want to know how stuff like this is accounted for at the back-office dealer level.
And there are lots of reasons why a dealer may be willing to take a loss on a specific unit. Volume bonuses, future allocations, aged inventory, service revenue, etc.
The answer to the original question, in addition to what others wrote, is that sometimes they don’t the contracts coming back to bite them.
When a dealer genuinely takes a loss, they don’t want the buyer’s friends or internet buddies waving that contract in their faces demanding it be replicated or saying it’s discrimination if they don’t replicate.
Same for doc and dealer fees. I had a dealer accept my offer as is but their standard dealer fee is $899 which would have been additional to my offer. They wrote up the contract with the $899 in it because they don’t want allegations of discrimination (some buyers are charged doc fees but some are not) but they didn’t collect it
You don’t need to worry about their profit/loss any more than you worry about Costco’s or Target’s P/L. Some deals are profitable per unit, some make sense in the larger scheme of things—TLDR it doesn’t matter. Just look after your own interests. Choose a hackable car and hack it as much as possible.
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