I need a short-term lease. Something to drive for 12-18 months, so of course I’m looking at a Nissan Frontier. As long as it’s the best lease value, I don’t care if it’s S, SV, PRO-4X, but it has to be a crew cab.
No will follow-up.
My first issue is that no one will return my calls or emails. I’ve contacted six Nissan dealers, and three have simply not returned my call or email or call me back after I talk with them on the phone. I even kept is simple “Can you tell if this truck is available?”
One guy was even, “Oh yeah let me go look and call you right back” and then hung up before I could provide my name or phone number. I was confused what was happening.
We don’t do one-pay leases.
I see a dealer advertising a SV 4x4 Crew for $2k off MSRP. I plug in all the numbers into the calculator, and I get this:
This their advertised price using the current lease programs with maximum number of MSDs. If this is their advertised price, then I’d probably simply just take it. I don’t need to haggle, just give me the advertised deal. I talk to a nice guy on the phone, he says he’ll get the numbers ran.
Then I get hit with “we don’t do one-pay leases at this dealership.” I pressed a little more and someone ultimately responded with:
It is a company policy to not do one pay leases. We found that the difference in the money factor is not substantial enough to change out entire process and systems.
By not offering a one-pay, you’re also limiting MSDs to 5 instead of 7. (Also, no word if they’ll do MSDs yet. See below.)
Weird (illegal?) Disclaimer
After contacting another dealer with the goal of having them match the $2k discount but with a one-pay lease, the manager pulls the classic “I’m not selling a truck for a loss” and “why haven’t you bought it from them yet.” I assume he thinks I’m lying about the selling price, so I send him link. This is what page looks like:
He comes back and points out the disclaimer:
*For Reference Only, Market Conditions Dictate Actual Price
I hadn’t even noticed that (I’m a dummy). Though, that dealer did confirm the $2k off MSRP price by email and on the phone. So maybe it’s not an issue, but is that even legal? It’s essentially, “We’re advertising this price, but you can’t hold us to it.”
We don’t do MSDs
So the dealership with Grouchy McGrouchface as the manager is supposedly writing up a lease option right now. I assume it will be no discount or a tiny discount from MSRP, but let’s see.
However, when I talked to their salesman and communicated the lease terms I was looking for, he hit me with:
Thanks for inquiring but we do not do leases like that. You are more than welcome to do a one-pay but we are not set up to do security deposits. I understand what you are trying to do as I have seen others attempt as well but unfortunately that is not something this dealership can do. If you would like to proceed with an 18 month lease with 10k miles per year as a one-pay lease (minus the security deposits), I’d be more than happy to assist you with that process. Thanks for inquiring and let me know if you would like to move forward on the lease.
But the manager is saying he can do MSDs, but, “These are the trickiest deals that Nissan has.” (One-pay + MSDs). We’ll see.
General Exasperation
I’ve leased my last five vehicles. I’ve always been reluctant to enter my information on websites or call dealers because you get hounded. It’s the exact opposite now. I feel like if I don’t hound them, they won’t sell me a car. It’s really weird. But I guess that’s how it is now?
When the market goes back to a more “normal” state and sales staff have to be diligent about following up with customers, it’s going to be painful for them. I guess for now they have more customers than they need so they don’t have to have any sales process.
). Which trim did you go with?