Leased a 2021 4WD Tacoma Off-Road in PA through Ally and subsequently moved to FL where it is registered. My lease ends in September and have $920 lease return/$36k buyout at this time. I only have 11k miles so it may be especially attractive in FL to folks who actually want a 4WD Taco V6 rather than the new platform. There are some scratches on the door, more than typical wear and tear, so evaluations will probably vary. Estimates on the truck’s value are all over the place but mostly around the buyout price, so there is no obvious surefire equity. I do not plan on leasing another Toyota. I believe I will lease a different brand/vehicle and plan to negotiate that deal separately.
Here are my novice questions:
If I were to ground it at a local dealership, does whatever Toyota dealer I turn the truck into get to buy/sell the truck on their lot or does it go elsewhere?
Assuming the Ally lease makes it too annoying to try and shop the truck to the highest bidder, and if the dealers do get first crack at the truck if I ground it at their dealership, is there advantage in shopping the truck to different Toyota dealers, just to see if any of them might be willing to cover disposition, excess wear, early termination fees etc for me to leave the truck with them? Is that a thing?
Thank you guys for your responses and the lead to contact Anthony. I will reach out to him asap.
Let me rephrase the original question though because that hasn’t been answered.
Imagine there is no equity or the potential equity is small enough to not be worth going through the hassle because of Ally + FL. So, I am not trying to sell the truck.
What I’m asking is, if I ground this truck at dealership A, do they get to decide if they want to buy the truck for $36k from Ally, invest $1k to fix it and sell it at $41k retail (it’s current value)? If that is how it works, is it worth it to me to shop around to Dealer A, Dealer B, Dealer C to see if any of those dealers will offer to waive/pay for disposition/excess wear because they really want me to drop it at THEIR dealership or is that $41k retail-$37k investment not enough for them to “fight” over the truck?
In most cases, they will only get to buy it at RV, otherwise it goes to auction.
Most dealers are looking for over 15% difference between purchase price and retail…so it’s really iffy. There are storage, resto, floorplan costs, etc so that % is really important.
If it is an ally official affiliated dealer, they can buy the car at your Ally buyout price which is different than if a dealer bought the car out. Ally has 3 different buyouts. There is your personal buyout, a dealer for inventory buyout, and an ally affiliated buyout which is your personal buyout minus taxes since they are a dealership.
Ally is a PITA to deal with. I had a 2020 rav4 thru them and I walked away with over 3k in equity selling to Anthony. That was over a year ago and the market is completely different these days but please check that path first before just giving the car back.
Depending on where you are in Florida, I believe that Arrigo Dodge is an official affiliated Ally dealer meaning their buyout would be closer to your buyout.
As for the damage etc, that is not up to the dealership to determine. It isn’t their car. They can offer whatever they want to buy the car (taking into account the damages etc). Unless you are getting into another Ally lease, a dealership can’t waive anything. You would have to come up with the difference of the dealer buying the car to put on their lot, or pay the damage and grounding fees and walk away. Say a non Ally affiliated dealer offers you 35k, but their buyout is 38k, you can write them a check for 3k to take it off your hands.
I would suggest reaching out to Anthony, he is very quick to respond and his offer was the highest a year ago, but like I said times have changes. Walking away clean would even be your best option at this point if possible.
Don’t misunderstand the process. Dealers cannot “waive” a contractual obligation between you and the lessor aka the bank — so dealers cannot waive disp or any lease-end charges.
What they can do is buy the vehicle and in doing so all parties agree to end the prior lease agreement by unanimous consent. That is how disp and lease-end charges disappear for you.
And don’t ask a hypothetical such as whether dealers want your car or not, and don’t listen to people who pull a random number like 15% out of their asses — you are going to have to get bids online and/or shop it around in person.
Is there a list of Ally affiliated dealers in FL (Southwest FL in particular?) I have looked and the Ally site says it will show results local to me but only shows me CO.
I never actually found an “official” list. I was told by a rep at Ally that to meet the certified Ally dealership status a dealership must meet x,y, and z, but they didn’t know what x, y, and z actually were. I believe it has to do with volume and sales that are funded thru Ally.
I reached out to the dealership I leased my RAV4 and no one there even knew what I was talking about lol. I only believe Arrigo is an official ally partner because they had the same pay off number that my personal payoff number was, as all other dealers had that 3rd party buyout.
Anthony works directly with Ally certified dealers and was able to buy the car at my buyout leaving me with that 3k equity. Any luck with him?
