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Thanks
I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on the inspection process. I havn't scheduled it yet because i wanted to get it detailed, but since this is my first lease I wanted to be prepared and informed of anything I should know about the lease inspection process.
Also wanted to know if anyone knew of a "real" price I should get from a dealer for the car in case I wanted to use it as a trade (i.e. if i should have positive equity). Its loaded and is the EX-V6 coupe with navi. Honda Finance told me that I couldnt use it as a trade at a dealer, but that seems odd if the dealer was going to give me at least what is left on the car in terms of money.
Any advice, suggestions, comment is appreciated.
You can call and set up the inspection now or for sure before you are 30 days from the end of the lease. Have the owner's manual and your service records handy. They should not need the service records if it appears you have taken care of the car (the fluids have been recently changed, etc). If there is a question, the records will prove you have taken car of it. IF something not easily check is a required maintenance item then you would have to produce the records. In your case, I think oil changes and air / cabin air / oil filter is all that should have been required in 27k and that is something they can check.
Keep in mind that AHFC leases have $500 per ITEM forgiveness for a total of $1,500 per vehicle. So anything not deemed "normal wear and tear" could still cost you nothing. For example a large dent, ding or paint chip or tear in the interior. Heck, if you have two tires that are below 4/32" tread they will hit you for that on the inspection - but then forgive that if there are no other problems.
They most likely can come to your house or work (your choice) and do the inspection so it is no extra effort on your part. You will sign a copy of the report and the inspector will go over it with you. Anything not covered under normal wear and tear will have a price assigned to it by the inspector. A few days later Honda will mail you a letter telling you what your expected cost will be. If the inspection found issues and Honda forgave them then the letter will show $0.00 as your cost.
Anything found and not covered you then have the option of getting it fixed yourself at your own expense (or that of your insurance as the case may be) or just turning the car in and letting Honda bill you what it listed in the letter. If you do make repairs, be sure that is noted on your tun in report at the dealer to avoid confusion. You may can even request another pre turn in inspection if there were several issues or a lot of expense.
At turn in if something has changed since the pre inspection, it should be noted at that time. For example, your inspection may show $0 due but then you get caught in a hail storm or something. Or you had issues that they forgave, but got a big new dent that was not there before - that pushes you past the $1,500 forgiveness limit. As I mentioned, if you fix things that Honda said you had to pay for make sure you point those out at turn in time.
The idea is to make the turn in easy and no surprises and with the AHFC "forgiving" a good deal you should be just fine.
AHFC owns your car, not you. You can buy it from them if you want to or you may can talk some dealer from buying it from you. Anything you can get the dealer to give you over and above the lease buyout price (at that time) is your money and comes back to you as a check or a discount (down payment) on your next car. You can take your car to places like CarMax or Driver's Way and see what they will give you for it. Expect to get maybe $1k or so more from a Honda dealer as a trade toward another Honda. I am not sure coupes are as desirable as sedans either new or used, so they may not have a lot of interest in it - but it never hurts to check.
We made a below invoice, into the hold back deal for a new Pilot for my wife and then get enough trade in on our 05 Accord sedan to cover the lease buy out (before the end of the lease). We didn't "make" any money but we got out of the lease a couple of months early and avoided the over miles charge and got a great deal on the Pilot. I did the same thing 3 years ago trading in a leased 01 S2000 for a new 05 S2000. Enough to cover the buy out so I could hop into a new car without any negative equity or waiting for the lease to be up. In both cases the dealer CPO'd the trade in, marked it up several thousand, and sold it to another customer.
Dennis
AHFC told me that (and I'm asking you if it is true) is that no matter what I do, the car still needs to be inspected and needs to end up on a Honda lot. I, from my initial understanding, thought I could turn the car in at lease-end or sell the car outright (trade-in) to another dealer as long as the payoff was met.
Is this true or just marketing nonsense to buy another Honda?
Thanks Dennis!
I am at the end of another AHFC lease now and when I talked to the end of lease "specialists" at AHFC I told them I would either be turning my car in or selling it via a dealer they seemed to have no problem with that.
I would get the car inspected in any case - it is free and easy, then shop your car to area dealers and see what they will allow for it, I guess. I would bet it will not net enough to be worth your while. If you buy a new car at around invoice they are only want to give you auction type money for your trade. If they give you a nice trade in allowance, then you will be paying too much for the new car.
You should also make sure you are talking to the end of lease folks and not someone from another department - what you are saying they told you does not match what I have heard from them.
Keep in mind it is their car, not yours. If for any reason they decide you can't sell it to someone else then you can't. The contract with you and AHFC gives you the right to buy it or turn it in and that is all. I have heard of other lease banks that did say "you buy it or turn it in - period". If Honda does say no, then in most states sales tax must be paid to transfer title, so you could have to send AHFC a check for the buyout, then pay the sales tax and register the car, get the title in your name, then trade the car or sell it to a dealer. You might get a trade in tax credit if you did trade it toward the purchase of a new car, but if you are leasing or in a state where no tax credit applies then you would lose the tax you just paid.
Dennis
I am looking to buy/lease my first car roughly 2-4 weeks from now. Have researched online as much as I can but since I've never bought or leased a car before I really have no basis for comparison.
I've read some of the posts on this threat and was wondering if people could explain what certain terms are to me:
Residual - I gather it's the value of the car after your lease is finished?
Money Factor -
Capitalized cost reduction - fancy term for down payment?
I would appreciate if anyone could take the time to break down the lease process step by step (or send me to a good link). Also, what numbers should I be expecting for both the coupe and sedan? I live in NYC and currently have an internet quote of 22960 (this is for the Coupe EX) from a dealer. How would I go about finding out what the invoice price is? And how much to pay over invoice? $500 a good deal? I am willing to put $2000 as down payment but from reading some of the posts here that seems like it's way too high. I am looking to pay anywhere from $300-$350/month for the coupe and $250-$300 for the sedan with 15,000 miles yearly on a 36 month lease.
Also, how do these lease calculators work? If anyone knows the exact formulas the put the numbers through that would be great.
Thanks in advance for taking time to read this.
Joe
15,000 miles/36 months
MSRP 23960
Sale price: 22500
MF: 00246
Residual: 56%
18 cents mile extra
800 down.
1149 + taxes and fees out the door.
What do you guys think?
P.S. Where should I put down payment in the excel sheet?
Car_man
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Car_man
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Once you have read it and understand what these terms mean, you can apply them by using the formula that it outlined in this article: How to calculate lease payments.
You can look up the dealer invoice price of the car that you want in the New Vehicle Pricing section of Edmunds.com. If you are in an area that has a decent level of competition, I suspect that you will be able to negotiate a selling price of $500 over invoice, if not better on an Accord right now.
Car_man
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I never used lease calculator, but given the information you provided, I was able to come up with $411/mt price for EX L V6 coupe. That's given 25000 price ($500 below invoice), 36 months, 12K miles with 0 down.
I can get the car for $377+tax with 0 down for 39 months @12k miles deal, which would come to $410 per month given NY tax.
So as you can see, it's pretty close to calculator value.
Is that the best deal you can get (calculator always right?), or anyone was able to get better deals in this car.
Thank you
Also I have been reading that money factor is negotiable. Is this only true if the dealer jacks it up than what AHFC is asking for? Do I also need to worry about DMV and title fees being jacked up or played around with? If they are a fixed amount, where would I find this out?
Not in every single instance, but almost always..
The money factor that Car_man quotes is the base rate... it can't go any lower than that.. the dealer may charge a higher rate, but that isn't a usual practice with Honda dealers..
regards,
kyfdx
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Did you get a good deal? Be sure to come back and share!
Edmunds Moderator
Residual: 55%
15k mikes 36 months
$349/month + 8.375% tax (=378 here in NYC)
$750 OTD Includes 1st Month payment with tax and all fees (Title, DMV, Doc, Tire Fees)
Threw in all weather mats also.
What do you guys think?
22800 is $500 above Invoice but he wouldn't budge on it. With the 2% Holdback they made atleast $1000 on the car I'm guessing? Is this accurate? I've come a long way in 4 days. The sales manager even commented that I sounded like a salesman with all the types of questions I was asking him.
I just wanted to thank everyone here for all the advice I was given!
-Joe
2008 Accord EX sedan MSRP $24,495.00
Lease 36 months, 12000 miles per year, $552.00 due at signing;
$349.00 per month, based on selling price of $22,885.00
2008 Accord EXL sedan MSRP $26,495.00
Lease 36 months, 12000 miles per year, $588.00 due at signing;
$385.00 per month, based on selling price of $24,695.00
It looks like the current MSRP of an Accord sedan EX I4 AT is $24,530 and invoice is $22,370. If you lease it at $500 over and 60% and 0.00200 that would be a base payment of $301.62 per month or $319.72 with 6% tax on it (assuming your state taxes the payment). If you roll in the bank fee the payment rises to $319.34 and $338.50 with tax.
If you were looking a pre price increase example, the numbers would be a little different but pretty close.
Dennis
Dennis
I am looking for Lease details on the Honda Accord LX - I also heard that the V6s have really good MFs on them probably due to the gas consumption right now.
I would like the MF, Residual for 12k on a 36month lease. LX, and like I said V6s since they are supposed to be a steal.
I live in Maryland.
Thanks for the info.
24 month lease at 12k a year
Cap cost- $24350
71% Residual Factor
4.8% money factor (.0020)
$2,000 down (includes bank fees and destination)
7% Rhode Island Sales Tax
Paying $255 per month
Actually, the dealer and I went through the lease calculator formula together (printed off Edmunds.com) and believe me he struggled but he did end up with a number very close to my monthly payment. Is it a good deal, I guess Honda only knows for sure.
Good Luck!
Aaron
I am on the market for a 2008 Accord Coupe EX-L 4cyl. Does anyone here know the June MF and Residual value percentage? Thanks.
I know it is more helpful to have the Cap Cost/MF/Residual etc., but without that could someone still tell me if this is a fair price for this car? No NY Honda dealers seem to want to give the complete breakdown over the phone/internet. I have 2 dealers who have now quoted me this amount. Other dealers were into the $380's. What do you guys think? I need to make a deal soon so any responses would be appreciated. Thanks
Honda offers a "special lease" that indicates a 61% residual value and a money factor of 0.0020. Are these numbers standard? The residual seems a bit high...
I want to negotiate the price to see if I can do a bit better than the published lease offer of $1785 down and $219/month. And, I would rather put as little down as possible...
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Take the net cap cost and add the cap cost reduction portion of the money due at signing (both numbers are shown in the details) and you have the selling price. Compare that to invoice on that car - you should be able to get the car for invoice - and see what the difference is. You may find that there is enough to eat up the cap cost reduction and maybe some of the $595 bank fee. In any case, take invoice or whatever low price you can negotiate, add the the $595 bank fee and recalculate the payments. That would be your price (not including taxes and fees) for that car with just first payment due at signing. The lower you negotiate the price, the lower your payment.
Dennis
I'm just expecting them to give me a line about how "the residual and money factor in the deal only applies to the specific terms of the deal" or something stupid like that. If they do, its time to move on to another dealer!
I have done several "Honda lease special" deals and never had a problem with any of them. If you happen to mention leasing too early in the conversation the dealer will almost never give you a price for the car, just payments - and that is not what you want.
I hopped over and looked at the deal. It shows $18,881.82 as net cap and $1,785.00 as the cap cost reduction = $20,666.82. Invoice is $19,930, a difference of $736.82. So you could do the same payment with that much less down if you got the car for invoice. I would bet it you got the car from the dealership in GA where I got my last 2 Hondas that their price would be $500 or more under invoice, so if you paid first payment, $595 bank fee, and $550 down you would get the $219 payment. I would roll everything in and just pay the first month, the payment will be higher but not bad.
Dennis
The first thing you do before you sign any papers is a "fine tooth comb" inspection of the new car for any dings, scratches, or problems. If nothing is found then you test drive it make sure it drives OK, no rattles, no squeaks, no other problems. If all is well THEN you sign the paperwork.
If you just signed a deal sheet or gave a deposit, that is one thing. If you signed the actual lease contract dated the 8th then you have lost 11 days and counting on your lease and could get stuck with a problem car when it finally arrives.
Dennis
Thanks,
TRoy.
I requested quotes from area dealers by email.
I asked them to send me detailed breakdown of the numbers (residual, cap cost, money factor, all misc. fees)
Do dealers usually agree to sending email quotes detailed that way ?
or would they probably say they can only discuss these kind of numbers in person and only give me monthly payment and down payment by email ?
also, i have seen the current honda supported $219 with $2599 due at signing deal on the LX, and it expires on July 7.
My problem is i have a financed car that i need to sell and pay off first before i get into the accord lease.
if i trade in i won't get enough money to pay off the whole loan balance, if i sell privately i can get just enough to pay off the loan.
Bottm line, i'm probably gonna miss the july 7 date.
Is it expected that honda extends this deal ? or put another similar one in place ?
would i be missing a real GREAT deal if i don't get it ?
last question.....when is the best time of year to lease in general ?
coz i'm thinking maybe i should wait till end of year maybe i could get a better deal and by then i would have built a little more equity into my current car.
Dealer 1: 2008 Honda LX Accord with Automatic Transmission
36 month lease
12K miles
Residual .61
With $0 down = $297
With $2000 down = $236
Residual Amount $13294.95
Dealer 2:2008 Honda LX Accord with Automatic Transmission
36 month lease
12K miles
Residual .61 or $13,573.11
Money Factor is .0022
selling price $19800
Acuisition fee $595
DOC fee + tag, title and electronic filing fee $218.50
Payment with $0 down is $294 per month
Payment with $2K down is $241.32 per month
So do not contact dealers asking about a lease or mentioning the "lease deal" from the Honda web page.
Ask the dealers via their web page or e-mail for a quote on the exact car you want and ask that the dealer include the car, destination, and any dealer doc or prep fees in the quote. Also ask if the dealer's cars have dealer installed options already on them or not. Once you have a price you can live with - say near invoice including the fee - from a dealer with no add ons, then confirm with that dealer that is does include everything with nothing added. Once you get that confirmed, then ask about the lease terms. The residual and money factor that is used for the deal shown on the Honda web page apply if you lease the same model at any price. So while that deal may say $2600 due at signing, you might can get the same payment with far less money out of pocket by first negotiating the price down BEFORE talking lease terms.
If you ask for lease quotes you just then get payment answers, which will vary with the amount due and payment size and totally obscure what you are paying for the car.
The current deals end, and then Honda brings out new ones. Depending on the sales for this month they could be better or could be worse next month - we don't know in advance.
The close to the end of the model year then normally the more motivated the dealers will be and often Honda will put some deal money in place too. As far as lease deals go, in the past they start getting good at the first of the year and tend to get a little better each month or two up until the end of the model year. But you just never know since they look at days supply, current sales, and many other factors to set each month's lease residuals and rates.
If you miss the boat this year, then things usually reset when the new cars hit and they see a sales bump, then as sales slow they make better lease deals. I would not roll any negative equity into a new lease. Just keep on driving and paying for your current car until you car get out of it without owing any money.
Dennis
So the year model ends in August maybe ?......i really don't know....i just seem to start seeing next calendar year model ads around september each year.......so is August maybe the time when honda would put their best deals ?
what about the November/December season ? that's when i see dealers put the highest discounts and cash back
I don't normally deal with dealers who have "sales" and "specials" since the majority of the time their prices are too high. Find a dealer who deals cheap all the time and then just wait for favorable lease terms and/or incentives. Ditto that "end of month" thing, while I have gotten a good deal from stingy dealers by showing up ready to go on the last day of the month, it is just easier to find someone who will give you that same cheap deal any day.
Note that Honda never has cash back to the customer or rebates, just dealer money.
When they launched the new Accord the rates were like 0.00255 or 0,00270 or something. Things are bit better now, but in years past you could get Accord lease deals with a money factor under 2% and sometimes near 1% effective. Those days may come again, but we don't know when.
Dennis
thanks
MSRP: 26,500
Purchase Price: 22,125 ( 4375 discount, Or almost 2000 below invoice! )
24 month, 12K
Residual: 68%
Money Factor: 0.002
Downpayment: 3,150
Bak fee: 595 ( rolled into month payment )
Total Due at signing: 3,800
Monthly payment before tax: $139/month
I know one should not put iny downpayment when leasing, but this super deal is constructed this way, dealer doesn't want to change it. I just did what the AD says.
If I had zero down payment, but pay the bak fee up front. My monthly payment would be $251/month with $1100 drive off.
$251 payment on a 26.5k car, that's really hard to beat.
I feel that in SCAL, forget about negociations, Just look carefully at newspaper ADs, every now and then some dealers will put a super deal to move their cars, for whatever reason.
Dennis
Like I mensioned, the key is that the purchase price is $2000 below invoice, the dealer just wanted to move certain VIN # cars.
My car is Silver with gray interior, just the way I wanted.
Car_man
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Car_man
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If you are in the market for an Accord, I dont see why you are staying away from this deal - it's really hard to be beat, I didnt even hesitate to pull the trigger.
BTW, they have similar deal for LX, for $60/month less, and that deal is probably sweeter.
Thanks