New car / automobile buying & leasing tips for CPK'ers

Casinostocks said:
Personally speaking, I almost never buy the first year of any new. models! The last year of the outgoing models is usually when the deals can be to the buyer's benefit but then again, the body style gets outdated!
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Yeah that's what I was thinking. That's also why we wanted to just lease for 2 years.
 
unwisefool said:
Yeah that's what I was thinking. That's also why we wanted to just lease for 2 years.
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I haven't come across too many 2 year close-end-lease options! Check with your dealer to see if that’s even a thing with Toyota?
 
If I were a richer man, I'd make a pastime of buying new vehicles. I love the haggling. The biggest advice I would offer is to load a loan app on your phone when you go to buy a car. You can settle on a base price, rate, terms, etc. and still get wrecked. Check the math, always assume that nice guy at the dealership is trying to screw you over. Because he most definitely is.
 
unwisefool said:
I got it mixed up, 3 yr for Highlander, I can get a 2 year on a Tacoma or Tundra.
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I looked up their leasing money factor (MF) and it sucks as most popular models do these days (popularity + higher interest rates these days). Again remember that you must multiply the MF by 2400 too get your effective APR which according to my research and math currently comes to around 4% or perhaps slightly more, closer to 4.5%.

Toyota at times has a great MSD program which stands for Multiple Security Deposit. This means that if you have the means, you can perhaps make up to 6 deposits of say $500 each to buy down your MF rate. Basically think of it as a certificate of deposit against the leased vehicle! This MSD is fully refundable at the end of the lease (not if the vehicle gets repo'd).Ask your Toyota dealer but must F&I managers never bring this up and/or play dumb because they don't like it!

The way manufacturer's compensate for the higher MF in many cases is to also raise the Residual Value (RV) so that this will reduce your monthly payment (the less the depreciation, the less your monthly $) but if you plan on buying the vehicle at the end of the lease like what I always tend to do, this is not the smartest thing to do. Ideally if you are like me, you'd like to go for as high RV as possible and as low MF as possible but the sweet spot is the work of art!
 
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It looks like from what the guy provided me I can do 8 MSDS on the Highlander and 6 on everything else. Looks like I can get the LE plus for $308 and XLe for $322 a month.
Not buying the car at the end of the lease. Things are changing so much in regards to hybrid and electric vehicles that I think there will be a lot more options in 3 years to choose from for a new vehicle.
 
That makes a lot more sense in the case of the hybrid engines so with the high RV, put the onus on them and dump in at the end of the lease, unless you get hammered on extra miles and/or return condition.
 
Casinostocks said:
That makes a lot more sense in the case of the hybrid engines so with the high RV, put the onus on them and dump in at the end of the lease, unless you get hammered on extra miles and/or return condition.
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Return condition is the only thing I'm worried about. With a 6 month old and a Shepherd husky mix I'm concerned about the interior.
 
It's the job of the F&I manager to try to sell you a bunch of crap that you will not need, such as paint protection, dent protection, etc, when. you return the vehicle which must go through a condition report (these are getting more rigorous). I am sure that they will also offer you some form of crap to protect the vehicle's interior from your rambunctious Husky Pup but that is also designed to part you away from your $. What are they considering as excess wear & tear? Around $1500 over all including tires / excluding tires?
 
Casinostocks said:
It's the job of the F&I manager to try to sell you a bunch of crap that you will not need, such as paint protection, dent protection, etc, when. you return the vehicle which must go through a condition report (these are getting more rigorous). I am sure that they will also offer you some form of crap to protect the vehicle's interior from your rambunctious Husky Pup but that is also designed to part you away from your $. What are they considering as excess wear & tear? Around $1500 over all including tires / excluding tires?
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Not sure yet, just in the initial stages of talking to them. And I want to make sure my wife is all on board as this will be her car for 3 years before I start wasting too much time.

What she really wants is a Subaru ascent, but I know they are going to change a few things on it in the next two years, plus I hate buying the first model year of a car and being the tester for all the things they will fix later
 
unwisefool said:
Not sure yet, just in the initial stages of talking to them. And I want to make sure my wife is all on board as this will be her car for 3 years before I start wasting too much time.

What she really wants is a Subaru ascent, but I know they are going to change a few things on it in the next two years, plus I hate buying the first model year of a car and being the tester for all the things they will fix later
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I drove the Ascent and it felt a bit too big plus I'm not a big fan of CVT transmissions but Subaru does them right. Also, I still prefer the naturally aspirated 6-cyl engines to 4-cyl turbos but the latter is increasingly more popular and again Subaru has been doing them for years and years. It has very good ground clearance if you live in the rural area and wait for it, it offers you 19 cupholders! LOL.

They have been out for over a year now but yup, still in that early adapter phase kinda thing. This is also another reason in addition to crap MF as to why I'm eschewing the all new Honda Passport. Speaking of the Passport, I'm also not liking the fact that on their AWD, they offer no other wheel choice that 20" rims and 45 profile tires. TBT, I prefer 18" with 55 profile tires for an AWD capable vehicle. But I also know that none of these AWDs are serious offload like the Toyota 4Runner which is not something I need. My terrain in CA does not need a TRD Off-Road all decked out but our malls in here seem to like 'em :D
 
Yeah the new Rav 4 adventure trim has 20 inch wheels! When I mentioned that to the sales guy he said that's because they are better for off road I just smiled and nodded.

Our outback has the 3.6 6 cyl, it's a pretty great car that we use a lot. We have a very bumpy road to get to our cabin, and we drive through a small river at times as well so the ground clearance is nice.
 
Casinostocks said:
plus I'm not a big fan of CVT transmissions but Subaru does them right.
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Not sure if there is such a thing as "right" with a CVT, but I guess they probably do it better than others. Was looking around a couple months ago and a local Subaru dealer had a nice 2016 Legacy 3.6R with low miles. Got excited for a minute and then saw the CVT...aaarrgghhh! Who the hell puts a CVT into what's supposed to be the sportiest model? Went online to do some research and sure enough, the performance was blah and the reviews were saying how the CVT was programmed for economy, not performance. WTF? Problem is if you program it for performance, it won't last for crap.

sorry, end rant
 
Hello my fella consummate car-shoppers AKA "lot lizards" :D (more cyber these days as opposed to literal ones back in the days!)

I recently discovered an invaluable site with oodles of info also teaming with oodles of helpful folks lurking in their discussions forum. I have already signed up and although I have zero commercial interest in the Site, I admit that I'm somewhat envious for not having come up with this idea as something on the side! It may be more "Cali" concentrate as I think that the founders are CA based, but I have seen all sorta deals in different regions of this fair land of ours. The forums navigation and sub categories gets bit of getting used to!

I have always believed that knowledge is power so without further ado:

LeaseHackr (not a typo!)

LeaseHackr Forum
 
Ha yeah that's where I've been looking for car deals. There are some great Toyota deals if you are on the east coast.
 
unwisefool said:
Ha yeah that's where I've been looking for car deals. There are some great Toyota deals if you are on the east coast.
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Looking at Acura MDX as they are giving them away (new body style coming in late 2020, hence #$%$ :) ) and I'm a Honda Guy as opposed to Toyota ;)

I hit the 2 online car buyers (Carvana & Vroom which was a rip off) and local CarMax with Carvana being the winner; they made me an offer hard to refuse so I'm waiting to see if legit or waste of time BS, before I start wheeling & dealing (all pertinent docs at my end have been uploaded so we shall see).

Good luck in your search too :thumbsup:
 
Casinostocks said:
Looking at Acura MDX as they are giving them away (new body style coming in late 2020, hence #$%$ :) ) and I'm a Honda Guy as opposed to Toyota ;)

I hit the 2 online car buyers (Carvana & Vroom which was a rip off) and local CarMax with Carvana being the winner; they made me an offer hard to refuse so I'm waiting to see if legit or waste of time BS, before I start wheeling & dealing (all pertinent docs at my end have been uploaded so we shall see).

Good luck in your search too :thumbsup:
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Does Carvana register the car for you too? If not, think I'd rather deal with the dealer than have to go to the RMV:eek:
 
jlauffer said:
Does Carvana register the car for you too? If not, think I'd rather deal with the dealer than have to go to the RMV:eek:
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If you buy from Carvana, they will register the car for you but perhaps I was not clear in my last post:

I am actually selling a car to Carvana as they are also a car buying service in addition to Vroom.com and your local CarMax. I am not advocating or vouching for any of these characters other than to look into them if you have a car which you'd like to sell without fussing with trading it in or local private party sales (If you have a car to sell which is nice and less than 10K, private party maybe the best way to go). In CA we register and renew our registrations at the DMV or services like Triple-A.
 
Casinostocks said:
If you buy from Carvana, they will register the car for you but perhaps I was not clear in my last post:

I am actually selling a car to Carvana as they are also a car buying service in addition to Vroom.com and your local CarMax. I am not advocating or vouching for any of these characters other than to look into them if you have a car which you'd like to sell without fussing with trading it in or local private party sales (If you have a car to sell which is nice and less than 10K, private party maybe the best way to go). In CA we register and renew our registrations at the DMV or services like Triple-A.
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Rereading your post you did say "online car buyers", so my mistake. Here in MA and RI, when you buy a car the dealer will register it for you (they have "runners" that go to the RMV) and then we can renew online (in MA at least, not sure about RI). AAA can do some stuff too, but not really sure what. May find out next year when I need to get my license renewed and need a new picture...every other time you renew you need a new pic (so every 10 years), but the other times you can just renew online. I haven't been to an actual RMV in like 20 years.
 
Casinostocks said:
Looking at Acura MDX as they are giving them away (new body style coming in late 2020, hence #$%$ :) ) and I'm a Honda Guy as opposed to Toyota ;)

I hit the 2 online car buyers (Carvana & Vroom which was a rip off) and local CarMax with Carvana being the winner; they made me an offer hard to refuse so I'm waiting to see if legit or waste of time BS, before I start wheeling & dealing (all pertinent docs at my end have been uploaded so we shall see).

Good luck in your search too :thumbsup:
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Same thing with Highlander, new one coming in December. I wanted an mdx but the wife said no.
 
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