E-mail car negotiations advice.

"Carbon Fiber Sasquatch" (turbopumpkin) 05/12/2017 at 19:31 • Filed to: None

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Here’s the email that I’m going to send to the dealerships that have the Buick encore in the trim and color that my wife wants

“My wife is a Huntington employee and is looking to trade in her 2014 Chevrolet Spark with around 38000 miles on it and $8050 left on the loan. We’re looking to lease the vehicle with 12000 miles a year

What would be the lease terms if we chose you?”

Huntington is a large bank around here that offers a GM discount. Is there anything else I shouild include besides a standard greeting?

heliochrome85 > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/12/2017 at 19:33

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you need to find out the money factor, currently on the car. As well as current residual. Those are set by the factory and can be hard negotiating points.

heliochrome85 > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/12/2017 at 19:44

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https://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/38283/buick/encore/2016-buick-encore-lease-questions

this should help. out of date, but a good starting point.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/12/2017 at 19:50

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When that’s over, we demand a review of the Encore

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/12/2017 at 19:56

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The encore looks so small in person.

Carbon Fiber Sasquatch > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 05/12/2017 at 19:59

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Wife likes small cars but wanted something high up to put the kid in without bending over, she liked the encore the best out of all the small suvs we drove

105 HP of fury > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 05/12/2017 at 20:00

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And then after the review is finished, another short but different review.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > 105 HP of fury 05/12/2017 at 20:08

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NO PUNS

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo 05/12/2017 at 20:18

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What you did there, I see it.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/12/2017 at 21:32

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I spent some time in a jeep renegade and I didn’t hate it then I looked it up and it was nearly $30k.

Carbon Fiber Sasquatch > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 05/12/2017 at 22:32

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Its funny you saw that. We really liked the new Compass but then we saw it was nearly $30k lol

Textured Soy Protein > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/12/2017 at 22:56

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No offense but this is a terrible way to negotiate a lease. Because:

Dealerships usually only negotiate prices, if anything, by email with people who have not yet come in to look at a car.

“What are the lease terms?” is way too open-ended of a question for them to definitively answer.

A trade adds another huge variable to the mix. Nobody will quote you anything on a trade without looking at it.

Lease terms most often come down to whatever incentives are offered by the manufacturer so there is no significant variation among different dealerships.

Go to a dealership, pick the car you want, get a trade appraisal, and say you want to build a lease for the Encore with the same money factor, capital cost reduction, and residual percentage as the lease deal posted on the Buick website, but on the car with the options you want and the mileage you want. Those will be the best possible terms on the lease.

Then it comes down to the following variables:

The purchase price they sell the car to the leasing company for.

What they’ll give for your trade.

What if anything this employee discount gets you above and beyond the published lease deal.

Carbon Fiber Sasquatch > Textured Soy Protein 05/12/2017 at 23:00

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So if we found exactly what we wanted on the lot for about $4,500 less than msrp, we should just go right to them and start negotiating?

Carbon Fiber Sasquatch > Textured Soy Protein 05/12/2017 at 23:04

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http://m.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicledetails.xhtml?listingId=443956608&zip=43068&endYear=2018&pageLayout=list&sortBy=distanceASC&startYear=1981&listingTypes=new&searchRadius=100&extColorsSimple=BLUE&mmt=%5BBUICK%5BBUIENC%5BBUIENC%7CSport+Touring%5D%5D%5B%5D%5D

Car in question

nermal > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/12/2017 at 23:08

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Don’t do anything like that. TL;DR, GM dealers are dumb and you need to play their dumb games.

Before you contact a dealer, go to nadaguides.com and price out your trade. Your goal is to get as close to the “Clean Trade” $$$ as possible, obviously going over is ok.

Dealers are impatient and want people that are ready to buy NOW. They also don’t like competing with other dealers over price. So that’s why you want to start with showing urgency, but don’t mention that you’re cross-shopping them.

“I’m looking to purchase a car this weekend and already know what I want. I like one that I saw on your website, stock # 12345.”

That should get their attention.

Then tell them your terms.

“I’d like to lease it for 36 months and 12k miles per year. We qualify for supplier pricing through my wife’s employer. Please provide a price quote.”

When they ask about a trade, tell them you have one, but you’re not sure about trading or selling it yourself. Add $1k to whatever NADA Clean Trade is, and tell them that’s what you think it’s worth and what you’d like to get for it. They’ll probably low ball you by a few grand, so ask them to meet in the middle, somewhere around the Clean Trade $$$.

Make sure you find out every fee as well. Dealers can mark up the money factor on the lease, as well as acquisition fees and documentation fees. Don’t let them do that.

Forrest > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/12/2017 at 23:15

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I would say this. I would like a lease with the following terms:

MSRP: $W (perhaps assume base model)

Purchase price: $X

Money factor: $Y

Months: $Z

I usually start with dealers that are NOT in my area to calibrate without burning any bridges. Then, I take the best offer from not-nearby dealers and shop for it via email at local dealers.

Save the trade in discussions for later.

I also recommend posting this question on leasehackr.com, and also ask what terms people have gotten on the Encore recently.

Carbon Fiber Sasquatch > Forrest 05/12/2017 at 23:27

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Wow! That’s a great website!

Forrest > Forrest 05/12/2017 at 23:38

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And the other term I forgot to mention

Residual: A% of MSRP

With GM products in general, the residual is often pretty low (i.e. high depreciation), but you may also be able to negotiate the purchase price down a lot.

With Honda, for example, the residuals are usually really high, but there often isn’t much of a discount available below the MSRP.

The absolute prices don’t really matter. What matters is the gap between the purchase price and the residual price — you are essentially taking out a loan on the difference of those two numbers. You can choose how to break this amount up into down payment and monthly.

I remember seeing some crazy $100/mo with $0 down on the Chevy Equinox on leasehackr. I don’t remember the details. But, if you are willing to cross-shop a few different models, you can score an insane deal.

We negotiated a new 328i for $8000 off MSRP and got the minimum money factor that BMW Credit allows and got it for $296/month for 24mo including tax. The residual value (which is set by BMW Credit but is not really negotiable) was 72% of MSRP, which is really high (good). It took a lot of dealer emails to put this deal together, but it was worth it.

Forrest > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/12/2017 at 23:41

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Yep! I enjoy leasehackr.

Some cars are better to buy outright though. I shopped for a long time for a lease on a new FR-S/86/BRZ. Due to low residuals, little negotiation room off of purchase price, and high money factor, I couldn’t negotiate a 24mo lease for any less than $13k total for the duration of the BRZ lease. Compare that to the 328i (which is $40k MSRP while the BRZ is $25k). Due to favorable lease terms, the 328i is costing a little over $7k (vs $13k for BRZ) for the entire 2-year lease.

I ended up buying a used 2013 BRZ with complete service records for $15k. I wrote one check for that car and it’s mine free and clear. I like it enough that I wouldn’t want to give it back within 2 years, anyway.

Textured Soy Protein > Carbon Fiber Sasquatch 05/13/2017 at 00:47

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Unfortunately a lot of the time when you see a price like that on Auto Trader, the dealer is using some unspecified combination of incentives to get to that number. If you’re leasing, you may not qualify for all of the incentives they’re using to get that number. Usually manufacturers offer either a straight up rebate, or special financing, or a special lease, but you can’t necessarily combine all of them together. Then there’s other things like owner loyalty cash, or competing brand conquest cash, military discount, etc. So you’d have to find out from the dealer what the actual purchase price of the vehicle is when they sell it to the leasing company.

The way a lease works, you have the purchase price of the vehicle for the dealer to sell it to the leasing company, the projected residual value at the end of the lease (this varies based on the miles on the lease, higher miles means lower residual), the number of payments, the money factor (the lease equivalent of interest rate but it’s not really interest since you’re not borrowing money), and capital cost reductions (i.e. some additional money kicked in to effectively lower the purchase price of the car). Usually money factors aren’t published readily.

The payments are basically, purchase price, minus capital cost reduction and residual value, divided by number of payments, multiplied by the money factor.

With a manufacturer lease deal, there’s typically some combination of capital cost reduction and/or special low money factor they’re using to get to that monthly payment number.

Buick is running a deal on the Encore for $199/month for 39 months with $3509 due at signing. It’s a 32,500 mile lease which over 39 months is 10k miles a year. The Buick website says this is for an Encore FWD Preferred Equipment Group with an MSRP of $25,290.

So what I mean by saying you want the terms of the lease deal on the Buick website but on the car you want is they’ll use all of Buick’s payment lowering tricks but you won’t end up with the same payment since the car you’re looking at has an MSRP of $26,885.

What you want to accomplish is:

Lease terms same as what Buick is offering online

Lowest possible purchase price of the vehicle regardless of any incentives (look up the invoice on KBB etc)

Any rebates, employee discounts, or other cash that can be used toward down payment or capital cost reduction, that can be stacked with the lease terms being offered by Buick.

Best possible trade value

Put all those together and you’ve got your lease deal.

See why you won’t be able to get to this point by just emailing “hey tell me your best lease deal”?