Educate me on leasing a VW

[gt350mike]

I've been giving serious thought to getting a commuter car for the past year because using 05 F250 diesel as a DD is somewhat expensive. Between driving to work (about 12k per yr) and towing (2k per), you have an idea of what it cost to operate and maintain the truck, which makes the concept of getting a commuter car more appealing. Before I go any further, I've considered trading in the truck for a F150 w/the Ecoboost, but for me the cons (less towing capability, greater depreciation) outweigh the pros (one vehicle vs two, less insurance).

I've never liked the idea of leasing a vehicle but this morning I saw a Volkswagen advertisement on their "Sign and Drive" lease program and the numbers got my attention. Before I blindly run down and sign a lease on a Passat, I wanted to know more about the leasing process with Volkswagen. Specifically, what is and is not negotiable (vehicle cost, mileage), what will be the out of pocket expense (if any) at turn-in besides excessive mileage, door dings, etc and/or is there anything else I need to be aware of???

[peppy]

I am interested in this also, for my sister.

[BGCarrera32]

I have not leased a VW, sorry, but have leased a Ford. Everything is negotiable to a point.

Usually with the typical dealer they will ask what you'd like to put down and what sort of mileage and monthly payment you want. Then the sales guy will run a summary report of sorts to show you how it maps out. What you want to do is get a copy of the actual final contract in hand to look over PRIOR to getting walked over to the finance guys office for review; take the contract away somewhere and look it over. On the contract is where you'll find the $75 "documentation" fee, the $500 or whatever amount "buyout fee" if you want to keep the vehicle and buy it at the end of the lease, the true cost of the vehicle after financing, money rate, etc. etc.

Leasing can be a great deal, or you can screw yourself and end up close to MSRP window sticker if you don't watch what their doing. The guys that flat out refuse to lease are the ones that don't run the numbers and think about the advantages and disadvantages. Think of leasing as having a buyer lined up at the end of your term, toss in the keys and walk away to another vehicle or whatever you want to do.

[Head416]

Walk in and negotiate the selling price first, once that is done and you have a good price start talking about lease terms. Do your research first. Edmunds discussion forums helped me save an extra $1,000 on a Camry last month.

[matt711]

The Eco Boost isnt returning the kind of MPG you might expect. I just traded my F150 for a 250 and am getting 18-19 MPG. The 150 was turning in 13

[porsche4life]

Search for Kaisen's posts on leasing. He can rub down the numbers for you. His PM's are full but the email him still works as well.

[gt350mike]

Thanks for the comments. I've checked out Edmunds and found the TMV (True Market Value) is roughly $2k below invoice; is the TMV really that low compared to invoice/msrp? In this case, I thought TMV would have been around invoice.

Hate to hear the mileage for a F150 Ecoboost is around 13 so that will be another "con".

I'll search through Kaisen's post too.

[jcommin]

The things you need to know:

Sale price of car
Residual value
Interest rate
Addtional fees.
Use a 3 year lease.
Don't factor a trade or addtional cash

From the information, you can calculate your monthly payment. There are plenty of tables on the net to help you calculate a payment.


If a dealer can give you any of the first 4 items, walk.

[gt350mike]

There no shortage of post from Kaisen in regards to leasing so I'm glad I took the time to read through them.

Friday afternoon I was able to test drive the Passat S which is their base model and there were no surprises with the exception of the poor rear visibility. Afterwards, we sat down to negotiate the lease and the first number they tossed out was $270 for the S model and $325 for the SE. When I asked the salesman about the money rate, he side-stepped it with a vague answer but promised to follow-up with an answer. I tried to reverse the numbers and I think the money rate they are using is roughly 4.5% with a residual is 50%.

Speaking of money rate, the figures I've seen on the net are confusing at first because it's not presented as an APR. Instead, it's a very small factional number such as .00020 or .00015. After a little research, I was able to decipher the number by simply multiplying the given number by 2400. So if you're offered a money rate of .00015, the APR is roughly 3.4%.

We didn't close on a deal yesterday because I still think there is ample room for negotiation. I called the manager late Saturday afternoon and told him we would talk business Monday so hopefully they will come back with better figures. Stay tuned......

[jcommin]

GT Mike,

This what you do exactly. Essentially you are financing the depreciation. Trade, deposit, fees just muddle things up.

There is probably an app for it for smatrphones.

Good luck!

[gt350mike]

You're right, there are apps available and I actually used a few to verify the quote from the dealership.

If you didn't have a app readily available, Kaisen has explained how to calculate the lease payment that will get very close to the actual figure.