Greetings all. Newbie here thinking about leasing a TSK in the immediate near future since they are offering what appears to be an attractive offer.

$299 Monthly Payment for 36 months with $2139 due at signing ($1245 Down Payment).

I see that the invoice including destination charge is $26,451 and the small print in the lease says that "Dealer participation may vary. MSRP $28,760.00 (includes destination) less the capitalized cost reduction (which may be paid by the suggested dealer contribution) resulting in actual net capitalized cost $26,565.36" and the residual is set at $17,831 which is 62%.

Math leads me to believe that the dealer contribution is $950 ($28,760 MSRP minus my $1,245 down payment minus net cap cost of $26,565).

So if the above is accurate, they are basically taking $950 off the MSRP. With $2300 in margin between the MSRP and invoice, I'd think that you could get another $700-900 off the price, no?

 

Where did you get the $1245 down payment from? I've talked to a bunch of dealers and worked out some numbers and the drive away has always been $2129 and that's it. Is that money you want to put down to lower the monthly costs or was that in an ad you read somewhere?

Thanks,

D

 

the $2129 probably includes first payment, security deposit, down payment and possibly the bank fee

 

The $2139 due at signing in the above lease is broken down as follows:

$299 First Payment
$595 Acquisition Fee
$1245 Capital Cost Reduction (Down Payment)

Don't see a security deposit in the above figures

Anyway, The good thing about this lease is the money factor is subbed by the dealer. The effective interest rate is about 2.8% (.00127 money factor x22)

Keeping everything else the same, if you negotiated the car at invoice, the monthly payment would roughly be $260, or with a $299 Monthly payment, the total due would drop to about $800.

If you want, PM me, and I can email you a excel sheet so you can easily play with the numbers.

 

Thanks GT, that was the info I was looking for - just wanted to confirm my math was correct and that you could do a little better. I'll actually want 12k miles per year, and from what I understand that takes the residual value down another 2%. Instead of negotiating the price down, think I'll ask to give me the extra 2k miles per year for the same price and see how that goes.

All pending a test drive of course. On paper it looks good, but I'm a little worried about the low torque, coming from cars that always had higher torque than hp.

And yes, the $1245 down isn't drive off - just the cap cost reduction.

 

Going to 12K/per with the same numbers is worth approximatley $549

 

That's about what I figured. Assuming they are trying to move some cars, I *should* be OK as that still leaves the dealer about $900 over invoice. Thanks for all the info.

 

Simple update for anyone that cares. You all own a mighty fine car (not that you needed me to tell you that). Seems to have plenty of power for getting you around town and highway on ramps. Nice handling, decent bells and whistles in the standard model trim, and reaffirmed my thought that this is a very good buy at $2k down and $300 a month.

Think we're going to try to sell my wife's 2002 Jeep Liberty instead of doing the trade-in and see if we can't come out a little bit more ahead. Thanks for all the feedback.

 

Honda/Acura leases are one of the fewer out there that are non-transferable, so keep that in mind when trying to factor risk into all this. Others such as BMW leases can be transfered once IIRC, which lowers the risk considerably.

 

Transferring a lease is generally not a solid financial move. A common misconception is that a lease is impossible to break, or incurrs huge penalties to end and you are stuck with the car, and the payments.

I believe a lease offers more options that a finance, especially in the 18-36 month period or having the car.

With any lease, you can simply 'sell' or trade in the car during the lease period. The lease has a payoff, just like a loan, and just like a loan the payments are broken up like principle and interest.

Using the lease numbers above ($1245 down, $299/36mo), we can compare it to a finance with a generous interest rate (let's say $1245 down, 3.9% for 60months = a $488.04 car payment)

After 2 years on the Finance you would have spent $12957.96 on the down payment and monthly payments and owe $16,555.34. Say you sell the car for a reasonalbe $21,000, that's about $4,400 in your pocket, but over those two years, when you add up the monthly payments + what you owe - what you sold the car for it equals -$8513.30, or in other words it cost you $354 a month for the privelege to own this car (the beauty of depreciating assests).

As for the lease after 2 years you would have spent $7,310 on the down payment and monthly payments and the payoff would be $20,500. Again selling the car for $21,000 equals a paltry $500 in your pocket. But, over those two years it only would have cost you-$6810, or about $284 a month.

Add to that, you have about $200 more a month to spend on whatever. Infact, say you could afford the $488 a month, you could still do the lease, you would pay $488 for 17 months and have the lease paidoff. The car is yours at no monthly cost for 19 more months.

I'm not saying that leasing is always better, but even with a decent interest rate, the lease gives you more options sooner than a finance.

The best leases are generally around 36 months, and have a subsidized money factor from the manufacturer and involve a high residual value.

Bottom line, don't feel like you are stuck, with no options in a lease.

 

Generally you are stuck with the payments and the car (with Honda) unless you trade the car in (and buy a new one), come up with the payoff, or drive it off a cliff.

You cant "sell" a leased car to a private party...its not your car to sell. Some leases can be transferred to, or assumed by, a third party, which is the closest thing you can get to "selling" a lease. But once again, HONDA WILL NOT ALLOW THIS. BMW will, and many others will, and it can save your butt if you fall on rough times during the lease period. Thus, Im not the world's biggest fan of leasing a car through AHFC at all is the point Im making.

They trap you pretty good...I financed a new TSX 12 months after I made the stupid decision to lease my first one through AHFC. I traded the old one in and took a $2000 hit, but believe it or not, that really was the best way to get out of the lease. If it had been a BMW lease for example, I would have been able to transfer it 100% liability and all to someones else who actually wanted the car.

 

It's all about weighing your options. I've leased 3 cars and purchased 3 cars, and generally speaking the leasing has worked out better, all things considered. Affording a higher payment is not a problem, I just tend to get a new car about every 3 years so it makes more sense to lease for me. It does suck that you can't transfer the lease with Honda/Acura, as my last car was a lease I took over from someone else.

 

This particular scenario, high depreciation, low interest, long finance period, and short "ownership" period favors leasing.

I ran a similar scenario with a 4 year loan, and this same 3 year lease, and the car still worth about $21000 after 3 years (about right), and the person who financed the car did better than the one who leased. The difference was the person just turned the car in at the end of the lease rather than try to get out of it early.

 

I did just that with my 04 TSX, I sold a AHFC leased car to a private party. It's a seemless process and works exactly like if you sold a financed car to someone. And a financed car is not yours either, it's the banks. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with Honda's policies.

 

That lease offer is based on selling the car at MSRP. You should be able to get $1245 under MSRP, effectively making it $0 down with the same payments.

I recently leased a 07 TSX from a So Cal dealership and this is what I'm paying:

$1250 drive-off (first month's payment, bank fee, registration, and taxes)
$350/month after sales tax
12K miles/36 months

 

Does your TSX have a NAVI?

I just leased a 07 TSX w/NAV from Acura of Las Vegas:

$3000 drive off
$368/month after sales tax
12K miles/36 months

 

This is a great post.

 

No, mine did not have navi. Your numbers don't look too far off from mine considering the extra price for the navi.

http://leaseguide.com is helpful for calculating payments using their calculator.

 

I'm glad that they you might be able to dicker with the dealer now. I got this lease offer when it was first available, and unfortunately due to it's popularity I spent 9 hours at the dealer just trying to get this deal. 2 weeks before this lease offer I believe my dealer had 9 or 10 07's in stock, when I went in one week after the deal they were down to 3. Maybe it was just my region. Or the fact that we didn't realize that it would be going longer then the original time limit.

Hopefully dealers are a little more flexible now.

 

Just put down a deposit for my TSX, which I will be picking up on Saturday...can't wait.

07' 5-Speed Automatic non-navi in Carbon Gray Pearl w/Quartz leather

$3000 driveoff
$298/month
10k miles/year
All-weather mats and mud-flaps thrown in

 

I just leased the same car...color and all

$3000 down
$288 a month
15k year / 36 months

 

I just leased:



07 TSX-CGP
$2129 down
$255/month
all season mats thrown in
10k miles/36 months

 

Welcome to the Family! You're going to love the TSX.

 

Does anyone know if AHFC will announce May/June specials before the end of April? My RSX is up the end of June, and it's either gonna be get a TSX at the end of April or hope that there's a similar deal in May.

 

The way they did the current lease specials is a little out of the ordinary. Usually they're done on a month to month basis. I don't know why they had a March-April Special this time around.

To answer your question, they probably did the excellent leases for these two months because there was a few too many TSX and TL's sitting around on dealerships lots.

I can't speak for everyone, but here in Vegas, we're almost out of cars. I can't see how they would carry them over another month, but nobody knows. We'll probably hear about the 28-29th of April.