Friend went shopping over the weekend.

E320 4 matic : $80k (4 yr residual is $47k)

GS300AWD : $78k (4 yr residual is $29k!!!!!)

WTF????

 

Damn...that's gotta be a typo. Lexus shouldn't be doing that poorly.

 

Nope. The monthly on the GS was $180 MORE than the E320.

That's $8,640 more over four years of payments.....

I remember a Toyota salesman telling me that the fully loaded models have the lowest percentage residual because they can't demand much premium for options in the used car market (eg. premium stereo, etc).

 

But then how come MB and BMW seem to be able to pull it off?

 

Novelty, synonymous with desirability I guess, is also a factor. Remember when the Mini came out, and it was already projected to hold its value extremely well. So perhaps that's how MB and BMW are able to do it.

 

There's also the issue of accounting.

Toyota/Lexus use very conservative residuals and because they can demonstrate that their actual future value's are consistently above residual value, they get special accounting treatment of their leases.

Maybe this doesn't hurt sales because more people BUY japanese and LEASE german due to reliability issues?

 

That's actually not a bad point.