Xorg

I'm in the middle of negotiations with a local dealer on a TL/S lease. The dealer has been pretty good to work with and didn't struggle when I asked for the money factor and residuals, but then things got murky real fast.

So I jumped on the net and found some lease calculators, but they all fell short of what I needed - many of them were basic and missing tax payments and other nasty dealer fees and charges.

I also looked at some shareware and commercial packages that ranged in price from $20-149, but since I already have most of the stuff I needed, would these really be worth the money?

So....

I sat down in front of Excel today and created my own lease payment calculator / spreadsheet!

It has EVERYTHING associated with leasing and lease payments - all of the fees, hidden charges, tax payments, etc. I know the spreadsheet is accurate, because I plugged in the figures from my old Jeep lease, as well as what the dealer gave me, and my spreadsheet calculated everything right down to the PENNY!

I'm going to offer this creation to anyone who sends me an email requesting a copy, with a recommended "purchase price" of $5.00, which you can send to me using PayPal (my email is xorg@home.com)

This will be the best $5.00 you spend if you're looking to lease, and if you're not happy with it, I'll send you $4.00 back :-)

I assure you that all of the money will be used to help buy stuff for my TL/S (like $2.00/gallon gas!!)

It's ridiculously easy to use, all of the entry fields are shaded in red, simply plug in the figures and off it goes. The majority of information you need for the spreadsheet can be found on www.edmunds.com, the money factor, residuals, and fees come from the dealer - most of which will offer these up if you ask nicely.

If you want to see what the sheet looks like, click here:
http://www.szymonik.com/documents/lease.pdf

Thanks!

MCD

Excellent tool! I don't mean keep you from making a few $$ but there is another website that offers free Excel spreadsheets for leasing as well as buying. I don't know how it compares to yours but I use it often for negotiating car purchases.

The website is http://www.carbuyingtips.com and the free spreadsheets are in http://www.carbuyingtips.com/download.htm

Xorg

No prob, I tried using the ones from that site, but they were a bit too confusing and I couldn't make the figures calculate right, but the ones there are still better than the general calculators I see out there :-)

Guest

I did the same thing when I bought my TLS. I plugged in the leasing formulas to a spreadsheet on my PDA, compared them to the lease calculator numbers on the acura website and accuracy was to the penny. I found it extremely usefull at the end of the negotiation when I finally settled on a price with the salesman when he came back with a lease number that didn't correspond at all to the price we had aggreed upon. I showed him what the monthly payment was supposed to be, he went back reworked the number and match it to mine. In summary, the dealership tried to pull a fast one on me with the leasing number but my spreadsheet saves me!

Xorg

And its amazing how much their fooling around with lease figures can hurt you in the wallet, even if the monthly payment is "just $15 more a month."

I recommend that no one even think about leasing a car with something like my spreadsheet or your PDA in hand to check and doublecheck every line item.

Once you sign, its too late!