I can't find any real numbers on their website for it other than "the money you pay if you pay it all up front is less than if you made payments". But how much less?

Come somebody give me some basic numbers to calculate how much cash I'd have to put down on to pay all at once, say, an IS350 w/ nav and levinson lease w/ 15k miles, 48 months? Is there a rough % of the sticker price that I can just assume? Also, is this number a "best case scenario" or is it negotiable somewhat (maybe a year from now when they aren't the hot new thing out?).

Lastly I know this is off topic but I could have sworn I read that a sunroof is standard on the new IS, yet I could also swear I've read more than one person talking about their IS not having one. I'd actually prefer not to have one if it'll save me money and give me extra headroom. Possible?

 

there is such a thing? i would like to know too! i didn't read anything about this when i was getting my car

 

Well I was just at the dealership today talking to a lady there who mentioned it as an option.

Technically from what I gather, if my tradein can cover the entire depreciated value of the new car then I shouldn't have to pay any taxes or any money factor; only the depreciation left over from the residual value.

And if I read right, the residual on a basic IS250 without nav or anything is a very nice 62% @ 15k miles a year. On the base 30,000 price of the IS (MT) that's only around an 11,400 depreciation. If I could trade my GS400 in for, say 16,000 I'd actually be cut a check for 4,600 bucks, PLUS get to drive the car with no payments for 3 years, all under warranty, 15k miles.

That'd be quite awesome.

Not that I'm necessarily set on the base IS250... but it just demonstrates what a great deal this could make for me.

 

I never did one of these but the economics are not brain surgery. When you lease a car, you pay for the part of the car you use and then flip the car back at them. They assume a residual given the number of years and miles you will put on it and the rest is what you are "buying". That is all that the lease is. The far more normal lease is now to finance that amount over the term of the lease. So they let their little calculators whir and put an interest rate to finance it, often referred to as the money factor, and your payments drop out the bottom. When you pay it all up front, you are not financing anything so there should be no money factor applied just the value of the car now and the value of it when you turn it in, you pay the difference. They will probably never ever let you have that deal and will pack something into the deal because, well, that is what beancounters do. If they want to get you in the car, they use a high residual to knock the payments down. If you are going to pay it all up front they will probably knock the residual down to less than they think it will be worth because they won't make any interest on you.

 

Good explaination, thanks.

 

The more I think about it the more I think that maybe there should be a money factor on the remaining value of the car. In other words if I finance a 35k dollar Lexus and put 15k dollars down on it to pay the entire value of the lease up front, I still have 20k worth of car that I'm "borrowing" for free, so maybe the money factor still applies to the remaining portion?

 

Ah grasshopper but you DON'T have 20K worth of car leftover. You never own anything, the lease company has title to the car, not you. Just like "buying" the car and financing it, the bank has the title in their vault, not yours. You don't own it until you've paid for it. The lease company owns the car and they get that 20K back when you turn the car back in. That is what the residual is about. To use your example if you want to lease a 35K car and when you turn it back in to the lease company, they say it will be worth 20K then what they are out is the 15K in value that you have taken out of it. But just paying the 15K gives them no profit so they are going to stack something extra on for their service. You could always take the 15K and put it in an interest bearing account and make your payments out of that account during the term of the lease. If you look at the balance sheets of any public company you will probably find 20% before tax profit so at a minimum, if they want to make that off of you, they would add 20% to the 15K and your up front payment could be 18K. You just have to see what the deal is that they are offering you and run the numbers both ways. And determine your comfort level with no payments for the life of the lease vs a coupon book.

 

OK I just got off the phone with my local dealer and not only do they say that my tradein won't take a single dime off the sales tax on a lease, but they want to charge $169 a month in money factor (interest) regardless of whether or not I put my 16k dollar trade in toward the 1-time payment. So I asked what's the advantage of doing the 1-time payment and he said it's pretty much just the convenience of not having to bother with payments on your car - he said it's popular among people who travel a lot outside the country and whatnot. Lexus.com sure does tout it as being a way to save money on interest, so who's lying here??

All in all they claim the $36944 sticker priced IS350 has a .62 residual, making it depreciate about 14,038.72 over 36 months @ 15k miles. YET their total upfront "one payment" cost they quoted to me is 22,850 or some crap like that. Good grief. They're already basing the lease on friggin' STICKER price but now they want to mark it up 9 grand more? Yeah right.

Are there any advertising dealers on this board that might give me a competetive quote to see if that's reasonable and would be willing to ship the car to Memphis, TN for a reasonable fee?

 

Giving you absolutely nothing in return for giving them the whole amount up front sure seems like you are getting reamed. Put the money in some interest bearing account and get a little bit back. The car leasing/buying experience. From GM, or even bimmer, I would not be surprised. Would have hoped Lexus could have been a bit better. Hope it works out for you.