Thanks! I got the info from the dealer that the Lexus incentive went down by $500 only, but everything else went up. From previous experience I know how dealers can manipulate MF and lease terms making 1-2k easily disappearing in the paperwork and small print. Happened to me twice before. Managed to get $1300 back from them, when discovered it two days later. After these occurrences I do not believe much of what they say.

I am thinking of extending my lease now as Lexus gives this option for up to 6 months.

 

How many days were they able to "backdate"? Was it a 2-3 days or more?

 

Dealers always try and pad the MF. As long as you know the retail MF which you can get on those Edmunds forums, they can't pull that one on you. Post in there and ask how the deal changed from Dec to Jan, the moderators there will respond quickly and tell you, they're great. Then you'll know if the dealer is being honest or not.

In my case, waiting until Jan would have cost me $4k or so.

Not very long, only a couple days. They had to find me a car, and they did in Alabama while I was out of town for New Years and I went in on Jan 3rd and was able to do the deal for Dec 31st then. They did all the paperwork including the title and issued me a temp tag before the car was even there. Car didn't arrive until maybe the 10th.

At this point its too late. The dealer has to be able to say "well we just didnt turn this in until today"

 

Just saw activity in this thread. The dealer that said pricing went up, could have needed to sell X units to hit his next sales incentive and willing to cut a better deal. This happened to me at the end of December 2012 when we got my wife's 2013 ES300h. Now into the new year he is not willing to go that low.

I also endorse the Edmunds forum site. Great info which you can use in negotiations. The site will include incentives that are direct to dealer incentives, so not publicly advertised. Plug this info into the lease calculator at leaseguide.com (they also have a good lease/buy calculator) to get idea of what payments will be. Generally only negotiable number is the Cap cost.

I'm not familiar with Lexus leases so this is just an example of how things change. I'm near the end of the lease on my 17 MDX Advance, a period where I can roll into a new lease if I want to (I am under on miles as I did not anticipate buying the S550, so right now I am leaning on just buying the vehicle). From the Edmunds site, from December the January dealer lease incentive went up from $6,800 to $7,200, but the residual decreased from 56% to 55%, resulting in essentially no change to the lease payment. The negative is that the money factor/interest rate remains the same at a high 5.16.

 

Thanks everyone for very helpful info.

For now I've decided to extend my lease, which I did not know I can do. My lease payments from Lexus financial info are $420 monthly, however, when I add them up, the total lease payments we gave to the dealership $2000 more ($420 x 24 mo plus extra $2000). Does it mean that the dealership added some 2k manipulating the numbers? Or paperwork, licensing, etc. costs do not calculate into the lease and are separate? If so, I think that dealer still fudged the numbers, but only by about $800 or so.

I will def read the Edmunds forum for additional info.

To wasjr - it seem that MF for Lexus leases now 0.00001 to 0.0006 depending on the terms of lease I guess.

 

larabond, i'm no leasing expert even though i lease my current vehicle.

but if a dealer tells me they're honoring a price and yet it's somehow still $2K more, i smell a bad thing...

 

They're honoring the sales price, cant honor the payment because the program numbers have changed.

 

don't care how calculated, it ain't the same deal so they're not honoring jack.

 

Extending my MDX lease is an option for me as well. Since I am considering buying the vehicle, if I extend the lease six months nearly 85% of the lease payment will reduce the residual/purchase option, so little cost to extend my decision. Plus there should be more vehicle options...redesigned MDX, better pricing for Telluride/Palisade, etc. at the end of the year.

 

Its truly out of their hands. They don’t have control over the lease residuals or money factors or the lease bonus cash. All they can control is what they agree to discount the car to

 

True in theory, but they gave me a "new" quote with exactly the same MF, the actual price of the vehicle is went up by $500 in one day on the estimate, the Lexus cash went down ONLY by $500, so not clear how they came up with the new number which is $1730 more. This is not "honoring" the price. I got the quote from the dealer for just a $130 more just before he said about "price honoring". Also, with this particular dealership I know for a fact they fudge MF.
They've done it twice before. It worked like this - agreed on the price, then they try to sell you dealer-installed options. I say - no thanks. They still install it, but fudge MF so I pay the same as the agreed price. They lowered MF so now the car is less $$, but instead of passing the difference to a car buyer who did not want the installed lowjack etc. they pocket the difference. If they were upfront about it I can understand, but I do not like this tactic. I know that the dealership is there to make money, but can they be upfront? Last time they promised not to dealer install anything, on the car that was coming from the factory. They still installed $700 things I specifically told them not too. Told me it is "free" as "oops, their service department just works too fast". The day later they called me to come to "sign the work order" for the extra-things I did not need. Of course I did not

​​​​​​I know that many dealers do this now. So, if there are some dealer installed options and they say it is "free" it never is.

 

But what is the residual? Even if the MF is the same the residual changes month to month also.

 

Just compared the two quotes, the residual is exactly the same from December quote and from yesterday.

 

When you ask them to explain the discrepancy what do they say?