Hi folks,
It's time to get a new car again. While I like my GS350, it's time to have a baby and move on to a bigger vehicle..haha.. I got one of those early lease termination offers from Lexus Finanacial Services. Basically, they will waive the last 6 payments if I lease or buy another vehicle through LFS though any Lexus dealer. I negotiated an awesome price which I will go into full detail just like I did for my GS once it's finalized. Realize that I am in California and the competiton is stiff here. Since I have to go through LFS, they kind of have me on the financing part. I was thinking if the rate they give me is much higher than my Credit Union, I could just immediately refinance the car, which my CU will let me do. Has anybody every heard of a prepayment penalty for a LFS finance contract? Just checking, don't want to mention it to the dealer, just in case they are trying to make extra points on the finance portion to give me a better price on the car, you know what I mean..haha.

Thanks

 

There is no prepayment penalty, and you should be able to get LFS to match the rate that is being offered at your credit union.

 

No pre-payment. I was few $ short, so took the loan for the difference. As soon as my account appeared online couple weeks later, I have repaid the balance. You will have no problems at all, but you will have to wait couple weeks until the account is set up, etc...

 

I get the feeling that LFS won't match, they have me over the barrel so to speak, because I have to finance through them to get out of the 6 lease payments. So if the dealer makes something on the back end of the loan, I guess I could say upfront that I'm going to refinance immediately and try to have them match but then again, maybe I want them to overcharge me on the finance part and give me a better deal on the car. I use PenFed and refinancing at their 3.99 rate was super easy when I did it on a previous car.

 

if its a lease it isn't really a pre-payment fee. if you turn in your vehicle before your lease term is finished, you are responsible for the remaining months left on the lease. Sounds like what they are doing is hoping they can keep your brand loyalty by allowing you to end your lease earlier ONLY if you stay with Lexus, via another lease or a purchase AND to use LFS as the finance institution.

 

Tier one is 4.9 for 60 months right now FYI through LFS.... if you are in that "area" the finance manager can possibly bump you up to get the best rate.

 

Thanks, only 4.9% for Tier 1, wow, times have changed when even going through BofA is cheaper. I think I heard there was a 0.5% reduction of the rate for the GX until the end of the month offered by LFS to the dealers if they want to sweeten the deal for someone, but not totally sure about that.

 

Well its 1.9% for 24 months, then 2.9 for 36, 3.9 for 48, 4.9 for 60.

Sorry that is for CPO....new rates should be slightly lower.

 

Thanks,
I'm looking for a 60 month loan so I'm going to assume that 3.9% should be doable but then again, the point of my post was that I did some research and I'm pretty sure I can refinance any loan I get for 3.49 at 60 months.

 

There are regional offers and other offers. The Finance manager has a binder FULL of offers and promotions for the month as well as the standard offers. It depends on hard they want to work with you as they have the say/relationship with LFS to get the loan approved/rate.

Good luck.

 

I received an early lease termination offer too. Does it apply to financing used vehicles as well? The way I read the offer, it said the offer was good so long you you lease or finance a "new" vehicle through LFS. Not sure if they mean "new" to me vehcile or a "new" vehicle.

 

After reading the fine details, I think it has to be a new vehicle, not a CPO from them.

 

^^^ Yeah I am not sure and I don't want to confuse anyone. I do know in many offer cases CPO is treated as new.

Not sure if this is the case for the early lease offer. I would guess no.