lester123

I know that your credit rating is a factor that goes into the leasing monthly cost. I know 740 to 850 score is considered excellent. If one has a very high score, like 837, does one get an extra benefit?

SW17LS

Once you're above the manufacturer's top tier, your credit score doesn't matter. For Lexus anything over 720 is Tier 1 Plus, so 720-850 doesn't matter.

And in reality, they can get waivers so unless your score is in the mid 600s they can give you the 1+ rate.

Stroock639

yea anything over 720 is tier 1+ (the best it can be), however even if you were so much as like a day late on your macy's card payment or something like that, a finance guy can use that as a reason for why you don't qualify. besides the score, the amount of actual credit history you have factors in as well. there are way more things that would cause your payment to "need to" go up rather than go down lol...

but as far as the original question is concerned, no, there's no additional benefit. anything over 720 is just "good for you" and nothing more.

SW17LS

Thats just them trying to mark up the MF to add profit. Press and it dissapears.

Stroock639

oh i know lol just trying to let OP know what sort of tactics they use. i'm still friendly with a few finance guys so every so often i'll hear some stories of things they've done that worked. something i've taken away from my stint in the business is that the dealership can essentially ALWAYS do better on the price, and can't really means won't. a dealership also doesn't necessarily make more from a lease vs a buy or vice versa, although it's often much easier to fool someone with a lease since there's more ways to hide the profit, and people generally don't understand leasing as much.

also, there really isn't THAT much profit in a new car, or a new toyota at least. this of course depends on the model but i know the prius prime had only like a $750 difference between invoice and msrp. i've had people come in that'll say something like "my mom told me not to buy until they take 25% off" or something like that, which isn't even remotely possible. maybe with a dodge or something but there's no toyota even close to that. best advice i could give is just check online to see averages prices of people in your area, don't be a jerk when you're in there, don't ask for TOO much off of that number, and they'll usually cave and drop a few bucks a month to make a sale.

SW17LS

Right, its much easier for them to add profit into a lease and hide it than with a finance or cash deal.

I don't begrudge anybody a profit, I'm a businessman and the whole reason we're in business is to make money. What I don't appreciate is being screwed around with, and when dealers try and mark up a MF or something from the retail rate where they are already making money (and they ALWAYS do) I find that offensive.

Johnhav430

with the score I believe there is a threshold to get the "best" rates, but it is not that high.

I know I told a relative about 1.49% (must have been 2 yrs ago) at the CU, and turned out he got a higher rate in the 2's, due to a lower credit score. That bugs me--if me, I turn you, the CU down. I get that it's justified, but if me, I'm not paying more than someone else. Just me.

I do glance at FICO because it is free with AMEX and Chase in our cc's. My wife was always in a cash mindset, and ***** nilly too. I remember when we first married, she had late payments on Circuit City (hahahahaha) so I said wtf is this all about? Turns out my godfather asked her to open an account so they could get a sweet $4k flat screen (wasn't out of the world in 2006), and had trouble paying her for it. Mistake #1, yes. Or cosigning....

Anyway I noticed for us, Experian was always lower by 25 or so, so I adopted it as the benchmark. But my reasoning was faulty, buddy has good experian (800's), but his Trans Union is in the 500's? Has to be an error, but good luck on that one.

We all make mistakes, but I don't know what it would take to not be in the 800's. My wife has never had a car loan, mortgage, etc., and comes in at like 828. Having no loan experience should be a negative, it's like giving a child a gun. I've decided to ride out the house despite having no interest deduction as it's 3.37%. High when I got it, but not high today, 3 1/2 more years.

I was thinking about this, I complain to my buddy how my household goes "buck wild!" I mean we pay our cc's in full every month, so when one comes it at $3,700, I mean it hurts. It really does. But if I leased a car, or had a car payment, it would hurt that much more. Because not only do we have to pay these buck wild amounts, we have to save for the future on top. And my buddy says honestly I hear you, but you're in the top 3% and if anything, you have choices. A lot of folks don't. He's a CFP so I take what he says with a grain of salt and then add a little more weight...

edit when I say CFP he's in sales, so have to take it with a grain of salt, imho CFA is altogether different, like a chiropractor to a real doctor lol (ooops)

Johnhav430

Totally true, business folks have an understanding. When a vendor overcharged us in his quote, thinking it would be rubber stamped, he back pedaled and said he made an error in converting from CAD to USD. But this actually made little sense, and I remember the GM of the Brampton site saying that's insulting, we're all in business, if I made a mistake in the exchange rate I would recognize it right away. And they don't even add up if that were the case. Then he said in person that guy was condescending and I'm gonna outright say he's a liar and not to set foot again at our facility. Dang lol

To your point we would pay a decent margin for work performed (and in-line with competitors), but not for overstating or inflating numbers.

swajames

To the points about profit on new cars shrinking, what's clearly happened is that automakers wised up that customers had reasonably good access to invoice and margin info. and as a result they reduced the nominal invoice to MSRP "margin" and instead increased the back end and stair bonuses available to dealers.

You've got to be invoice minus right now to reflect actual dealer cost. A deal at invoice leaves money on the table as some of the dealer margin from from the transparent (invoice to MSRP) to opaque (easier to qualify step bonuses etc)

Johnhav430

When I bought a brand new BMW, I was quite surprised they way they did it.....because at the time conventional wisdom focused around invoice. We know that at invoice, a x% holdback built in blah blah blah blah blah (not on Germans). So they had people stating I want $1000 over invoice (on brand new cars that were not in stock i.e. ordered from Regensburg). What was sweet about it, was the BMW retailer would show the invoice, and add $1000. Wonderful. Suddenly, people would go home and say, wait a sec, I had written down $48,775 from edmunds as invoice, yet my paperwork states "$1,000 over invoice" and $51,175. Because dealer invoice has Training and MACO fees, edmunds, does not. And, these fees did not appear on the window sticker. GENIUS, those Munchens hauled some serious cash. Until word got out on the forums to negotiate backwards from MSRP, or better yet, like my dad? He would see the above $48,775, and say well my pulse seems to be only 67 today, down 5. So I want $47,500, take it or leave it and I'll get the tags myself. His method failed with Honda, actually. But worked with Toyota and Buick as of late.

What a game, and better to not play if you ask me.

Stroock639

well now that i've been on the salesman side of things, i'm kind of excited to be a customer at some point lol... just to see if i can catch them in the act of BSing me (or trying to)

Johnhav430

I hear you it's interesting that way.....how about eyeglasses? Long ago I had that insurance that say you could get a free frame etc. So I chose a frame that was on sale and calculated I'll be able to get these free. As soon as I said insurance, no lie, the woman peeled off the sale sticker and said it's actually a higher price when you use insurance. That insurance man gets me every time!

BippuLexus

This is very true.

When you buy a car now, you have to be invoice and under in order to get the real deal. Dealers have wised about the internet and the information people get online now. What car dealers do now is they use those bonuses or "holdbacks" to catch up their profits.

As my dad always told me, when you hold the cash, you have the power. Walk away from a deal you don't like and they'll beg you to come back. That's the best advice, in my opinion.
When I was buying my Lexus IS, I had a salesman told me, "We can't go lower the price I'm giving you right now. This is the best price. We are only going to profit $200 dollars. Trust me."
Well - I didn't trust him because I understand business. I also understood it was the middle of the month and in my head - they'll lower prices once its near the end of the month to meet quotas.
Not shockingly - this salesman gives me a car the second to last day before the month ends to tell me, "I can give you another 1K off on that Lexus. And we can also work something else out too. Give us a call back." Seriously - what happened to the "We are only make $200 in profits?"
Like mentioned above - when they say they can't go lower, it just means they won't. Always press and never settle.

wasjr

So true. I'm also on the MDX forum and someone posted about a great price they had negotiated. When they went in to do the deal the dealer convinced them to plug in the negotiated number in the lease and do a lease instead of purchase. The undisclosed reason is that there was a 2,725 dealer lease incentive.

I had this happen to me in 1990 with a Ford pickup. The dealer was willing to sell at invoice, but Advertising was in his invoice number and not included in the Edmunds number.

Same thing happened to me in 2012 with the 13 ES redesign. Went to dealer in September looking at the ES for my wife when they first came out and told him I was in no hurry, and wanted under invoice. He chuckled. Then he called me December 26 that the dealer needed to sell about 20 units to reach next incentive and they would go below invoice.

Propulsion