Dear C/D,
Your monthly survey of lease deals at around $200 a month is the most useful thing ever devised in the history of things. But how seriously should I take these factory-backed lease deals" Are they really the best buys out there"
Sue Donym
Bakersfield, Montana
Dear Sue,
These deals are designed to lure you into the showrooms. Some are truly great bargains; some of them are sneaky expensive. That?s why we publish this spreadsheet to let you evaluate the deals using the miracle of math.
Use our survey as a baseline for your research. Then make some calls, be honest about your financial situation and credit rating, and be prepared to haggle over everything: the purchase price of the new vehicle, the residual value contracted at the end of the lease, mileage allowances, and the interest rate on the money used to support the transaction. Have an accountant" Ask his or her advice about tax benefits and implications. The charts presented here are guides to the national and regional lease deals we found featured on manufacturer websites. The $199 target price here is a loose one. And while some regional deals are at $199, other regions can offer the same vehicle at lower or higher rates. The charts include calculations for the total cost of each lease: money due at signing, total monthly payments, and additional costs such as lease-end disposition fees. Then we divide that total by the number of allotted miles in the lease to calculate a cost-per-mile charg...