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Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Acura MDX Prices Paid and Buying Experience
8408 messages, Last post on Jul 03, 2009 at 2:27 PM
You are in the Prices Paid: Buying & Leasing Experiences Forum. Your Hosts are car_man & kyfdx
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Replying to: croftonhills (Jan 03, 2009 6:00 pm) 1. Purchase price of 38,400. is 36. above CR bottom line. 2. 2.9% interest 3. gambled that Honda is more likely to discount price to move cars at the end of a year then the begining of a new year. I have purchase 7 cars from Ramsey of Acura and I always got the best deal at the end of December compared to other times of the year. I may have gambled wrong and better deals may be ahead. But that is life, someone is always getting a better deal and someone is always getting a worse deal than you. |
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Klenj, who took care of your last month payment on your lease? did the dealer helped or did Honda finance helped?
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Replying to: eltuti2002 (Jan 03, 2009 7:46 pm) As I mentioned before I probably should have waited untill Feb to pull the trigger but the numbers looked good and I took a gamble that Honda is more desperate to move cars at the end of a tough year rather than the beginig of a new year. I may be wrong and wasted a few dollars but only time will tell. |
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Replying to: eltuti2002 (Jan 03, 2009 3:31 pm) I've been reading and posting here for around a week while working toward a decision and action. Looking to get into a new lease to replace my wife's BMW 3-series lease that is up in two weeks. Once she finally decided on the Acura MDX, I got underway in earnest. These boards, when people post clear information, are very helpful. We live in southern NJ, between Philly and Atlantic City. This past week we visited two local dealers within 25 miles of our home, test drove for my wife, and I came prepared with a written offer for each for a 36-mo lease for a base MDX. She didn't care about the Tech Package, the base unit was plenty loaded for her. Advice for anyone leasing: always start with the "sell price" - it's the most negotiable element (with warning: watch how the dealer calculates sales tax - search the Internet for your state's method, and don't let them get too crazy on doc fees). The residual rate (%) and money factor are set by the leasing company (in this case, American Honda Finance Co - AHFC). After reading posts on this board, and paying the $14 to get the Consumer Reports price service (from their web site), I went in with a purchase offer of $34,569, or $214 below the CR bottom line of $34,782, which included a lease incentive of $2,000 and took off the dealer holdback of $1,230. Turns out getting to this "bottom line" was not as simple as I hoped. These first two dealers counteroffered with 36,581 and 36,382. I thanked them and left, saying I was going to keep searching for a dealer who would get to within $500 of the CR bottom line. I got home and worked the Internet sales staff of eight more dealers (this made 10 total) - three in Philly, one in DE, and four more in NJ, all the way north to DCH in Verona. I made clear my offer and intent to move this weekend. All replied except DCH - many of you are buying there, and maybe they're too busy to respond! Without exception, they all replied I was off on two counts: (a) the lease incentive was $1,500 and not $2,000 as I was calculating, and (b) most of them were not willing to negotiate much into the $1,230 holdback figure. In fact, one politely chided me that the holdback was the only thing keeping the dealership alive and in business! So I worked the phones and internet again, increasing my offer. I also had to decide, do I just wait out the current offer that ends on 1/5/09 and see what 1/6/09 holds? I went back on this board to Aug08 postings to see how previous AHFC offers had changed in the last 5-6 months. The "summer sale" in effect in August had 2008 leases at .00245 MF (it is now .00178 much better) at .54 residual (now is .53) and as much as $2,500 cash incentive. That was end of model year. During the fall months all of these figures moved around, some better, some worse. The money factor went as high as .0027, residuals never higher than .54, and sometimes there was $0 cash incentive. Cranking those ups and downs into my spreadsheet, and seeing the resulting payment, things were all over the map. None of us knows for sure what will happen after 1/5/09, and looking at past trends, I decided that today's offers were pretty darn good (.53, .00178, $1,500), and even if they got better, I would not develop buyer's regret. So I decided to keep pushing ahead for a deal before the current offers expired on 1/5. It became apparent to me that each dealer differs in how much of that $1,230 holdback they were willing to sacrifice to make a deal. Still working the phones, the best deal I received was $300 into that holdback. The CR dealer invoice for the base MDX is $38,012. Dealer gets the $1,500 cash incentive from Acura corporate on a lease, reducing that to $36,512. Several counteroffers I received were higher than that figure. I got the dealer closest to my home to send me an offer via email of $36,261. I had different dealer suggest over the phone that he could go down to $36,000 but needed $200-400 to get the interior color my wife preferred (she wanted the taupe). I had decided in my mind it was worth $200 or so to get her the preferred color interior; those are the kind of emotional decisions that remove flexibility and lock you in! This dealer closest to me had that color combination. Now, some folks here on these boards got DCH and maybe another Northern NJ dealer to do a lease deal with a sell price under $35,000. That is impressive! As I mentioned, I contacted DCH via email, but didn't get a reply. I could have phone called, but I will admit I was not fond of the idea of traveling 100 miles to them. My choice, it may have cost me, but also, as I read in a post by "goneflyn", that lease deal had a different residual, so I couldn't help but wonder that maybe it was not AHFC? I didn't ask goneflyn. Maybe he can reply here to this post. So yesterday afternoon I emailed that dealer my offer sheet of purchase at $36,213, also separately citing all the other costs like taxes, state tire fee, tags, registration, etc, that I would pay upfront and out of pocket. I had $0 cap cost reduction, which I prefer to do for leasing. We settled on their offer of $36,261 as they included the dealer wheel locks and rubber mat package, which I could have told them "take it out!" but I decided was worth $48 to me. With the residual of .53 and MF of .00178, the 36 month regular payment came in at $499. All the other costs came in at a little over $3,000 - 595 acq fee, 1299 state sales tax, 336 registration and tags, 499 first payment, 7.50 state tire fee, 195 dealer doc fees, 145 state of NJ LFIS luxury tax. We spent a couple of hours there while the vehicle was prepped and we did the paperwork, and we drove home after dinner last night. The deal is done, I am mentally exhausted, and I hope this story is useful to someone else. Best wishes, and I'll be back on these boards when my next purchase or lease gets underway!
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Replying to: dom6183 (Jan 04, 2009 5:55 am) I concur with you on the incentive. Sales guys mentioned that the lease incentive was 1500, whereas the buy incentive was 2000. But the intention of my reply is to thank you for taking the time to write the very detailed message at 5AM!!!. I will post my info when I close the deal. |
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Replying to: dom6183 (Jan 04, 2009 5:55 am) 1.) I have noticed several different residuals myself. The dealer says they are non-negotiable but I've seen anywhere from 50 to 53. I guess they are set by the bank? If anyone has an explanation that would be great. 2.) Regarding DCH - I had the same experience as you. I filled out the form on their site for a quick quote. After 24 hours I had not heard back so I called and left a message for Donna Valesco. I got no response whatsoever. Anything - thanks for the information. I have a couple months left on my lease so I am waiting for the President's day sale. Good luck everyone. |
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This is the first time I noticed this forum and maybe would have been helpful before I purchased my car, but this is the deal I got: Purchase Base MDX with a Cargo Tray and the all weather mats 36,726 Sales price 2,571 Sales Tax 146.90 NJ supplemental titling fee 7.70 Vin online reg fee 364.00 Registraion/Title fee (that is an estimate) 258.00 Documentation fees 40,081 Total price .9% financing for 36 months ( I financed almost the entire amount other than what they would put on my credit card. Even I can get that rate on my money elsewhere) The guy walked me through the MSRP, the invoice price, the rebates/incentives and I think the conclusion was that he was making something like $1,000-1,500 on the sale. I was fine with this because I figure he needs to run a business plus I like the fact that I told him to just disclose everything and I wanted to buy the car that night. I just hate shopping around and really don't have the time. From these posts it sounds like I could have done a few hundred dollars better if I wanted to spend the time. This was Springfield Acura and I dealt with Bill (the General Manager I believe). He haded the paper work to a sales guy named Alex. I complained that I wanted to be out in an hour and it actually took 2.5 so he offered me the first scheduled maintenence for free if I call him before I come down. They also took my lease turn in and filled out the paper work to have 50% of my over milage waived. Overall I'm saitisfied especially knowing that within 3 hours Iof deciding to buy the car was driving it home. When I leased the last MDX I took this same approach at DCH and they did the same thing. I dealt with Otto at DCH. I wish he was not on vacation this week or I would have went back to him. I was afraid to wait until the incentives expired. I tried Open Road Acura in Wayne but they told me it was the sticker price unless I came in with another offer then they would try to beat that. I just don't have the energy to play that game... I just want a good deal, not the "best deal" if it is going to take to much time. |
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This piece below addresses the issue of the bank fee on leases, that I posed on my previous post. Prices of cars should be transparent. I have a feeling that if we start looking at all this "initial fees", we'll find buyers/leasees are getting overcharged. The state regulators should care about this... Or they can let it run wild like they did with mortgage companies and then have it blow up in their faces.. http://oncars.blogspot.com/2007/03/lease-acquisition-feethe-banks-gotcha.html |
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Replying to: eltuti2002 (Jan 04, 2009 9:58 am) Responding to the title of your post: Unless the dealer has marked up the fee for extra profit, you can't negotiate the lease acquisition fee. Unless, like Don Quixote, you enjoy tilting at windmills, it's best to concentrate your efforts on the part of the deal that you can control. I agree with the blogger that nothing about car sales is transparent. I'm not sure why anyone should be surprised about it in this regard, as well. regards, kyfdx
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Replying to: kyfdx (Jan 04, 2009 12:00 pm) |
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