2011, 2012 Nissan Leaf Leasing Information

[jlsoaz]

you got a great deal. my lease payments are $162.12 but i put $10,000 down. man that sucks but my lease is 3 years.

Dave;

You are a brave soul putting down 10K. If the car gets totaled, you will lose it all but, I do like that $162 payment in the meantime.

Ian B

Hi Ian B:

I have never leased a car. Can you clarify as to the totaling of the car? If I lease a car and have full insurance and pay for this insurance, can the car not be replaced and the lease finished out if I am unfortunate enough to have a bad accident?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I am guessing it's either a different deal or they extended the time because it also came up in today's local paper

 

[MrIanB]

Hi Ian B:

I have never leased a car. Can you clarify as to the totaling of the car? If I lease a car and have full insurance and pay for this insurance, can the car not be replaced and the lease finished out if I am unfortunate enough to have a bad accident?[/quote]

A lease from Nissan has gap insurance built in and requires you to carry 300k,125k,125k of property damage auto insurance. It only makes your premium go up by a couple of dollars every 6 months on your premium. If you have an accident and I hope no one does, your insurance will pay the market price on the car, the gap insurance will take care of any inequity/upside down, and your lease ends. The car will get paid off but the 10k down payment is lost or paid out to the insurance company. I think only any equity will be paid back to you but looking how used prices are for the Leaf, you may not get anything back. For this reason, I and this is my person opinion only, do leases with no money down or roll it into lease payments.

I hope that answers your questin and anyone correct me if I am wrong please.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Ian; you have it as i understand it and i am "probably" a victim of misleading information provided by my insurance company. they told me i would be covered if i chose to do what i did.

however they didnt even know what a LEAF was when i asked them. a few months after receiving the car, i asked them again and got the same answer. i do doubt what they said based on the fine print the lease mentioned if such an accident should occur. i guess i will cross my fingers

 

[MrIanB]

Ian; you have it as i understand it and i am "probably" a victim of misleading information provided by my insurance company. they told me i would be covered if i chose to do what i did.

however they didnt even know what a LEAF was when i asked them. a few months after receiving the car, i asked them again and got the same answer. i do doubt what they said based on the fine print the lease mentioned if such an accident should occur. i guess i will cross my fingers

No worries Dave, I have done several leases and have learned from them and past history from people putting large amount of money down and then have some dumb a$$, drunk or uninsured hit them and total their cars to find out that the car is paid off but your large down payment is gone.

Ian B

 

[madbrain]

A lease from Nissan has gap insurance built in and requires you to carry 300k,125k,125k of property damage auto insurance. It only makes your premium go up by a couple of dollars every 6 months on your premium. If you have an accident and I hope no one does, your insurance will pay the market price on the car, the gap insurance will take care of any inequity/upside down, and your lease ends. The car will get paid off but the 10k down payment is lost or paid out to the insurance company. I think only any equity will be paid back to you but looking how used prices are for the Leaf, you may not get anything back. For this reason, I and this is my person opinion only, do leases with no money down or roll it into lease payments.

I hope that answers your questin and anyone correct me if I am wrong please.

I don't think it's accurate to say that your 10k downpayment is "lost or paid out to the insurance company".

The insurance company never collects anything other than your premium and deductible. They collect money from your downpayment, which went to the leasing company.

As you, say the insurance company will pay the market value of the car if's a total loss. If that amount exceeds your lease payoff, the remainder should go to you. If you put 10k down, you are much less likely to be upside down on your lease, so you can expect to get at least something back. But how much will depend on how these cars depreciate over time.

If you are upside down, then the gap insurance will pay the difference, and you will get nothing. Either way, your lease will be paid off and end. At least, this is the way I understand it.

 

[TomT]

I can't comment on other insurance companies, but USAA, with whom I am insured, does not work that way. In your example, I would get the $10k.

A lease from Nissan has gap insurance built in and requires you to carry 300k,125k,125k of property damage auto insurance. It only makes your premium go up by a couple of dollars every 6 months on your premium. If you have an accident and I hope no one does, your insurance will pay the market price on the car, the gap insurance will take care of any inequity/upside down, and your lease ends. The car will get paid off but the 10k down payment is lost or paid out to the insurance company. I think only any equity will be paid back to you but looking how used prices are for the Leaf, you may not get anything back.

 

[QueenBee]

I can't comment on other insurance companies, but USAA, with whom I am insured, does not work that way. In your example, I would get the $10k.

A lease from Nissan has gap insurance built in and requires you to carry 300k,125k,125k of property damage auto insurance. It only makes your premium go up by a couple of dollars every 6 months on your premium. If you have an accident and I hope no one does, your insurance will pay the market price on the car, the gap insurance will take care of any inequity/upside down, and your lease ends. The car will get paid off but the 10k down payment is lost or paid out to the insurance company. I think only any equity will be paid back to you but looking how used prices are for the Leaf, you may not get anything back.

Just to clarify how this works. It has nothing to do with your specific insurance company and everything to do with the LEAF Lease contract. If you pull out your lease you'll find some relatively simple language that outlines how the lease gap protection works. USAA and Dave's insurance companies might be selling a sales pitch about how their insurance works but unless they've read the lease LEAF then they have no valuable input on this issue.

The lease states that if your car is a total loss then Nissan will take all of the money that the insurance company pays out and you do not have the option to buy the lease out once the car has been totalled. This means that if you owe more on the lease than the car's FMV then you owe nothing additional on your lease. The flip side is if you owe less Nissan doesn't pay you back.

Feel free to pull out your lease contracts and let us know if you interpret them differently.

 

[MrIanB]

I can't comment on other insurance companies, but USAA, with whom I am insured, does not work that way. In your example, I would get the $10k.

A lease from Nissan has gap insurance built in and requires you to carry 300k,125k,125k of property damage auto insurance. It only makes your premium go up by a couple of dollars every 6 months on your premium. If you have an accident and I hope no one does, your insurance will pay the market price on the car, the gap insurance will take care of any inequity/upside down, and your lease ends. The car will get paid off but the 10k down payment is lost or paid out to the insurance company. I think only any equity will be paid back to you but looking how used prices are for the Leaf, you may not get anything back.

Just to clarify how this works. It has nothing to do with your specific insurance company and everything to do with the LEAF Lease contract. If you pull out your lease you'll find some relatively simple language that outlines how the lease gap protection works. USAA and Dave's insurance companies might be selling a sales pitch about how their insurance works but unless they've read the lease LEAF then they have no valuable input on this issue.

The lease states that if your car is a total loss then Nissan will take all of the money that the insurance company pays out and you do not have the option to buy the lease out once the car has been totalled. This means that if you owe more on the lease than the car's FMV then you owe nothing additional on your lease. The flip side is if you owe less Nissan doesn't pay you back.

Feel free to pull out your lease contracts and let us know if you interpret them differently.

Exactly what I understood and unfortunately have heard from people who had equity on the car at the time the car got totaled. Thanks for clarifying.

Ian B

 

[davissc44]

FYI Just leased a SV for $3000 down and $144/month. Found out that Nissan is pushing money to dealers that are struggling. They are called regional adjustments which bring the cap cost down. The dealer said it has been changing so much recently that it is hard to deal with, but Nissan is trying to smooth out sales nationwide.

This dealer was from St. Louis and was great to deal with. My local Atlanta dealer's best price was $250/month for the same car and terms. They hung up on my when they heard of the deal I got.

 

[MrIanB]

FYI Just leased a SV for $3000 down and $144/month. Found out that Nissan is pushing money to dealers that are struggling. They are called regional adjustments which bring the cap cost down. The dealer said it has been changing so much recently that it is hard to deal with, but Nissan is trying to smooth out sales nationwide.

This dealer was from St. Louis and was great to deal with. My local Atlanta dealer's best price was $250/month for the same car and terms. They hung up on my when they heard of the deal I got.

Congrats Davis, I think you have the lowest monthly payment I have seen for a lease. I think what you are saving in gas a month will most likely pay your monthly car payment. WOW

Now get out there, take some days off from work and drive that thing. lol

Ian B

 

[Deleted member 776]

FYI Just leased a SV for $3000 down and $144/month. Found out that Nissan is pushing money to dealers that are struggling. They are called regional adjustments which bring the cap cost down. The dealer said it has been changing so much recently that it is hard to deal with, but Nissan is trying to smooth out sales nationwide.

This dealer was from St. Louis and was great to deal with. My local Atlanta dealer's best price was $250/month for the same car and terms. They hung up on my when they heard of the deal I got.

What is the name of this dealer? I have a friend that is interested.

 

[davissc44]

The dealer said he is getting 14 in next week. I picked the lowest priced one but i would guess that there are some others on the truck that would be similar. At this price I almost feel bad, like I am stealing or something. Just thought I should share to let others know that there are deals out there. Oh and he is shipping it to Atlanta for $500. Not bad.

The only difference is that this is a 24 month lease so the $3,000 down helps more on the monthly side.

It is Bommarito Nissan and I talked to Todd Eversgerd and he was great to deal with.

 

[madbrain]

The lease states that if your car is a total loss then Nissan will take all of the money that the insurance company pays out and you do not have the option to buy the lease out once the car has been totalled. This means that if you owe more on the lease than the car's FMV then you owe nothing additional on your lease. The flip side is if you owe less Nissan doesn't pay you back.

Feel free to pull out your lease contracts and let us know if you interpret them differently.

I don't have a Nissan lease and don't have any reason to doubt what you say, but this seems very greedy on Nissan's part. I don't know how they can justify taking the entire insurance settlement if that amount is higher than what the lease buyout amount would be. Seems like a good reason to put the minimum amount down though, especially with the interest rates the way they are now.

 

[ljwobker]

<deleted as a duplicate, sorry>

 

[ljwobker]

As a data point, I just signed on a 24 month, 15k miles/year, $750 down, $219/month. This was for a 2012 SV. Full info and discussion here: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=10060

Total of ALL payments is ~5750, so you could also call this equivalent to a lease with zero down and 23 equal payments of $250... or you could slice it any other way you wanted.

Hope this helps others...

Congrats Davis, I think you have the lowest monthly payment I have seen for a lease. I think what you are saving in gas a month will most likely pay your monthly car payment. WOW

Now get out there, take some days off from work and drive that thing. lol

Ian B

I am in NO WAY saying the deal was right or wrong for any one person: but people need to be aware that you can get the monthly payments down to anything they want if they put enough money down. On a 24 month lease the total payments here are (3000 + 23*144) = 6312, which is really low for a 24 month lease.

I'm sure if you were willing to put down $5000 on the same lease, they'd be more than happy to give you 23 payments of $100, but then you'd be paying ~$7300 total - not such a good deal when in those terms.

All I'm really saying is that people need to look at the total amount they're paying for the total amount they're getting and make sure it's right for them. Car dealers are experts at running numbers to get the "monthly payment" to a certain number, but you can often do yourself better by having a "total of all payments number" in your head, and negotiate/plan/whatever based on that.

And for a number of strictly financial reasons, if all other things are the same you want to put down as little money as you can up-front, and move as much of it as possible to later. Again, I cannot stress enough that this is strictly a financial statement - any given person may have personal reasons that trump this. But I feel like people ought to at least know. ;-)

 

[EdmondLeaf]

This is what I got today from Local OK dealer. I guess they or Nissan are not really interested to sell Leaf here:

On the 2012 LEAF here's a few options:

1) If you do 39month lease: $0 down you're at $471/mo and this includes Tag, Title, & Licenses covered.

2) 39month lease: $2,000 down you're at $429/mo and TTL included as well.

 

[davissc44]

Thanks ljwobker, you bring up a really good point that most people overlook. In the end you have to look at how much you are paying in total. The deal that you got and to a lesser extent I got has some buried money from Nissan in it. My local dealer couldn't touch the other offer and I think it is helpful to know that Nissan is targeting specific areas with special incentives.

Here are my specific details
SALE PRICE : 26,041
CASH DOWN : 2,832.10 (MINUS FIRST PAYMENT)
CAP COST IS : 23,208.91
AQUISITION FEE: 595
ADMIN FEE: 199
PLATES: 38
SALES TAX : 735.43
TOTAL: 24,776.33

23 payments of 144.85

 

[Ladewig]

I picked up my 2012 Leaf SV (Cayenne Red) last night, (fresh off the truck on Monday). My lease is 24 months and 12k miles per year. Paid $0 down and monthly payments with tax/title/etc. are $213.89 per month. Total cost of lease is $5,133.36.

I missed that kind of deal when they offered it in August, so when it popped up again at the end of the month, I couldn't pass it up.

 

[Ladewig]

It is Bommarito Nissan and I talked to Todd Eversgerd and he was great to deal with.

Which color did you get? I was in on Monday and Bommarito had two SVs, a Glacier Pearl and Cayenne Red. I know the GP was spoken for as of Monday night, and I took the Cayenne Red. Wondering if yours was the one I took for a test drive a couple times.