2011, 2012 Nissan Leaf Leasing Information

[DaveinOlyWA]

I footy my confirmation AFTER reading my lease

**edit**

ok i meant to say, i contacted the insurance company to verify any accident payoff after reading the lease

 

[fastmaxxcooper]

SOOO I just got back from the dealer a few days ago with my LEAF!

I was also shocked at the price difference.

The manager a couple months ago when I thought my car was being delivered and did some math and decided my monthly payment was $427 for a 39 month lease with 15000 miles per year. I Thought "Wow thats great! I totally don't regret not going after the BMW ActiveE."

A few days ago a fast talking finance person came up with some totally different numbers. Looking further into it, it may seem that the $420 is the bait and you aren't really getting "screwed" like I thought I was with the additional fees. Thats just what it costs if you lease off of MSRP.

I put $4100 down for the down payment plus fees and ended up with $474/ month. My total payments plus the incentive that Nissan is getting add to $30019!!

And my purchase option is $16456.

No dealers in CT were offering anything below MSRP.

I had chose to Lease, since I had calculated the price difference of like $1000, and that was good enough insurance in 39 months that I could look into other electric vehicles, since the market will be growing.

That is without financing the charger. I bought one and installed it myself.

This is also for the SL with only floor mats as an option.

 

[edatoakrun]

I got a verbal opinion from my insure co. agent, that my interest, my large cap cost reduction payment, was covered, when I leased, last May.

A month ago, as I was considering buying, and reading both my lease, and insurance contract, the ambiguity of terms could not seem to be resolved, to my satisfaction, and in writing.

Did your agent read your lease? I have no doubt that insurance company will pay the full value of the car but unless I'm missing something or NMAC happens to be nice that day the owner of a totaled leased LEAF will walk away not owing NMAC anything and at the same time not getting any money.

I was not exactly impressed with, either my Nissan lease agent's, or my insurance agent's, expertise in contract law.

The question of a lessee having significant "equity" in a leased vehicle, was novel to both of them, and is probably rather unusual. The usual reason for leasing, after all, is to avoid a large down payment, and the usual hazard, is an uninsured? "gap" of negative equity, in the leased vehicle.

As I said above, if your lease and insurance contracts, do not state that your interest is insured, I would suggest anyone making a large cap cost reduction payment, GET IT IT WRITING.

As of last week, I own my LEAF.

Problem solved.

 

[garsh]

I just got clarification on the lease info, and found out that this quote was for 39 months, not 36.

I received a lease quote from my dealer on a 2012 SV.

• 36 month, 15,000 miles/yr.
• Money factor: 0.00175
• Residual: 43%, $15,501.50
• State tax: PA, 6%

$468/mo total (includes tax).

Is this in line with what other people are seeing?

 

[fastmaxxcooper]

I just got clarification on the lease info, and found out that this quote was for 39 months, not 36.

I received a lease quote from my dealer on a 2012 SV.

• 36 month, 15,000 miles/yr.
• Money factor: 0.00175
• Residual: 43%, $15,501.50
• State tax: PA, 6%

$468/mo total (includes tax).

Is this in line with what other people are seeing?

Yeah thats $10 better than me, and they said that was the difference between tier 1 and tier 0. Which irks me because I had 733 for that credit report and the manager said 730 was tier 0 and the finance person said tier 1 was.

 

[Vlad92]

Can anyone confirm please the lease values for May... it looks like the number have changed as the "advertised" lease on Nissan's website for the SL is now $319 / month for 39 months (with $2600 down). I'm looking for residual and money factor for the 12,000 miles a year lease (for this 39 month deal) for the top credit tier. My Leaf will be here in 2 weeks and I'm trying to make the adjustments in my lease calculator. Thank you in advance!

 

[Cheezmo]

Terms of their "default" offer on the website have definitely changed to feature a $379/mo payment vs. the $410 that was there before.

Kind of wish I had gone for 15K miles/year but it never came up as an option and I didn't imagine it would be driven that much given the range limitations. Now there are DC fast chargers popping up all over the place, and it is the first car out of the garage every day. Good news and bad news I guess. I no longer have range anxiety, but now I will have mileage anxiety.

 

[gergg]

It shows $289/m on the SV model considering the $7500 fed tax credit and a price which appears to be MSRP. This is a 12,000 mile lease, how much more is it to get a 15,000 lease? What do you mean by a default offer at 379/m?

 

[Cheezmo]

What do you mean by a default offer at 379/m?

I'm calling what they show on the web site the "default". When you actually get to the dealer, you will likely get a menu of lease terms that don't' match that. But if you were to force them into the exact same terms, I think it would come out about the same, options, sales tax, destination fees, notwithstanding.

Maybe default isn't the right word. In my case what was on the web site and the menu of choices they gave me were from different universes. Different down payments, different lengths, etc.

 

[NYLEAF]

With $2999 down and a lease payment of $319/month on the SL, and assuming the residual is still 44%, they've lowered the MF down to a .00123 or thereabouts, which would come to 2.95%. We'll see how right (or wrong) I am once the ridewithg website posts May's lease rates...for reference, here are April's. http://www.ridewithg.com/index.php/2012/04/2012-nissan-lease-rates-april-2012/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[gergg]

I've never leased before so all of these terms/numbers are meaningless to me, I need a quick lesson on what to look for, what is good/bad etc.... I always like to know exactly what the score is before I buy/lease, dang I'm lost here So is this new lease program better?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I've never leased before so all of these terms/numbers are meaningless to me, I need a quick lesson on what to look for, what is good/bad etc.... I always like to know exactly what the score is before I buy/lease, dang I'm lost here So is this new lease program better?

much better terms than i had to choose from. our lowest MF was .002 something which roughly equated to a 4.99% rate i think. our down was lower but i put extra down to lower my monthly payments anyway. to go to a 15,000 mile term it was like $11 a month higher i think. not sure of that but it seems insignificant at the time.

 

[Vlad92]

With $2999 down and a lease payment of $319/month on the SL, and assuming the residual is still 44%, they've lowered the MF down to a .00123 or thereabouts, which would come to 2.95%. We'll see how right (or wrong) I am once the ridewithg website posts May's lease rates...for reference, here are April's. http://www.ridewithg.com/index.php/2012/04/2012-nissan-lease-rates-april-2012/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you very much for posting this site... would have come in handy in all my years of leasing! Will keep an eye on th rates. My dashboard says week of "May 16" so I still have some time. But I think you are in the ball park... was able to replecate the advertised lease with the values you listed in my calculator.

 

[gergg]

So considering that Nissan shows a $289/month lease available, if one were to go to a dealership today, what would be the expectations on an out the door lease agreement? Would you really be able to get this rate(assuming you followed the "rules")? Would you possibly be able to bargain to get a lower rate with a better purchase price? Again, bear with me as I have no experience with leasing.

 

[Vlad92]

So considering that Nissan shows a $289/month lease available, if one were to go to a dealership today, what would be the expectations on an out the door lease agreement? Would you really be able to get this rate(assuming you followed the "rules")? Would you possibly be able to bargain to get a lower rate with a better purchase price? Again, bear with me as I have no experience with leasing.

The $289/month is for advertised deal for the SV ($319/month is for the SL). The biggest thing to know with leasing is that you ALWAY negotiate the price of the car (just like you would when buying). The purchase price when leasing is called the capitalized cost (or cap cost for short). Many people make that mistake and end up paying (leasing) for MSRP. The other hotly debated item is always do you put money down and if so how much. The more you put down the lower your payments will be... so it's personal preference. I usually put $0 down, but I have put down money in the past to get to a "feel good" monthly payment. Keep in mind the advertised lease is with $2700 or so down.

I highly recommend software to help you double check the dealers numbers. I use iLeaseCar XL on my iPad, but there are others (or you can download a spreadsheet). Once you know the residual and the money factor (interest rate) the sofware will compute your lease payments.

I do have to say I am disappointed in the residual on the Leaf. 44% (for 36 or 39 months) is pretty bad. My current lease was 53% for 36 months. That makes a HUGE difference in payments. The interest rate also makes a huge difference (as we have seen with the lower numbers this month.)

 

[NYLEAF]

It is also possible that NMAC has artificially raised the residual this month to help increase the payments. Or, perhaps, a combination of slightly increasing the residual and slightly lowering the MF to get the desired result. Either way, this is obviously a reaction to the poor sales last month (only 370 Leafs sold in the US). We may see the lease deals continue to get better as more people decide to wait for the 2013 Leaf -- Nissan still needs to sell their 2012s, after all.

As far as actually GETTING one of these deals at the dealership, it's not that simple. The numbers never quite match when you're negotiating with the sales person. When you first go in and talk with them, tell them that you've already been approved at your local Credit Union and you'll just be paying with a check. Or, better yet, tell them you'll be paying cash. Work out an actual dollar amount for the car. Make sure they write it down. Then, take some time, talk with your significant other, and when you come back, let the sales person know that you've both decided that a lease would be the right thing for you. Let your sales person know that you would like to lease the Leaf with THIS price (the one you already negotiated) and THIS money factor (the one you found out about online), which should come out to THIS monthly payment (after you've already done the calculations yourself). They're not going to just say "OK, no problem" -- they're going to counteroffer, but just hold your ground and you'll get what you want -- it's not like they're going to lose money on the deal (despite what they say!).

 

[gergg]

It is also possible that NMAC has artificially raised the residual this month to help increase the payments. Or, perhaps, a combination of slightly increasing the residual and slightly lowering the MF to get the desired result

Having not followed lease rates until just recently, are you suggesting that these rates are higher than previous lease rates?

 

[NYLEAF]

It is also possible that NMAC has artificially raised the residual this month to help increase the payments. Or, perhaps, a combination of slightly increasing the residual and slightly lowering the MF to get the desired result

Having not followed lease rates until just recently, are you suggesting that these rates are higher than previous lease rates?

No. These advertised lease rates are the best that Nissan has ever offered for the Leaf. I was just saying that there are a few different methods that Nissan could have used to get to these desired (lower) payments. In the end, it doesn't really matter much, as long as the customer gets to pay the lower price!

 

[QueenBee]

Also note that whatever you put down, pay off, 7500 from the federal credit is lost if the car is totalled. If your car gets totalled and someone's insurance pays out NMAC considers your lease paid off and either eats the difference if you owe more than the car is worth or keeps the difference if you owe less than the fair market value that the insurance company pays. So IMO it's scary to lease in the first place since you'd loose some of your small initial down payment and the federal government credit. IMO its even crazier to put more money down than the minimum required.

As stated negotiate the price of the care before discussing the lease and then understand every number on the lease and your own calculations beforehand so you can make sure the lease deal offered is acceptable. The most common trick used is to increase the money factor which is just a fancy word for the interest rate used when calculating the lease payments. The dealership can increase this and
make more money on the deal and unless you know what the MF really should be you'll have no idea that they are doing that.

 

[kubel]

This new lease deal is probably a response to the Volt's new lease deal for May.

Assuming a 44% residual (12,000 miles, 39 months), and assuming $2999 down plus $7500 tax credit, we are looking at a 0.00114 money factor (or about 2.74% interest) in order to get $289/mo on the SV.

With my SV lease (43% residual, 39 months, 15,000 miles, $2999 down, price negotiated down $500 below MSRP, 6% tax), I'm looking at a lease payment of around $302/mo.

I was complaining about the fact that Nissan pushed back my LEAF delivery date so long. Maybe I shouldn't have been.