Questions from a prospective leaser in Northern Virginia

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dvdmon

Active member
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
32
Location
Reston, VA
I'm hoping to lease a new leaf sometime in the coming months. My main obstacle is the $2K (at least) up front cost. But in trying to justify the cost of a new car, I'm trying to understand some of the benefits. Yes, I know I won't be spending money on gas, and I know about the $7500 I will get when my lease is up if I buy the car.

(Speaking of which, I guess i have a question about the lease. $2K down and then the monthly payments of $200-300. But what happens at the end of the lease? I know you can buy your car, but how much is the cost at that point? Do they discount all the lease payments, so what would that be over 36 months, $7,200-$10,800? Subtract that and the $7500 credit and you're left with around $10,500 at a minimum to pay off? Do you have an option of not buying and if so is there some monetary penalty?)

But Nissan also mentions an income tax credit of $1000. Does that apply to leasers as well as owners?

They also mention personal property tax credit. I can't seem to find anything about this for Fairfax county. I guess it won't apply in my case, huh?

Also, has anyone gotten this additional electricity meter installed from Dominion power and know what's involved? How much does it cost to install?

Finally, just wondering which dealerships are best around here to lease a Leaf? I've looked in Northern VA and the best ratings so far seem to be Browns, but I haven't really looked exhaustively yet. The closer to Reston (where I live) the better, but as long as it's within the Leaf's range (minus a bit for safety), I guess I'd be fine with it...

Thanks!
 
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. But why would this thread be removed? I'm not just asking about leasing in it but other things as well...
 
dvdmon said:
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. But why would this thread be removed? I'm not just asking about leasing in it but other things as well...

They try to keep the number of topics on the same subjects to a minimum. The other day a guy was asking about running a medical device from his Leaf in long power outages. I gave him advice that included NOT using the car right away, and offering an alternative, but the topic got shut down because there are already topics on using the Leaf as a home power source. It's a flip of the coin, I guess.
 
dvdmon said:
I'm hoping to lease a new leaf sometime in the coming months. My main obstacle is the $2K (at least) up front cost. But in trying to justify the cost of a new car, I'm trying to understand some of the benefits. Yes, I know I won't be spending money on gas, and I know about the $7500 I will get when my lease is up if I buy the car.
You are a bit confused about the $7,500. It has nothing to do with whether you buy the car at the end of the lease. The residual value is calculated as a percentage of the gross capitalized cost (the "price" you and the dealer agree on for the car at the beginning of the lease). If you buy at the end, you pay that residual value plus some fees. There is no $7,500 reduction at that time. What really happens is that you are making a "down payment" at the beginning of the lease which can vary but is typically at least $8,000 but may be $10,000 or more. The leasing company gives the dealer $7,500 of that payment, and you have to come up with the rest.

You get the benefit from the $7,500 in reduced monthly payments, and that benefit is the same whether you buy at the end or not.

Ray
 
planet4ever said:
dvdmon said:
I'm hoping to lease a new leaf sometime in the coming months. My main obstacle is the $2K (at least) up front cost. But in trying to justify the cost of a new car, I'm trying to understand some of the benefits. Yes, I know I won't be spending money on gas, and I know about the $7500 I will get when my lease is up if I buy the car.
You are a bit confused about the $7,500. It has nothing to do with whether you buy the car at the end of the lease. The residual value is calculated as a percentage of the gross capitalized cost (the "price" you and the dealer agree on for the car at the beginning of the lease). If you buy at the end, you pay that residual value plus some fees. There is no $7,500 reduction at that time. What really happens is that you are making a "down payment" at the beginning of the lease which can vary but is typically at least $8,000 but may be $10,000 or more. The leasing company gives the dealer $7,500 of that payment, and you have to come up with the rest.

You get the benefit from the $7,500 in reduced monthly payments, and that benefit is the same whether you buy at the end or not.

Ray

Aha! Thanks for the clarification. Then my coworker misinformed me. Thanks! :)
 
LeftieBiker said:
dvdmon said:
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. But why would this thread be removed? I'm not just asking about leasing in it but other things as well...

They try to keep the number of topics on the same subjects to a minimum. The other day a guy was asking about running a medical device from his Leaf in long power outages. I gave him advice that included NOT using the car right away, and offering an alternative, but the topic got shut down because there are already topics on using the Leaf as a home power source. It's a flip of the coin, I guess.

That's unfortunate. I've been an active member on many forums over the past 15+ years (25+ if you consider older BBS's), and in general I feel that there's definitely a point at which moderation can be too much. When I've moderated stuff myself, the main issues have been around topics being outside the scope of the given forum - in which case it's usually easy enough to move them to the appropriate one - or for a thread to devolve into abusive comments or trolling, in which case it's easy to just remove the offending posts, poster(s), or lock the thread down entirely. Oh well, guess I'll just have to search more extensively and only post a single question per post...
 
dvdmon said:
planet4ever said:
dvdmon said:
I'm hoping to lease a new leaf sometime in the coming months. My main obstacle is the $2K (at least) up front cost. But in trying to justify the cost of a new car, I'm trying to understand some of the benefits. Yes, I know I won't be spending money on gas, and I know about the $7500 I will get when my lease is up if I buy the car.
You are a bit confused about the $7,500. It has nothing to do with whether you buy the car at the end of the lease. The residual value is calculated as a percentage of the gross capitalized cost (the "price" you and the dealer agree on for the car at the beginning of the lease). If you buy at the end, you pay that residual value plus some fees. There is no $7,500 reduction at that time. What really happens is that you are making a "down payment" at the beginning of the lease which can vary but is typically at least $8,000 but may be $10,000 or more. The leasing company gives the dealer $7,500 of that payment, and you have to come up with the rest.

You get the benefit from the $7,500 in reduced monthly payments, and that benefit is the same whether you buy at the end or not.

Ray

Aha! Thanks for the clarification. Then my coworker misinformed me. Thanks! :)

Hi dvdmon,

Did you end up leasing a Leaf? If so, which dealer in the NoVa area? (Browns?). Can you share the details of your lease if so?

Thanks,
Chris
 
chmurph2 said:
Hi dvdmon,

Did you end up leasing a Leaf? If so, which dealer in the NoVa area? (Browns?). Can you share the details of your lease if so?

Thanks,
Chris


Hey Chris. Yes, I did lease the Leaf starting at the end of July. I've really enjoyed having the car! I ended up going with Herb Gordon in Silver Spring, MD. There's a salesman there who was the most responsive and un-salesman-like (in a good way!) of any of the places I'd contacted. His name is Bruce Kim and I would highly recommend him if you don't want to deal with the normal sales BS. He gave me all the numbers via email without him calling me, asking me to come to the dealership, etc. Kept giving me new numbers based on additional variables I wanted to play with. Really great to do business with! :)
 
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