End of Lease Strategies?

Katera said:

See, this is what I don't understand. Some of these buyout incentives were $8000! Now my 2015, 36 month buyout incentive is only $6700. It's better then nothing, but with the model 3 and bolt being released, I am stunned that Nissan is actually lowering their buyout incentive. I'm going to give it another few months (lease is up end of Sept), but if it stays at that, they will prob be getting it back and eating the $5k in depreciation.

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you got time. options change month to month and a lot depends on how many are taking the buyouts verses lease extensions.

Katera said:

See, this is what I don't understand. Some of these buyout incentives were $8000! Now my 2015, 36 month buyout incentive is only $6700. It's better then nothing, but with the model 3 and bolt being released, I am stunned that Nissan is actually lowering their buyout incentive. I'm going to give it another few months (lease is up end of Sept), but if it stays at that, they will prob be getting it back and eating the $5k in depreciation.

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Hi Katera, this is the first month (April 2017) that Nissan has offered a buyout incentive on the 2015 model year/ 36 month term.

I’ll add another data point. I have a 2-year lease on a 2015 Leaf S with QC that is ending April 18 and decided to contact Todd Grace as recommended here. Todd was great and straight-forward, informing me that my incentive was $7700 less dealer profit of $500, so I went ahead with the purchase. Unfortunately, there has been a lack of any response post-purchase. The payment cleared and purchase agreement signed (by mail) two weeks ago. Todd has yet to return fully-signed copies of the agreement. My vehicle registration expires next week (on the lease end date) and I need copies of the signed purchase agreement in order to renew it. I’ve contacted Todd three times without any response. It’s now likely that I’ll be paying late fees for renewing the registration after expiration.

KimaX said:

I’ll add another data point. I have a 2-year lease on a 2015 Leaf S with QC that is ending April 18 and decided to contact Todd Grace as recommended here. Todd was great and straight-forward, informing me that my incentive was $7700 less dealer profit of $500, so I went ahead with the purchase. Unfortunately, there has been a lack of any response post-purchase. The payment cleared and purchase agreement signed (by mail) two weeks ago. Todd has yet to return fully-signed copies of the agreement. My vehicle registration expires next week (on the lease end date) and I need copies of the signed purchase agreement in order to renew it. I’ve contacted Todd three times without any response. It’s now likely that I’ll be paying late fees for renewing the registration after expiration.

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Hi, Im not sure who you are but you are welcome to call me at 801-949-3550. Not sure what number you are trying to reach me on as I don't have record of someone trying to contact me three times for paperwork.

Hello everyone! I've had a ton of great feedback with my buyout offers. I'm offering very fair buyout quotes. If you are interested in purchasing your LEAF, or just curious to know what I'm offering, please let me know. Feel free to text or email me.

Thank you,

Brian McIntosh
Crown Nissan of Greenville
803-522-7458
[email protected]

Now that NMAC has finally started offering an incentive on 2015s with 3 year leases (which is what I have), I'm curious how that compares to previous model year 3 year lease incentives. Does anyone (Brian P perhaps) know how high the incentives got on 2014s or 2013s with 3 year leases? $6700 is not bad, but I'm wondering if that number is going to go up a bit the closer we get to September (when Leaf 2.0 is announced). If anyone has any info on the prior incentives please post, thanks.

Bufordleaf said:

Now that NMAC has finally started offering an incentive on 2015s with 3 year leases (which is what I have), I'm curious how that compares to previous model year 3 year lease incentives. Does anyone (Brian P perhaps) know how high the incentives got on 2014s or 2013s with 3 year leases? $6700 is not bad, but I'm wondering if that number is going to go up a bit the closer we get to September (when Leaf 2.0 is announced). If anyone has any info on the prior incentives please post, thanks.

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The previous MY has more incentives available with a lower minimum. However, the incentives have gone down $500 from what they were last month. Nissan isn't giving us any idea to what to expect for the near future, I'm sure that they will keep offering discounts for a few more months. I just don't see the incentives increasing.

Bufordleaf said:

Now that NMAC has finally started offering an incentive on 2015s with 3 year leases (which is what I have), I'm curious how that compares to previous model year 3 year lease incentives. Does anyone (Brian P perhaps) know how high the incentives got on 2014s or 2013s with 3 year leases? $6700 is not bad, but I'm wondering if that number is going to go up a bit the closer we get to September (when Leaf 2.0 is announced). If anyone has any info on the prior incentives please post, thanks.

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I had a 2013 on a 3 year lease, and expiration was on Oct 2016. In Mar/Apr, they offered $7500 off of the residual to buy it out. The buyout price (after tax + fees) would've been ~$7800. About ~$1k below market value of the 2013's at that time (high mileage, 1 bar lost). I got greedy and waited, thinking the offers would improve when the bolts were released. Was wrong. They did offer $3500 in Jun/Jul, but nothing after that.

Been kicking myself ever since.

Just an opinion, but if their offer to you results in a below market buyout price, take it. Bird-in-the-hand being better type lesson.

Thanks for the post Oils, you make a great point. My residual is $12,500 so after the $6700 incentive that nets a $5800 buyout plus taxes, dealer junk fees, and paying off the remainder of my lease. I also took advantage of the GA tax credit before it expired so between that, the Fed credit, and the incentive it's already a pretty good deal. Of course it should be considering the low range, but the range works well enough for us so we may pull the trigger soon.

Well I finally pulled the trigger this evening and bought the Leaf! A big thanks to Duncan C and all others who provided valuable input on the process. The dealership (Sutherlin Nissan) was a typical dealer, and tried to keep $2700 of the NMAC incentive until I called them on it. So glad we have this forum, otherwise I never would have known to do that! The May deal will come out tomorrow and who knows, it might be substantially better. But a wise man told me a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so I took the deal and feel pretty good about it despite the short range of the 2015 Leaf.

In the end, between my lease payments and what I paid today I gave $13,400 for the Leaf; that's tax, tag, title out the door. Very fortunate to have claimed the GA tax credit of $5k before it went away, otherwise it would be $18,400. The short range works for us since we are a multi-car family, so at that price I figure it's a good deal. The car has 26k miles on it and SOH is still at 91%, so we should have at least 3 or 4 more useful years we can get out of it. Perhaps at that time we'll replace it with an off lease Bolt!

My 36 mth lease due in October. Got calls from dealer to get remaining five payment waived and a new Nissan Leaf. So I turned my 2015 leaf in last weekend and got a 2017 for much lower price with VPP and loyalty

Any updates for May?

mykalt45 said:

Any updates for May?

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Just checked with my dealer, they are still waiting for the May incentives. Will keep you posted.

Thanks for this thread. I now own my LEAF, and leasing it turned out to be much cheaper than buying given the discount I got on the end (7600 off the residual).

Just fyi... Dont know if this is a great deal or not, but I bought back my car yesterday, 2014 Leaf S, 36 month lease for 6400$ + tax/registration/80$ dealer fee, total - $7274. The residual was 12092$.

I was irritated that it took several calls and nearly a month to finally get the lease extension paperwork.

It was not as it was presented in my phone calls.

The paperwork arrived with a fixed length term ending on March 31st 2018 with early termination penalties.
Same lease payments for a new car being applied to an old car. The three free months helped bring in down a bit but I could go sign a two-year lease for a new one with all the crazy incentives for less than my current payments.

But it was the early termination fee that stuck in my craw. They never mentioned that on the phone. Only that I had to maintain the lease for at least six months otherwise they would have asked for the three months back. I can understand that. It wouldn't be reasonable to extend and then after the three free months turn it in and say buh-bye.

They made it sound like as soon as I made a deal on the 2018 I could just turn the old Leaf in - no mention of a fixed length contract or early termination fees.

No thanks.

I'll probably just get a buyout offer from the posters on the forum and then decide on a Bolt or new Leaf when it becomes available this winter.
Already have test driven the Bolt and my Wife and I liked it but there's some advantages to sticking with the Leaf (Loyalty discount, don't have to get a new/additional charger installed). From an interview with a Nissan exec that I read today, it sounds like the Leaf will not be much over 200 miles on a charge. With the Bolt rated at 238 and it sounds like it can routinely do better than that, the Bolt may have the edge there.

The paperwork arrived with a fixed length term ending on March 31st 2018 with early termination penalties.
Same lease payments for a new car being applied to an old car. The three free months helped bring in down a bit but I could go sign a two-year lease for a new one with all the crazy incentives for less than my current payments.

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Two points:

* The "early termination fee" language has always been there, but it isn't used. The lease is month by month and the only penalty you pay is owing the free payments if you don't extend at least 6 months. It made some of us nervous at first, but there is no record of Nissan every imposing an early termination penalty other than invalidating the free months.

* Nobody lowers lease payments on an extension. That's because it isn't a new lease - it's an extension of the existing terms.

Happy May!

Nissan released the May incentives yesterday. Please email me for a buyout quote. It's been fun working with everyone who has contacted me, and if you contacted me in the past couple of days, I'll be touching base with you today. Special thank you to my Atlanta clients for meeting with me on 29th to wrap everything up!

Even though I'm based out of Greenville, SC, I'll complete everything with you remotely (helped a client in Hawaii). It takes about a week's time to fully complete it all. So, the earlier in the month you contact me, the better. I look forward to hearing from y'all!

Thank you!

Brian McIntosh
Crown Nissan of Greenville
[email protected]
864-281-1608

Hey Brian, are these incentives better or worse than April?

MY15 on 36-mo lease reduced to $4,700 in May. Lease extension anyone?