I didn’t understand auto leasing before I started working at a car dealership. I came from a family where my dad paid cash for his cars, and kept them for 10 – 12 years. He didn’t buy them very often, but when he did, they were his, and he kept them forever.  I didn’t understand leasing at all. Why have a car payment forever?

 There are some conveniences that come with leasing, it might make much better financial sense than purchasing depending upon how you use your car or how often you usually change cars.

 Why lease? There are a couple of reasons that come to mind… Peace of mind is one… knowing you’ll always be under the factory warranty in terms of time and miles which means you’ll only pay for routine maintenance, oil changes and things like that. Although Mercedes-Benz can include service work in the price of your lease if you’d like with our new pre paid service plans.

Many customers go way out of their way to tell me that when they were at the BMW dealership considering a 3 series lease they were told they get FREE maintenance if they lease a BMW. I’m amazed at how easily our normally smart and sophisticated clientele can be so blinded by that word… FREE. Do you think they built the two multi story, absolute palatial BMW dealerships here in the Twin Cities by offering FREE oil changes to lease customers? Nothing is free, you get what you pay for, and I’m not afraid to be up front and transparent with my customers about such things.

Lease rates continue to be as aggressive as they’ve ever been. That’s not just car dealer talk to create urgency and makes sales it is true. All across the economy, prime interest rates are low, borrowing money is cheap, APR is cheap when financing a car, corresponding lease rates, the cost of the money you’re essentially borrowing during the lease, is cheap. Imagine the early 1980s… where interest rates on car purchases were 15% and higher. I suppose it’s hard to imagine unless you lived it.

If you like to change cars frequently, every two, three or four years, leasing a Mercedes-Benz is the ONLY smart way to go. All you have to do is look at the row of Certified Pre-Owned Mercedes-Benz vehicles we have in stock. A 2007 E class 4matic sedan with just over 30,000 miles is priced at just a bit more than half of its original cost. Now imagine if you owned that car, financed it for 60 or 72 months and wanted to get rid of it after two or three years… you’d be thousands of dollars upside down.

 If you’re going to purchase the car you’re going to want to be like my father, keep it for a long time to get your money out of it, but remember, as the car ages, you’ll have to do more extensive maintenance work which will cost you money.

Right now, it’s the right time of year to lease… 2010 models have been in full production for months, dealers have lots of units in stock. Give me a call and I can tell you about the more than thirty brand new 2010 C 300 4matic sedans that we have in stock right now, we’ve got 25+ E class 4matic sedans in stock, all sorts of different colors and option packages.

If you’re looking for a deal, save the hassle of building a car online that doesn’t really exist, that you’ll have to wait 90 days to get and pay top dollar for. We have 30+ C class cars to choose from and we’re ready to deal.

 Nine out of ten times the customer who comes in with a print out from the web to really spec out a car and have it built usually walks through the rows of cars outside, finds something they didn’t realize they could get or a car that works for them and they get it right then and there. I’ve only been doing this for a couple of years, but I’ve only custom built three cars for customers and two of those were European delivery customers who were picking their cars up at the factory anyway.

Here is the national Mercedes-Benz ad for the C300 4matic that’s currently being advertised. I consider this a place to start… Rarely does a customer ever fit into this nice little box. Every lease is essentially tailored to the customer’s needs (see more about that below the ad details)

-         C300 4matic Sport
-         MSRP of $40,275 (non metallic paint with P1 package)
-         $3000 cash down
-         36 month term
-         10,000 miles
-         + tax, title, license (about another $2500 – $3000)
Payment = $349 / month

The ad might be a good place to start, but what if:

- You need 12,000 miles instead of 10,000? No problem, you get more miles, the payment goes up a bit.

- You’d rather put just $3000 total out of pocket at signing and opt for a higher payment? No problem, we can adjust for that.

- You don’t want to put a single dime down at signing? Not even the first month’s payment? If you’ve got great credit, you can probably do that too.

- You want a car with the Multi Media Package, the Premium II Package and a Panorama Sunroof? No problem, but remember, as the MSRP goes up, the monthly payment goes up.

It’s not rocket science, it comes down to a couple of questions.
How many miles a year do you need?
How much money do you want to put down?
What payment range are you looking to be in?

You can see the actual purchase price of the car too… there is nothing to hide.

You can dissect the nitty gritty, get into residual values, rates and the like if you’re into that stuff, just know, at the moment rates are very good, residuals are high and inventories are robust.

Leasing is the only option in my opinion if you plan to keep your car for any less than 7 years and don’t want to pay to maintain a car once it’s out of factory warranty.