My Take: I am not going to deal with the EX35 payments for now since I have only seen the rates for the BASE model, which are probably sold by now. Instead, I will focus on the FX35 AWD on this post. The effective interest rate for the FX35 AWD for 36-months sits at around 1.752% while the 48-month rate is at 2.016%. The BEST interest rate for a purchase loan being offered by IFS right now is 0.9% for up to 36-month and 2.9% from then on (up to 72 months). Seeing how residuals are somewhat low, I would flag this car as a Lease-To-Buy candidate. Not as good as the Mercedes have been these past few months, but close enough. There is about $4000 dealer cash available, but they won’t even let you use it on the special financing, so I would not be surprised to if they refuse to use it on leases. Before you ask if you used it for leases, I have one thing to say about that…”doesn’t matter”. It doesn’t matter because if they need to make a sale they will, so no point arguing about the rebates themselves. Just focus on determining your lowest and highest sale price (factoring in the rebat if you like) before you talk to your dealer. They won’t sell you the vehicle if they really can’t use the rebates anyway, so no point worrying about it.
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| At Invoice | At MSRP | |||||
| Make/Model | Invoice | MSRP | 36-month | 48-month | 36-month | 48-month |
| 09 Infiniti FX35 AWD | $41,125 | $44,465 | $571* | $520** | $666* | $593** |
NOTE: Estimates assuming the following conditions:
- Inception fees (1st month payment, DMV, doc fee, bank fee, tire tax and possible security deposit) due at signing.
- Local Taxes not included.
- 24-month/15k and 36-month/15k terms.
- All cars are stock, without any options.
- No rebates/incentives applied
2008 Infiniti EX
2008 Infiniti EX35 2WD
24-month | 15k miles | residual 52% | .00315 base money factor
36-month | 15k miles | residual 49% | .00001 base money factor
48-month | 15k miles | residual 40% | .00067 base money factor
60-month | 15k miles | residual 34% | .00178 base money factor
2009 Infiniti FX
2009 Infiniti FX35 2WD
24-month | 15k miles | residual 52% | .00315 base money factor
36-month | 15k miles | residual 49% | .00070 base money factor
48-month | 15k miles | residual 41% | .00084 base money factor
60-month | 15k miles | residual 36% | .00106 base money factor
2009 Infiniti FX35 AWD
24-month | 15k miles | residual 53% | .00315 base money factor
36-month | 15k miles | residual 50% | .00073 base money factor
48-month | 15k miles | residual 42% | .00089 base money factor
60-month | 15k miles | residual 36% | .00098 base money factor
2009 Infiniti FX50 AWD
24-month | 15k miles | residual 49% | .00315 base money factor
36-month | 15k miles | residual 47% | .00097 base money factor
48-month | 15k miles | residual 40% | .00113 base money factor
60-month | 15k miles | residual 34% | .00108 base money factor
My Take: I’m on a roll here, aren’t I? The next victim would be the Honda CR-V. Excellent compact SUV, probably wouldn’t mind getting one myself. But I don’t think I would be leasing one any time soon. 0.0250 or 6% APR is a bit too high for my tastes. Surely the high residual value helps offset the high money factor, but I think the moons and the stars have not aligned properly to make this a “must lease” this month. The only good news about the CR-V is that invoice pricing (or below) should be attainable in most areas with decent competition. There is $500 dealer cash available (not much in the grand scheme of things) and purchase financing options are around 5.99% for 60 months, which is crap in all honesty. If you buy, pay cash. Otherwise maybe lease for 24/36 months if you REALLY have to. Personally, I would wait to see what the month June brings.
My Take: I don’t understand why the Audi TT never gets any decent lease support. The money factors have dropped on a little primarily on the convertibles. Unfortunately, the residual are atrocious, so it makes the payments higher than I would personally recommend. Sale prices should be reasonable for most metro markets with decent competition, but I probably wouldn’t consider buying it unless you plan to pay cash. Just a quick reminder to fellow Californians, your auto licensing fees are going up May 19th, 2009.
My Take: Moving on to the Prius…I wouldn’t lease this ride solely on the money factor being so high. I do not wish to pay 6.6% APR on a lease when there are cars out there going for less than 1%. The residual are extremely attractive, but I get the sense that those are somewhat inflated. If you want to buy, go right ahead, there is a $500 rebate available to customers so be sure to take advantage of that. Keep in mind that the 2010 Prius is out, so you can probably save some cash by going for the 09 model. In any case, gas prices here in the US have gone up about 40% in the last few weeks, so the Prius could potentially have very good resale value if our prices start climbing up into last years $4-$5 range. Something to think about…
My Take: Today, I’m going to be posting all of the cars that I don’t recommend as a lease, therefore, I wouldn’t be posting any payment estimates for them. Instead I will focus on discussing their potential as “purchases”, assuming there are some good incentives going on. To start things off, we have the Nissan 370Z, which is a big DO NOT LEASE this month. As a matter of fact, it is also a bit DO NOT BUY candidate. There are no incentives of any kind on this car, plus TMV is suggesting maybe about $1000 off MSRP. Yes, I know TMV is crap, but it does give us a high-level overview as to how this car is selling. Of course, depending on your market, you may have some luck, so I wouldn’t hesitate trying. The car is gorgeous and the interior is refined. I would even say it’s Infiniti-esque. Nissan posted their first loss since their CEO Carlos Ghosn took over Nissan, so if you are not in a hurry, I would just sit tight and see what they do to sweeten the deals in the coming months.
My Take: To answer Caren’s question from the 
My Take: I’ve been kind of curious as to what the payment ranges would be for the 2010 GLK-Class. Seems like a lot of the european luxury brands are jumping on the compact crossover bandwagon, so I thought that it would be nice to know what kind of numbers we’d be looking at here. As you can see just by looking at the rates, the money factor is not very friendly this month. In contrast, the purchase financing rates are superb! 0.9% financing for up to 66 months! I would probably recommend a BUY instead of a lease on the GLK for this month. If the lease rates drop below the 0.9%, then I will probably change my mind. I don’t see any cash rebates yet, but I certainly would not pay MSRP on anything out there because that’s just not the kind of market we are in right now.