09 Mercedes Benz CL, CLK, CLS Lease Rates – May 2009

Published 2009/05/102009/05/10 by G

logo_benz My Take: Not much of a drastic change for the CL this month. Some residuals went up by 1% and some dropped 1%. A bit weird seeing residuals go up and down like that, but as long as it saves money, I’m all for it. CLKs this month are practically unchanged from April 2009, with the exception of the convertibles. Not sure if the lease deal Dr J got last month is still going on, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to move those still on the lot. Check last month’s comments from Dr J as a guide to your own deal on a CLK550 or even a CLK350. CLS rates went up a bit so I wouldn’t feel too bad if you decided to give it pass this month.

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2009 Mercedes CL-Class

2009 Mercedes CLK-Class

2009 Mercedes CLS-Class

09 Mercedes Benz C-Class Lease Rates – May 2009

Published 2009/05/102009/05/10 by G

logo_benz My Take: Ready for some good news? The C-Class lease rates stayed relatively the same as last month, with only one exception. The 24-month lease residuals dropped by 1% on the C300 trims and 2% on the C350 and C63. Since the 48-month lease is the sweet spot for the C-Class, it shouldn’t affect most people looking to lease the C-Class. I am still liking the C350 this month since it may still be possible to get it for under $500 per month after tax with just inceptions (or by dropping some MSDs to lower the money factor further). Click Here to read up on last month’s comments on the C-Class to see what I am talking about. Another thing to consider is to BUY the C350. Blasphemy, I know, but still! There is $2000 dealer cash available that CAN be combined with 0.90% APR that’s available for up to 66 months. I’ve been hammering about the C350 for about three months now, not sure how much longer these numbers are gonna stick around. Let this be a warning.

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			At Invoice		At MSRP
Make/Model	Invoice	MSRP	36-month	48-month	36-month	48-month
2009 Mercedes C300 Sport	$31,472	$33,775	$458*	$428**	$526*	$480**
09 Mercedes C350 Sport	$37,145	$39,875	$525*	$470**	$604*	$529**

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

2009 Mercedes C-Class

Lease-to-Buy

Published 2009/05/052010/09/25 by G

If you are a RIDE with G regular, you have probably heard me talk about “lease-to-buy” numerous times, specially when it comes to Mercedes-Benz models. The whole concept of “lease-to-buy” refers to the idea of leasing with the intention of purchasing the car at lease-end. It is a very good way of getting into a nice ride with little or no money down and save some money should you decide to buyout the car. In this post, I will examine some key aspects of “lease-to-buy” and how it can save you some money compared to other leases and traditional financing.

When you lease a car, you normally want a high residual value and a low money factor since this combination yields the lowest monthly payments. This is because when your depreciation and money factor are low, your payments stay low. In a “lease-to-buy” scenario, you want the majority of your payments to go towards the depreciation of the lease loan so the payoff price at the end of your lease is lower. The best way to accomplish this is to find a car with a low residual value and a low money factor. This will ensure that the bulk of your monthly payments go towards the car, instead of the financing charge.

For the sake of comparison, lets take the CLK350 coupe vs the BMW 528xi Sedan. I know they are different classes of cars, but this is purely a numbers comparison, so bear with me.

2009 Mercedes CLK350 Coupe
36-month | 15k miles | residual 44% | .00008 base money factor (0.192% APR)

MSRP $48,975
Invoice $45,608
Monthly $668 (depreciation) + $5 (finance charge) = $673 + tax
Payoff $21,549 + tax

2009 BMW 528xi Sedan
36-month | 15k miles | residual 58% | .00175 base money factor (4.2% APR)

MSRP $48,925
Invoice $45,075
Monthly $463 (depreciation) + $128 (finance charge) = $592 + tax
Payoff $28,376 + tax

At first glance, you will notice the higher payments on the CLK350, don’t panic. It ends up being about $81 more per month on the CLK, which boils down to about $2,916 over the course of three years. Not bad considering the difference between the BMW and MB’s payoff is about $6,827 ($28376-$21549). That’s a savings of about $3,911, should you decide to buy the CLK instead of the 528xi at lease-end. As you can see, certain cars should never be bought at the end of a lease, specifically those with high money factors and high residual values. Now, if you plan to lease forever, then the BMW is clearly the better choice due to the lower monthly payments.

Here are a few things to look out for before you decide whether you want to “lease-to-buy”:

Make sure the money factor is much lower than the best purchase financing rate that’s available. You can find out what APR your money factor is by multiplying the money factor by 2400.
At lease-end, you will need to either pay the entire payoff balance upfront OR secure a low rate for the remainder of your loan to keep some of those savings. Keep in mind that your car would be considered “used”, which means low rates on loans may be a bit tough to get. The upside to this is that you aren’t taking out a loan on a $48,000 car.

Lastly, some cars are being heavily discounted from month-to-month, such as the CLK in April 2009. The monthly payments may very well be less than the $673 + tax that I estimated depending on how much you can lower your gross cap cost. The bottom line is this, you can save money even if you decide to buyout your car at lease end, you just need to know what to look for and plan ahead.

European Delivery Anyone?

Published 2009/04/282012/06/15 by G

Special Kudos to Randy for inspiring me to research about all of the major European Delivery programs available to US customers. You can check out Randy’s supa’ fly red BMW 328ix here…Neuschwanstein Castle, I’m sooooo going to pay you a visit one of these days. LOL.

For those who have never been to Europe and are thinking about leasing/buying an European made ride, this is probably a great opportunity to do both. Typically you can save a significant chunk of change by opting for the European Delivery (ED) instead of getting your car stateside. Of course, you will need to do some price comparison in order to determine if the car you want is cheaper overseas or not. The typical savings range from 3% to 8% off MSRP but in a weak economy, anything is possible.

So what is the main draw here? There are many, but the immediate one is the fact that you save on car rental costs. You get to tour around at your own pace and in your own car, the way Europe was meant to be seen! All manufacturers seem to provide a zero-deductible auto insurance for up to two weeks, so you don’t need to worry about any damage incurred during the trip. There are also many locations you can drop off your car at the end of your trip for shipment to the US, so this will allow you to draft your own unique itinerary. What’s neat is that you don’t really need to take it back to the factory at the end of your trip (for the most part), so essentially you could start in Munich (BMW) and end your trip in Barcelona. Just keep in mind that some drop-off locations are free while others will impose a fee.

Another sweet little perk includes the ability to hop on Germany’s Autobahn and drive as fast as your car will take you. Just don’t do this during the winter please, or worse yet, do it on with a RWD vehicle. That’s just asking for trouble. You also get to tour the facilities and see where you “baby” was “born”. Transportation to and from the factory are included. I believe some even include 1 night’s stay while Volvo offers you that and two roundtrip tickets to come see your ride on top of that. Sweet, isn’t it?

Of course, doing the ED program does not guarantee that the trip is going to be cheap. You have to plan it right and be smart about it. Gas prices in Europe are easily 2-3 times more than what we pay here, so you will need to take that into consideration. Another thing to remember is that if you plan to go during the summer time, so will a lot of tourists. During peak-season, airfare and hotels will cost an arm, a leg and maybe your first born. As recommended by Randy, Nov-March is probably a good time to since it is off-peak season (winter) and you can save yourself a crap load of money that way. Just be careful during the winter because you may need some snow tires.

A word of caution here, there is a fair amount of fine print should you choose to do these programs. Make sure you spend some quality time understanding all the finer details of the program you wish to partake in.They all vary somewhat, so you need to see what works best for you and your ride.

Here’s a rundown of the current European Delivery Programs and a few of their highlights:

Audi European Delivery

one night accommodation in one of 3 Audi recommended hotels
transportation to/from delivery location and drop-off locations
factory tour
15-day auto insurance

BMW European Delivery

14-day auto insurance
transportation to/from delivery location and drop-off locations

Wharf and handling fees

Mercedes-Benz European Delivery

one night accommodation in one of 12 luxury hotels
transportation to/from delivery location and drop-off locations
factory tour
15-day auto insurance
European GPS unit for your travels

Porsche European Delivery

Volvo Overseas Delivery

Program video
special travel packages
complementary hotel accomodations
two complementary roundtrip tickets on SAS

Here are a things to remember when considering one of these ED programs:

You need to plan ahead because building your car takes time.
You need to be patient, because it takes times for your ride to be transported from Europe to the US.
You need to plan your roadtrip and make necessary reservations/arrangements in advance.
Not all models are available for European Delivery.

All programs cover transportation/customs paperwork, insurance and fees, so you don’t really have to worry too much about these things. The one exception is Porsche, they don’t seem to offer you much of anything and the website seems to lake a lot of info as well. So far, I’ve heard two BMW and one Volvo ED story and the owners have expressed a lot of satisfaction with the programs and their rides. Definitely worth serious consideration if you plan to jump into a European vehicle. I know I am seriously considering it on my next lease.

09 Mercedes Benz GL Lease Rates – April 2009

Published 2009/04/232009/04/23 by G

logo_benz My Take: GL money factors looks pretty good this month with the GL550 getting some major love from MB. They dropped the money factor from .00395 to .00074, which translates to thousands in savings! If you where eye-balling the GL550 these last few months, this month looks like a great time to inquire about it’s lease. If the price tag is a bit too high, check out the GL320 and GL450, they still have very good residuals and money factors, for a Mercedes.

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2009 Mercedes GL

09 Mercedes Benz ML Lease Rates – April 2009

Published 2009/04/23 by G

logo_benz My Take: The the ML350 and the ML320 are probably the better leases this month. The ML350 has a fairly low residual value, but the money factor is good (not great though). Then you have ML320 which has a much higher residual value and the money factor is still within an acceptable range. The bad news is that this month’s rates are much worse than March 2009’s numbers. The good news is that MB has been fairly competitive in pricing lately, so you should definitely check with a few dealers to see who’s willing to give you the best deal.

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2009 Mercedes ML

09 Mercedes Benz CL, CLK, CLS Lease Rates – April 2009

Published 2009/04/202009/04/20 by G

logo_benz My Take: Quick hits here…CL, pass. CLK, solid “lease-to-buy” since it has very low money factors. CLS, skip the AMG model. In all honesty, the CLK is probably the only model I would consider of the three. The 24-month term shouldn’t be considered at all, so stick to the 36-month or 48-month terms. Like most “higher-end” Merc models, you end up paying for most of the depreciation within 4 years, making it a good option to buy if the money factors stay relatively low.

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2009 Mercedes CL

2009 Mercedes CLK

2009 Mercedes CLS

09 BMW S, SL, SLK Class Lease Rates – April 2009

Published 2009/04/132009/04/13 by G

logo_benz My Take: Couple quick things…I’m going to be skipping lease payment estimates on some of the more “expensive” models because quite frankly, I don’t think most people are here for that. You can still request a quick calculation from me by leaving a comment below each post. Main reason I’m doing this is to cut back on the amount of time it takes me to make one post, which will free me up for other important things. As for the cars, the SLK’s money factor is wicked low this month. .00007! With Mercs, I don’t generally car as much about the residual value since they are usually low 50s or high 40s for the 36-month terms, so you gotta hope and pray that the money factor is ultra low. Remember, the upside to having low residual value and low money factor is that at lease end, your buyout price is fairly low. Which is good if you love the car and want to keep it. No cash is available on the SLK300 right now but 0.9% financing for up to 66 months is there for those who qualify. MB Financial is really pushing the low interest financing this month which runs an extra 6 months compared to other captive banks. Just a FYI in case you are open to financing.

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2009 Mercedes SL-Class, SLK-Class

DO NOT LEASE

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