Newbie takes kool-aid and leases 2012 Prius IV

Hello to PC members. I just wanted to post to say that I appreciate all of the good info I read before leasing. I will share about the deal in case anyone is interested. I got tired of my old Lexus 20 mpg SUV with over 170,000 miles on it and decided to get a Prius. I studied a lot of PC posts and decided I wanted a Gen III, either a IV or V, for the leather seats, as I have a dog that rides with me everywhere and she sheds quite a bit. I was going to get a used one and compared prices and miles driven on a lot of for sale vehicles. I shopped at my local Toyota dealership and that was a nightmare. Why does one have to sit through a two-hour interview ordeal before one can test drive a vehicle, only to have to sit through another similar ordeal to find out how much the vehicle will really cost when they add in their dealer fees and whatnot? I found a used V with 25,000 miles or so at my local Mercedes dealership but when all was said and done after my trade-in they still wanted $20,000. I told them I would give them $18,500 and they refused (note: the car is still on their lot and it is now 2 months later). Afterward I thought about it a lot and decided that a big part of what was going on was that I simply did not want to write a check for that much money (I just don't have a whole lot of excess cash saved up right now).
I also did not want to do a 3, 4, or 5 year finance deal where I would have $600/mo payments. I came across a Toyota dealer on the internet which had a two-person "fleet sale" division. All of the other dealers to whom I had sent an email inquiry had either sent me a robo-email response or if it was a human response it was to the effect of. "Come on in and I'll show you what we have". To my amazement, this outfit immediately emailed me back with hard facts and figures. I told them I would do a lease deal if he could make it work with my not coming out-of-pocket for the lease downpayment, approximately $3000 (which is what they decided to give me for my trade-in), and if they could keep the monthly payment under $300 (it is $289, including tax). They had white and silver available and I chose silver. They had it detailed and filled up and ready to drive away when I got there. Spent 30 mins doing paperwork for the lease and I was off. This is a great car. Has navigation package; back-up camera; bluetooth; Entune; power seats; leather seats; UBS port for my iPhone. After 1500 miles I have averaged 54.2 per gallon. Now my wife wants one.

 

I forgot to mention some other figures. The sticker price of the car was a tad over $30,000. The lease term is 36 months. The purchase price at the end of the lease is around $18,000. I don't know if it was anything special price wise but it really worked for me. I feel I will be in a better position to write the big check 36 months from now. In the interim the monthly payments are not choking me. I was told by the salesman that SE Toyota sometimes negotiates the purchase price at the end of the lease term because they'd rather not take the car back. I hope that this post will be helpful to someone who is thinking of buying or leasing a new Prius so that they can have an idea of what the numbers look like on a lease deal, which is not something that is frequently discussed on this forum.

 

Thanks for the good words.

 

Nothing specific. I am in Florida and all leases are through Southeast Toyota. The salesman just told me that it was his experience (I assume based on feedback from customers) that the buyout price was negotiable in some instances where the fair market value at the end of the lease was less than the buyout amount in the contract. I assume taht the motivation for the lessor is that if you don't buy it, they have the hassle of repossessing it and trying to sell it in a market where they cannot reasonably hope to get the amount stated in the contract.