LA-Peter

I need help from those who have leased their E500.

My dealer told me my E500 is going to be here next week. Since I plan on leasing the car, I want to hear from you guys about:

1. Length of lease
2. Money factor
3. Depreciation percentage
4. Monthly payment
5. Residual amount
6. Down payment (drive-off)

All helps are appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

MadManAboutTown

Check out LeaseCompare.com; they have pretty decent rates now on these cars.

rrubino

I'd like to know how you make out, as I'm looking to lease an E320 very soon. Since other users on this board either pay cash or don't want to post their lease numbers, you'll be the first one to actually have concrete numbers to post (hopefully you will post them). Please keep me posted.

Thanks,

Rob

wesam

Right now, IMO, the best lease Mercedes is offering is the 39 month lease (if you don’t plan on buying the car after your lease)....the rates for Tier 1 preferred credit should be as follows:

Residual: 67%
Money factor: .00314

Now, even if you don’t get the .00314 money factor....you CAN negotiate whatever rate they give you. Have the lease guy at the dealer call MBC, and mention the .00314 rate--they will more then likely drop the rate they gave you; although, probably not as low as the .00314 rate. A 48 month lease drops your residual down to 59%....which really isn’t worth it.

MadManAboutTown

Good advice... I'm not sure if I'm leasing or buying yet, but I most certainly will post my lease numbers if I go that route.

jhb

I did a 39 month lease on an E500. The residual I think is 67% and they started with a money factor of .00365. I was able to negotiate that down to .00335. I think the .00314 may be what the dealer pays and gets the overage. I figured that the dealer makes a little and that is okay with me. I have been treated extremely well and think it best for everyone to leave some money on the table.

bmwbmw

oops...posted my reply on the wrong board...here it is.


If it is of any interest to you, I got a quote from one MB retailer for a $51,900 list price E320 (I'm looking to take on the new E when my 5 series expires because the new 5 is so ugly !!) for $696 per month for a 3yr, 10K mi/yr, $1K down lease. Included is the NYC 8.25% tax. Excluding the taxes the price comes out to be $642 per month. If you have a lease calculator, you can back into it for what residual/money factor combo gets that price.

I think it's a pretty good price, but I have just begun looking. If you live in California, this place, www.theleaseoutlet.com, seems to offer pretty good deals too. I've heard the 67% residual and .00314 money factor as buy rates mentioned by other sources as well.

Let me know what lease prices you come across, if you can. Thanks!

AutoSaurus

This is very good! If I plug in 70% residual and money factor of .00314 (7.5%) and based on your given values I get payments of $795/mth. So you either got an outstanding rate or great residual b/c of the low annual mileage.

I used smart money's lease calculator to get these numbers.

SmartMoney Lease Guide

Sale price=51,900
Residual=36,330 (70%)
Downpayment=1,000
Rate=.00314 (7.5%)
months=36
Mileage=10,000/yr
Sales Tax=8.25%
Pmt = $795

Your number's almost sounds too good to be true. Congratulations!

I've got another calculator bookmarked at home that I will post later.

**UPDATE***
Using another calculator I get different numbers but still pretty good.

Payment=$734 based on the same info above.

LA-Peter

I got some numbers from my dealer to think about, I am deciding between 3 or 4 years, and it's between MBCC or Chase. I will let you guys know which way I go when the car is ready for pick-up next week.

Barney

Well, I was all set to post some detailed lease numbers for a 2003 E320 - now I can't find the info the dealer gave me!!!

The pertinent info is that they quoted me for a 39-month (I asked for 3-year but this 39-month deal seems popular) with 12,000 miles per year. My car's sticker was $56,210 and the residual was $37,819 which works out to the 67% figure I'd seen before. Problem was that the monthly payments were around $871 which works out to about $400 per month in interest and an interest rate in the 9 to 10% range which I thought was outrageous.

My car came in early, wasn't originally scheduled to get to the vehicle prep center in LA until right around the end of this month - we then thought it was going to be delayed due to the dockworkers strike. Out of seemingly nowhere it showed up at my dealer on Oct. 22nd - a nice surprise. Anyway, I didn't even get the lease numbers until right when I picked up the car and all along was thinking I'd buy the car anyway.

The only potential lease advantage for me was that I could easily get out of the car at lease end if either I didn't really love it or something else came along that excited me more. Also, if these cars turned out to be lemons (I doubt) I wouldn't have to worry about trying to sell a car that lost a lot of its value. I took out an auto loan at the dealer (through Chase) at 6.49%. I didn't care too much what the interest rate was for that as I'll be paying the whole thing off within a few months. I also tend to keep cars at least 5 or 6 years. So, the way I look at it buying the car out at the end of the lease is a bad deal as it probably won't be worth 67% on the open market. Even if I want out, I'm saving $400 each month in interest (or a total of about $15,600) by buying over leasing so even if I had to sell the car, I could afford to do so for a lot under 67% and still come out ahead. If, on the other hand, you are someone who plans to get rid of the car at lease end, having this most likely artificially high residual works in your favor by lowering the monthly payments but it is going to be hard to find that residual coupled with a low interest rate.

bmwbmw

You certainly make a very good point about how leases are often priced low by artificially high residuals. Typically, the worst culprits of such offenses are the captive finance arms of automakers since they don't have to reveal any losses on such deals - they just bundle them with their sales figures and Wall Street doesn't care, plus bad 3-yr lease deals effectively push losses 3-yrs out while boosting sales figures today. (see the recent interest in Ford Capital for example).

As a leaser, of course, all of this plays to my advantage. For example, i saw one BMW dealer offering the 745i for $699 per month for 42 months with $3K down. On a $65K car, this can translate into a 70% residual at an effective APR of 6.7% ! If you look at the ALG, no historical BMW 7 series has ever had a 3 yr residual exceeding 60%, so BMW FS is sucking up these losses.

I didn't think MB would play this game but a month ago, I went to the MBUSA.com website and priced my ideal 03 E320 and the monthly lease price came to be about $860. Two weeks ago, the exact same model price came to be about $740 ! I'll guarantee MBCC increased the residuals...

I think the moral of the story is: if you like leasing, and can find a deal with a 67-70% residual after 3 yrs or more, along with a decent effective interest rate (6.5% to 8%), go for it ! The only cars that can maintain 70%, 3-yr residuals are cult cars (M5, M3, SL55, E55 etc) but if you want those, you should just buy them.

Please send any other lease offers you come across on the 03 E class.