300c4

Hello everyone,

My lovely kids are growing everyday and we need bigger car than current c class.
I looked into MDX(nothing special), rr sport v6(too much $), cayenne v6(special lease promt now), but those cars do not have attention assist, so we are leaning towards to GLE.
Attention Assist kept me awake and alerted me before I fell asleep when we were driving 6hrs to visit our cousin. I think it is the most important system mb made.

Mb has special lease on its website. 619/mo about $5600 down for 36mo @30k miles 53k msrp.

Can I get better deal than the national promotion?
What should i expect to pay for 58k msrp GLE?

OhioRiderAaron

You should be able to negotiate a better deal on your own. I wouldn't recommend putting down $5600 either. However, you can use that payment and MSRP as a starting point for negotiations with your dealer(s).

My recommendation is to go to the dealer and ask for the residual value (RV) and base money factor rate (MF). These are non-negotiable numbers set by MB that change every so often. Once your have those numbers you can figure out your payment with an online lease calculator. Ideally, you'd want the highest RV, lowest MF, and best selling price. If you have the spare funds you could try and put down multiple security deposits (MSDs) to lower your interest rate (aka MF).

About how the Volvo XC90 and Audi Q7? They're similar in price if you don't go too crazy with adding additional options.

BACnMercedes

Could you please explain this a little more? I understand the MF.
(Our 400 comes in in early March and we haven't decided if we want to lease it, buy it, or finance it. And it all depends on the rates)

Sorry to steal your post but I do think he, O.R.A. has some other good points. The average discount on these I've seen and got is about 6-8%. Although I've seen one person claim they got arounder 15% off but they haven't told us where they bought it or seem to want to confirm it.

OhioRiderAaron

MSD's allow you to reduce your money factor which saves you a lot of interest/rent charges from MB. Basically you take your lease payment amount, round up to the nearest $50/100 number and that becomes your base security deposit. Ex. monthly payment is going to be $543 per month, so 1 MSD = $550. There's a maximum amount of MSD's you can put down (1-10 for MB I think). Each MSD you put down will reduce your MF by a certain decimal amount (0.00007 for MB I think). Ex. you agree to 5 MSD's at $550 pm, total 5 x $550 = $2750. Reducing your MF by 0.0007 x 5 = 0.00035. Assuming say 0.00152 base MF, you have effectively reduced your interest rate from 0.00152 to 0.00117 (152-35 = 117). Or 3.65% reduced to 2.81% if you like more traditional numbers like loans. The more MSDs you put down the more you reduce your rate (conservative example above using only 5). Full MSD amount is then refunded when you return your lease.

I'm not an expert on it so there may be a few things I'm missing above, but that's the general idea I've gathered through research. BMW owners frequently use this option to reduce their payments, but I think it's a little less common with Mercedes owners.

You made some good points too. Shooting for 5-12% off the MSRP is a great idea. Realistically anything over 7% and I'd be very happy!

Aaron

Andrew Cho

Thanks for such informative stuff. I have never leased a vehicle before. I will definitely make a note of that for my future purchases.

300c4

Thank you for the tips.
Even though I am looking at SUVs, I just don't like where audi generally places its engine except r8. Audi's engine is infront of front wheels just like fwd.
Mdx was on my list because of the lower price. I drove many audi sedans and it feels like the car only wants to go straight. It just doesn't want to turn into the corner.
Somehow I never considered volvo...I'm not sure why but I can't see myself driving volvo unless im on trailer.

skw

You pretty much covered everything. Besides reducing the interest rate (MF), the amount you save over the course of the lease term turns out to be a better ROI than you would see with those same funds parked in a savings account or the market. MSD's are certainly more popular w/ BMWFS than w/ MBFS. I think the dealers play a role as well. Mention it at some MB dealers, the salesman had no idea what I was talking about. The few that did jumped straight to assuming I wanted to do the max. BMW on the other hand, I was usually asked how many did I want to put down. Not sure about MB, but BMW lets you roll the MSD's from 1 lease to the next. An important part to keep in mind is to make sure you know what the base rate is and to make sure you're dealing at the base rate before even mentioning MSD's. It defeats the purpose if the MF is marked up and then your MSD's only brings it back down to the base rate. Also, read over the lease contract carefully before signing to ensure that the funds (MSD's) are applied and documented properly. It's an easy mistake for the sales or finance manager to document the funds on the wrong line and they get applied as a cap cost reduction or something else non-refundable. And one last thing, any lease end charges that you're responsible for (mileage, wear/tear, tires, etc), MBFS may take it out from the amount that you're expecting to get back. Not necessarily a bad thing, 1 less check to write.

OhioRiderAaron

Yup, all good points I agree with too. Thanks!

mjcohnmd

In November, the GLE350 had a good MF promotion (Winter Event) but with relatively poor residual percent (I think mid to upper 50's% as I recall - 36mo 10k mi/year).

My initial lease offer at that time on my GLE300d had a much better residual percent (62%) but a lousy money factor (even with top tier 840 credit). They said MF was set by MBFS and not negotiable (can someone confirm this...?).

In any event, I recalled reading about MSD's on one of these forums (from an ex-BMWer). I was able to apply 10 MSD's to the deal, lower MF from 0.00220 to 0.00120. So payments went from $866 to $754 (before sales tax). So over $100/mo return for them to hold $9k of my money for 3yrs.

Note MF on my previous 2013 GL350BT structured by Costco with no haggling or MSD's was 0.00160 in Oct 2012. Also, on my current deal, I was incidentally told that had I been in the GLE350 with the promotional MF rate, that MSD's were not allowed in addition to promotional rates.

BTW, I got a call from MBFS shortly after the deal. Not the usual survey. All they wanted to know is if I had used a broker...

--JC

--Off Topic - still bummed about CarPlay - I could have waited if I knew. Vote for retrofit...!!! --

skw

Yep, all part of their game, gotta find the balance with a high residual and low MF. Both which are set by MBFS. The MF, they allow the dealer to markup a few points, hence why you want to find the base rate for the month from a source like Edmunds before walking into the dealer. Residual value you can reverse calculate from the offers on the MB website. In the fine print on their offers/examples, it has the MSRP and purchase price at lease end which is the residual value dollar amount. Divide that figure by the msrp you get the residual percentage.

Another one to know is the lease acquisition fee which can sometimes can be marked up as well. MBFS is $795. My dealer tried even after we talked about it at the table but I caught it on the paperwork. BMWFS used to be $725 and the dealers were allowed to raise it to a max of $925. Part of your negotiating was making sure you were only paying the $725 as that extra $200 was pure dealer profit. A few months ago, they changed the fee to $925 across the board w/ no markup allowed.

variable229

I was able to get 9.5% off MSRP but it was a definite grind. Dealer I believe has about 5.5% holdback off invoice on these trucks.

OhioRiderAaron

Nice job, congrats on the new vehicle!