The 2 Best Days In a Plaid Owner’s Life

[sleepydoc]

The "leasing is always bad" people may not appreciate that it is just another tool and sometimes by far the best for the job. Example a couple of years ago it was possible to lease a Chevy Bolt for negative money. At least one guy on the leasehackr.com forum navigated just the right incentives, and had just the right income, to pay less than $0 to drive a Bolt through the lease term. It's an extreme example used to illustrate a point.

Probably the best lease I ever did was on a 2012 Leaf, which I was paying $239/month for with $0 out of pocket at signing, and after 15 months I brought it back to Nissan to get a different car. I can't recall how I got out of the leaf without penalty (I absolutely did not roll negative equity), but nissan also was giving $1k credit to *all* Leaf owners (including leasees!) then to cover loss in equity, so I ended up paying $2500 to drive a new car for 15 months, which is pretty darn good and a heck of a lot better than the five digit losses taken by those who had bought.

I tried listening to Dave Ramsey a couple times and couldn’t take it. It was the same line over and over again with no nuance or appreciation for other factors.

The main issue with leases is there are a lot more ways to get caught and it’s much harder to navigate or understand the terms clearly. You’re right, though - they’re another tool. The key is to use them properly.

 

[EatsShoots]

I tried listening to Dave Ramsey a couple times and couldn’t take it. It was the same line over and over again with no nuance or appreciation for other factors.

The main issue with leases is there are a lot more ways to get caught and it’s much harder to navigate or understand the terms clearly. You’re right, though - they’re another tool. The key is to use them properly.

I actually still listen to some of his clips on youtube (as recent as 20 min ago!) largely for entertainment. It seems to me many people consider him a good advocate for getting out of debt, but his advice beyond that (e.g. investing) becomes questionable. He is also stubborn as a mule and never admits fault on any topic. He's called leasing fleecing and he cannot, will not be disabused of this no matter what. He's a good place to point acolytes to personal finance to and I still would, but most will eventually move on from his philosophies. The last car I got I bought, as with the one prior, but the one prior to that was a lease. In the past decade I've mainly leased, but a year ago it was not very attractive. I think it may be getting better again.

 

[Gloff]

I actually still listen to some of his clips on youtube (as recent as 20 min ago!) largely for entertainment. It seems to me many people consider him a good advocate for getting out of debt, but his advice beyond that (e.g. investing) becomes questionable. He is also stubborn as a mule and never admits fault on any topic. He's called leasing fleecing and he cannot, will not be disabused of this no matter what. He's a good place to point acolytes to personal finance to and I still would, but most will eventually move on from his philosophies. The last car I got I bought, as with the one prior, but the one prior to that was a lease. In the past decade I've mainly leased, but a year ago it was not very attractive. I think it may be getting better again.

He is a good advocate for getting out of debt, he uses common sense strategies for that. Frankly, the people that should take his advice don't have enough financial literacy to utilize other financial tools yet. As you said, as they move in their financial journey, and educate themselves, they'll move on from his advice to more nuanced tools.

 

[K.I.T.T.23]

He is a good advocate for getting out of debt, he uses common sense strategies for that. Frankly, the people that should take his advice don't have enough financial literacy to utilize other financial tools yet. As you said, as they move in their financial journey, and educate themselves, they'll move on from his advice to more nuanced tools.

you are 100% correct. He is for people that don't understand finances or have the self control.

 

[Spyderman09]

stubborn as a mule and never admits fault on any topic.

You just described half this forum. Except me. I’m never wrong. Seriously.

 

[bhzmark]

What IS unique is Tesla lowering the MSRP price by more than $46K (over $50K when you factor in taxes).

It’s the common economic concept of price discrimination. All popular high demand cars are subject to it. Other cars it happens at the dealer level where they add a surcharge. Tesla just has their version of it when releasing a high demand short supply (at first) car. It’s really basic capitalism. It also happened to coincide with a general market trend of high car prices followed by a decrease of car prices.

Cybertruck is doing its version of price discrimination at the moment while demand >>supply.

In short it’s just basic economics; welcome to capitalism. Nothing unique to Plaid or Tesla or EVs.

Price discrimination - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[sorka]

What IS unique is Tesla lowering the MSRP price by more than $46K (over $50K when you factor in taxes).

@bhzmark , since you thumbs down my factual statement, can you please provide evidence to the contrary?

 

[sleepydoc]

@bhzmark , since you thumbs down my factual statement, can you please provide evidence to the contrary?

Tesla adjusted prices according to demand. Are you upset that the demand dropped?

 

[sorka]

Tesla adjusted prices according to demand. Are you upset that the demand dropped?

Just the opposite? I'm thrilled that I'm only paying $90K for my MSP.

 

[bkcyk]

Mine was $114k back in June 2023. Now it’s $104k. Not losing sleep or keystrokes over it.

 

[bhzmark]

@bhzmark , since you thumbs down my factual statement, can you please provide evidence to the contrary?

It’s not unique to Tesla that their car prices dropped. When Tesla raised their prices on the refreshed S and X most car prices were going up, usually from dealer added pricing that was less noticeable in news. When Tesla was lowering their prices, those dealer added markups were disappearing, dealers were discounting and mfrs were offering incentives. This higher, then lower, pricing was a general trend in the entire new and used car industry and not unique to Tesla at all.

The only difference is that under dealer markup/dealer discount/Mfr incentives style variable pricing at independent dealers the pricing is less transparent, while Tesla pricing changes are very transparent.

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/average-new-car-price-down-year-over-year-for-third-straight-month/

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/new-car-prices-down-record-2-4-since-last-year/

 

[sorka]

The only difference is that under dealer markup/dealer discount/Mfr incentives style variable pricing at independent dealers the pricing is less transparent, while Tesla pricing changes are very transparent.

That's an interesting perspective except that dealer markups don't figure into:

• Resale value - As a policy, kbb does not factor in current market prices based on dealer markup.
• Third party financing not promoted by the dealer will not finance a loan based on MSRP + markup and the dealership partnered financing won't sell you gap insurance based on dealer markup.
• Bulk fleet sales don't buy and sell based on dealer markup - i.e. Hertz.

Also, dealer markups are not universal. When I bought my 2001 C5, a lot of dealers in the Bay Area were still charging $5K to $15K over MSRP. I shopped out of state and bought mine a Serra Chevrolet in Alabama for $5K UNDER MSRP, and then had it delivered to the dealership of my choice which just so happened to be the dealer that had the largest markup. I made a point of letting the same sales person know when I went to pick it up from their service department that I got it $20K less than they were willing to sell to me and that their service department was still the one that did the PDI.

When Tesla changes the price, it's for everyone so it effects the market the same everywhere.

I agree with you that dealer markups are way less transparent. I'm not faulting tesla for lowering prices. I'm benefitting from it as I write this.

 

[memo=[]]

I have to move the plaid once in a while - still waiting for Tesla to pick it up for the repurchase. That smell is sour and rancid. Guess I was blinded by the acceleration. Never have I had a car smells like this after a rain yet is still considered within specs.

 

[bhzmark]

That's an interesting perspective except that dealer markups don't figure into:

• Resale value - As a policy, kbb does not factor in current market prices based on dealer markup.
• Third party financing not promoted by the dealer will not finance a loan based on MSRP + markup and the dealership partnered financing won't sell you gap insurance based on dealer markup.
• Bulk fleet sales don't buy and sell based on dealer markup - i.e. Hertz.

Also, dealer markups are not universal. When I bought my 2001 C5, a lot of dealers in the Bay Area were still charging $5K to $15K over MSRP. I shopped out of state and bought mine a Serra Chevrolet in Alabama for $5K UNDER MSRP, and then had it delivered to the dealership of my choice which just so happened to be the dealer that had the largest markup. I made a point of letting the same sales person know when I went to pick it up from their service department that I got it $20K less than they were willing to sell to me and that their service department was still the one that did the PDI.

When Tesla changes the price, it's for everyone so it effects the market the same everywhere.

I agree with you that dealer markups are way less transparent. I'm not faulting tesla for lowering prices. I'm benefitting from it as I write this.

Before Tesla, except for Saturn (no haggle pricing!), I didn’t think anyone, including the dealers, paid any attention to MSRP — it was all about how much above or below “invoice” you paid. Except that there were many OEM programs allowed dealers to say that they were selling “below invoice” but still made money because of OEM rebates or other incentives.

So non-Tesla car pricing can change a lot, while the nominal and mostly irrelevant MSRP stays the same, as the pricing is tuned by opaque OEM programs that buyers may not know about, and then further tweaked by local dealer variability.

Tesla loses that ability to tweak prices for local conditions, but overall much more clear but also more variable web page price (they don’t put printed stickers in the car window, probably for this reason) that are easier to track than the hidden price changes at the OEM mfr and independent dealer levels.

 

[Gloff]

• Resale value - As a policy, kbb does not factor in current market prices based on dealer markup.
• Third party financing not promoted by the dealer will not finance a loan based on MSRP + markup and the dealership partnered financing won't sell you gap insurance based on dealer markup.
• Bulk fleet sales don't buy and sell based on dealer markup - i.e. Hertz.

Resale is a function of the overall market. KBB does factor it in, just not directly. The going rate for any product determines it's price.

Manufacturers cut fleet sales on short inventory. During the pandemic, rental companies were buying used vehicles off the street at market rates just to keep up with demand. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were offloading inventory like crazy, but when travel picked back up, manufacturers wouldn't sell to them because they couldn't keep up.

The perception that direct sales is better stems from the fact that it's non-negotiable and thus transparent, but Tesla is not immune to market values on new or used. They had to raise prices during the pandemic, but as said, because it wasn't a dealer doing it, the perception is that it was more transparent.

 

[Solar Windman]

Model 3 may be a better bargain for most people. So far I'm loving mine.