Help Confused College Student With Lease

Yes, that must be a subsidized rate. In other words, the purchase price of the car was inflated. With more profit on the sale, the dealer could offer you a low interest rate on the loan.

I'd be really surprised if you got that 1.89% rate from a third party lender (i.e., a bank or credit union) who did not benefit from the profit on the sale of the car.

I got my 6.4% assumption by doing a web search regarding the average new car loan rate for a 36 month loan.

 

Makes sense.

But I did get my loan through a third party. Classified as a private party sale in my state, but technically a dealer in their state (because of the volume of cars per year) out-of-state sale through a local credit union.

The joys of perfect credit

 

This is a great lease deal for two reasons:

1) the money factor, which Dianne already discussed.

2) the lease structure assumes that the car's value will be $16.1K after three years of use, hence the monthly lease payment only has to cover $6.1K of depreciation.

Compare to a 2007 Prius with option pkg 3, MSRP of $25.4K. According to kbb.com, the dealer trade-in value for that car with 36K miles in good condition is $13.5K.
2007 Toyota Prius - Trade In Value, blue book value - Kelley Blue Book=

Hence the owner of that 2007 who paid MSRP would take a $12K depreciation hit over three years, if the owner traded the car at that time.

How much of that $12K depreciation was due to the model change from NHW20 to ZVW30, vs. current bad publicity surrounding Toyotas, normal depreciation due to usage and age, etc.?

 

So how much does someone usually have to pay in "added fees" at the end of a lease? Has anyone been hit with these fees before?