I really would appreciate any advice or opinions you guys could give on this matter before I sign my life away, sell the WRX and join the prestigious G35 owner club. 2 questions:

#1: I cannot afford to buy a new G but a friend of mine recently leased a new 04, loaded except for Navi, for $1000 dwn/ $450 mo. for 48 mos. Seems like a decent deal, but I need to get my payments around $380. I went to drive a 6MT (friend's is AT I want MT) this weekend at Pinnacle Infiniti in Scottsdale and was offered a deal of $1600 dwn/ $420 mo. for 66 mos.! Screw 66 mos. I am speaking directly with the Fleet Mgr/Internet Mgr. by the way. Anyone here that is knowledgeable on dealing with car dealerships or leased a G for a good price, I'd really appreciate your advice on this. Or, if you could just tell me how much I could expect to have them knock off the price of the vehicle seeing as the 05s are due out in a couple weeks. While on that subject, anybody know what dealer invoice is and how much most are paying over that?

#2: The other question was this. It seems that most everyone, after looking at the new changes for the 05s, has said No thank you I'll keep my 04. Is paying extra due to it's newness worth the extra 15 or so horses and minor changes?

THANKS! Hope to be a G owner soon!
Jason

 

what is the residual value after 66 month lease?

 

If you don't know everything there is to know about leasing, then leasing is probably not for you. I did about two months of research before I did my lease. To get down in the $380/month range you'll need a lot more than $1000 down or you'll need to go longer term. If I recall there's a break even point between leasing and buying somewhere around 48 months or so.
I think the rule is if you are at 48 months or more, buying the car is a much better deal.

I think you really answered your own question right off the bat...
"I cannot afford to buy a new G.."

If it were me, I'd wait a few more months, save up for a larger downpayment (10% down is usually a good number for a purchase) and then just buy the G. By then, prices will have come way down for the 04's that are left and or the prices of the 05's should come down to a more reasonable level.

Just to give you an idea of things, my 350 was around $29,500 out the door. I put $7k down on a 36 month 36K mile lease. My payments are $322.96/month. For me, it would haev been better for me financailly to buy the car, but I wanted the short term lease so that I had lower payments and could easily move the the new GT-R when it comes out. Plus, I can flog the hell outta my Z and not worry about it

CaptinB

 

Don't go with leasing unless you have a tax write off for it. From the way you're talking I don't think you own your own company so this will not be a company car. So basically you want something you can't afford and you're willing to "rent" this car for a lot of money. That is a waste. You're going to pay for more than half the car and then give it back and have nothing to show for it. Do you think that's worth it? It's not.

 

dude, you put 7K down? friends of mine work for a dealership and they tell me put as little as possible, because the dealership pockets the money, not the lien holder on a lease. leasing should be no more than 75% (this is what you will pay.) total of the whole car's MSRP that gets financed. only lease a car if you don't plan on keeping it, unless you can make that balloon payment at the end no problem. and then you have to see the residual value of the car. so if they set it at $17K at the end of the lease. you end up paying.. lets see. 420x66=27720+1600 = 29320 is what you payed. then they say let see, its 17K residual you can buy it for and then you have to refinance 17K. so you end up paying over $46K for a car you financed for like 10 years. its probably more depending on your credit too. this is what you need to think about if you want to lease purchase a car. yes buying in the 1st cost alot, but factoring in a lease compared is crazy if your just gonna buy it later. unless like kjbalto said, don't lease only if you can write it off.

 

Don't even think leasing if you plan to keep the G - residuals are high, and that can be a key to lowering the monthly cost - overstate the price and inflate the residual, lowering the difference between current price and what you'd pay at lease end to buy the car. Raises the price of buying the car at lease end, so don't do it if you're even thinking about keeping it.

I like the car a lot, but if you really want to purchase and could not absorb lease expense through business/taxes, save your money awhile longer and buy later in '05. Anything you're losing in the '05 (Brembos, for example) you could buy twice over for the lease term cost plus buyout price - which in the G could easily run over $45k total.

Also think about limits on changes you may want to make to the car - change it all you want if you own it, possibly lose some warranty, but in a lease you have to turn it back in un-modded, just like you got it, with few exceptions.

It's not like you're driving a Geo Metro right now or anything...

 

p.s. marketing hp numbers are cr*p - my '04 dyno'd stock just as strong as my 350Z, there is a lot of variation from car to car (5-10 whp is not unusual), I doubt the extra claimed 15 horses mean real whp of any significance. Not more than an '04 w/better airflow with a K&N drop-in and z-tube swap, anyway (a valid 5-10 whp increase on the Dynojet).

Personally I think the published numbers in '04 were just to position the Coupe as a little lower than the 350Z. Stuggling to find something to say they've improved, Nissan is just blowing smoke to make up for things like dropping the Brembos out of the 6MT leather package...