I have never leased a mini before & am looking to lease one in the next couple of weeks. I know the 2007 model is really hot right now, but I wanted to see if anyone thought this deal was good or if it can get better.

I priced out both a Cooper S manual & automatic with Pepper White, black top, black bonnet stripes & the premium package. That was it.

For Manual it is $23,250
For Auto it is $24,600

I was going to put $2,000 down. I was told for the manual 36 month lease of 12,000 miles it would be about $313/month. For the auto the same exact lease would be $335/month.

Do these numbers seem right? I am going to be shopping around more later this week, so any information that anyone has would be helpful. I live in NJ. Does anyone know what the drive off fees are? I was never told that information.

Thanks!

 

Is that consistant with the payment estimator on www.miniusa.com?

It's usually pretty good about working out your payment with a lease, purchase or MINI select.

Off the top of my head it sounds about right to me, though.

 

yup that is definitely consistent with the estimator on miniusa.com. Is it impossible to get them to lower the price?

 

I have found that the payment estimator isn't always accurate.
Ask the dealer what the APR is that they're giving you on the lease.
In Cali, anything from 8.99 to 8.42 is average for mini dealers

you can google new car registration fees to try and determine how much you should be charged.
I only have the link for the CA DMV. https://mv.dmv.ca.gov/FeeCalculatorWeb/index.jsp

the payments you were quoted do sound average.
Visit other dealerships to try and get that price beat.

Good Luck!

 

Leases are figured differently from regular loans. You have to find out what the money factor is, and then you have to figure out if that's good or not. You can then estimate how it would equate to a purchase. I read a book about leasing a car and filled in a spreadsheet to make sure I was getting a good deal on my last car. As it turns out there are pluses and minuses to leasing. I would make sure you know how many miles you'll be driving a year before going into it.

If you don't know what all the numbers mean and where they come from, it's very easy for a dealership to perform "voodoo math" on your payment and charge you in ways you aren't even aware of. The difference between two dealerships on my Mazda were $200 different per month. The only reason I got such a good deal is that I had done my homework and could double check what they were doing.

 

yup i agree. I did tons of research on my 335 but I dont know much about mini's where as I know a lot about bmw. I know what the residual is, but I will certainly find out what the money factor is. I usually like to use this tool: http://www.leaseguide.com/calc.htm, although I am not sure if its 100% accurate.

 

I got my MCS for 350 a month with no cap cost reduction (just taxes, fees, and first payment). I did a 3 year 45k mile lease.

 

is your mcs an automatic or stick?

 

in WA, there is 8.X% sales tax which converts to ~$30/mo.
Money factor X 2400 = interest rate.
MINI has a VERY HIGH residual value but when they figure out the lease residual they use a VERY LOW number which is not really fair for the person leasing. But if you buy the car at the end of lease, you pay the very low residual value. But then, you save money by just purchasing from day one if you are gonna buy after lease is up. Up to you.

 

I found the leasing prices for a MINI MCS to be higher than leasing a 328 Coupe that was seven thousand more than a MINI.

 

sorry to drag the subject back up, but i just got the info back from my dealer on what a lease would be for me and I'd say either you're getting a great offer, or I'm getting screwed!

Here's my specs:
MSRP: 23,300
Down: 3000
rate: .00380 (somewhere arround 9%)
term: 3yr 15000mi/yr
ACQ fee: 825 - what's this?
Govt fees: 378.91
Taxes (AZ): 1115.20
Doc fee: 388
adj residual: 15611
Mo payment: 372.77

That's still $100 per month less than the best purchace deal he offered, and since I always get tired of a car and want to sell it within a couple years anyway (and usually end up upside-down on the payments) I'm thinking this is going to be the way for me to go.

 

just a thought but have any of you tried to lease a mini from say your bank or a different place.

I know USAA leases cars. Basically they buy the car from the dealer and lease it to you.

Money factor seems way high on this car. Thats a pretty high % rate. This is a good thing though because the means the car is selling very well. Mini has no need to cut deals on leasing cars that they are selling for MSRP+
Anyone know the Residuals on Mini's?

Most dealers dont want you to know things like the money factor or residual value. Also they will want you to pay a huge Down payment to buy your monthly payment down without adjusting any of their profit margins.

easy way to figure a lease is Sale price - Residual= difference between . Then the Difference between + the money factor / by amount of months = payment.

Louie B.

Go to miniusa.com and plug the numbers there. Sometimes a better deal will be to go with a 24month because the residual is higher.

 

I have always leased, except in the case of the MINI. Because the residuals on the MINI are so good, BMWFS does not offer a good money factor (interest rate), which drives the cost of a lease up.

Not to mention that in Md. one pays sales tax on the capitalized cost of the car, even though one is only using a portion of the value, over 36 months. Acquisition fee is another rip off...then there is the dispoosition fee at the end of the lease.

After I did the numbers, it was better for me to buy, rather than lease.

 

Check out www.leasecompare.com. I am using a bank with a 0.00266 MF on a 39 mo lease (39,000 total miles) and a lower acquisition fee. Good luck getting the dealer to reduce their $388 doc fee.

 

Multiply the money factor (usually .00xxx) times 2400 to get the interest rate.

MINI financial uses a tiered system to figure out your money factor (and interest on loans).

FICO=
700+ = best rate
650-699
600-649
599 and under = quite high rate if you get approved at all.

 

Yeah I guess I should've mentioned I'm in the 650-699 range.

 

Just plugged my numbers into leasecompare.com and with the same down, milage, and length of lease I got 2 choices:
a: res: 14,446 M/F .00330 payment $308
b: res: 12,116 M/F .00494 payment $401

 

Louie -

My MA told me that for every $1,000 added to the price of the car, figure on the monthly payment going up $20. Sounds about right for the difference between a manual and an auto tranny.

One other thing to consider is the Mini Select finanacing. That's what I did. It works a lot like a lease, but with an upside for the customer. You pick the number of payments you want to make from 24-48 months, and at the end you have a balloon payment. You then have 3 choices:

1) Finance the balloon and keep the Mini
2) Trade it in at any dealer on any car and cash in on positive equity or make up for negative equity (unlikely these days as long as you take care of it)
3) Sell it private party and go from there.

I like it because there are no mileage restraints, I keep any positive equity in the car when I trade it in, and well, I can "Me-ify" it if I want to. Can't do that with a lease.

I'd talk to your MA about it.

 

00494 is extremely high for a lease MF - even for a low fico.