jwright25

A4 inventory where I live (Colo) is very thin, and based on my prior experience with Audi dealerships here, I decided to work with a car broker that found me a 2010 A4 sedan, quattro, meteor gray ext/lt grey int, premium plus pckg with B&O sound system. This was the exact car I was looking for.

They are quoting me a $527/mo lease based off of a $39,400 msrp with $5K down, 3.1% rate, 36 month term at 12K miles a year.

The car wont be in the states for a few more weeks so I wanted some input before I siged the papers. I've never worked with a broker before and am unsure of their ability to negotiate the price for me since it's not coming off a dealer lot? Does anyone have any input or thoughts on this working with a broker? Or what kind of pricing has anyone else seen on a similar A4?

Any help is appreciated as I am new to the Audi world.

tgdA4

I'm paying $844/12k mi/36 months for a loaded 3.2 with prestige, ADS, B&O. Only thing I left off was the radar cruise control. So that should give you an idea of the high end of the spectrum. When I was at the dealer they quoted me $600 for a premium plus, so $527 sounds good to me.

There is not much negociating room with leases.

iflywoe

even if your leasing, always negociate based on price of the car, make sure they are selling it to you close to invoice.

Bada Bing

But are you considering the fact that he is putting down $5K? It's very hard to compare lease deals when they have different down payment or cap reduction amounts. Also, he hasn't said if monthly use tax is included or not. To me, this doesn't sound like a good lease deal, but then Audi leases are rarely good. In my opinion, if you're gonna lease, go with BMW. Lease residuals are just so much better, especially if you are considering the Premium Plus or Prestige trims on Audi cars which get even lousier residuals.

AofC_RR

I can't argue that but I will say BMW is in deep financial trouble because of their leasing program. The value of their cars are dropping like stones right now. I can tell you this, you'll NEVER trade out of BMW lease. You can't blame Audi for not wanting to take a bath to sell you a car. I chimed in on a thread in the A6 forum about a guy saying he had to pass on an A6 because the BMW residual was 61% vs 50 for Audi. Everyone said the same. You can't blame them for not wanting to take a bath to sell you a car. Audi is using realistic residuals. BMW has lost their mind because they're cars aren't worth anything close to the residual at lease end. Ultimately they might go the way of GM if they keep losing a billion dollars a quarter on leases.

av_audi

I don't quite understand this. You are looking at paying nearly $24K for the privilege of driving a $39K (MSRP) car for at most a measly 36Kmiles. If you repeat this in three years by getting a new similar lease, you are out another $24K, for a grand total of $48K!

If you bought the car out right, the price would probably still be less than MSRP after adding T&L. You would save $9K over six years, and at the end, you would have a car with about 70Kmiles that will still be worth at least $10K. You can sell it or easily drive it another few years.

Sorry for going somewhat off topic, but unless you are getting some incredible tax break with leasing, you just reinforced in me the astonishing financial cost of leasing.

av_audi

Maybe BMW can do this because they have the highest profit margin per unit sold (at least they did a few years ago). Plus, with high volumes of used cars on the market, they can make a killing selling parts.

Bada Bing

BMW has lowered their residuals a few points, but they are still much higher than Audi's Premium Plus and Prestige models. For example, the residual on my car has been lowered from 63% to 59% (3 yr/36K miles). My cousin who also has a leased 335i on a 24 mo/24K mile lease is coming to the end of his lease. His residual is something like 73%. He claims that when he's checking used 335 prices, his residual is in line with market asking prices. Personally I find that hard to believe with his high residual.

But don't you think Audi's tiered residual system is rather asinine? The Premium Plus S4 has 3% higher residual than a Prestige S4, yet you can load up a P+ S4 to sticker several grand higher than a no-option Prestige by adding nav, 19" wheels, B&O, sport differential, etc. What's the logic in the Prestige trim S4 having 3% lower residual? If it's certain options like Drive Select, adaptive cruise control, etc. which drive down the residual value, the reduction should be applied to those options, not to the trim level. The way I see it, your sensible choices (from a consumer viewpoint, not BMW or Audi's financial health which I could care less about) are: 1)lease a stripped (Premium) Audi, 2) lease a BMW or 3) purchase an Premium Plus or Prestige Audi.

As a consumer, why should I care if BMW is losing its shirt on leases if I'm giving the car back in 3 years? By the way, I'm not convinced that they are still bleeding red ink on leases since they have adjusted residuals across the board. They still happen to be much higher than Audi's, perhaps because used BMWs still command higher values after 3 or 4 years comapred to their Audi counterparts.

matthewsjl

BMW operated high residuals on the ability in a good market to take a car, CPO it for little money and then re-sell. That's why the 24mo leases were really good residuals. Unfortunately the market tanked (but is now coming back slightly as new cars are out of reach for some people).

As for the S4 thing being a few points lower - supply and demand. There are more potential purchasers for the A4 than S4 (some will just rule it out because it is an S4).

John.

tgdA4

Sorry, didn't see that part. I put 0 down on my car, and would never pay anything down. It's a stupid move. Why not just take that $5k and keep it in the bank and use that to lower your payments. Essentially a portion of that $5k remains in the car when you return it at the end of the lease. You're just giving your money away basically.