CX-90 PHEV: Looking for lease numbers / deals

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Great write up @Ninja_Matt! I will use this with my car shopping. I have a question about the money factor. I understand that basically it is the interest rate you get when leasing a car. Does the money factor matter to me if I am looking for a specific monthly price point? You can get to a $400 lease with a high money factor and a low purchase price. You can also get there with a low money factor and a high purchase price.
Sorry for the slow response guys, end of month/beginning of month are very busy for us!

So Money Factor does matter, but not entirely... let me clarify.

As @Tiggs points out, the lender sets the money factor, so while it does matter in terms of being an informed consumer and knowing how your lease is structured, however it is a set value that cannot be changed (at least the base number set by the lender). Instead of correlating Purchase Price and Money Factor (not to say Purchase Price isn't important, its very important), its better to correlate Money Factor and Residual, as these are the terms set by the bank and cannot be changed. So higher the money factor, the higher the payment, the higher the residual the lower the payment. So generally speaking, in terms of seeking a low monthly payment, you will want a low money factor and a high residual. However what you typically will find is lease banks will either go for a higher money factor but a higher residual as well, or a low money factor with a low residual. Both will output similar payments, however the low money factor and low residual lease is superior, all else equal.

The reason for this is for equity, the low residual/low MF lease will be more equitable since you are paying more in principal towards the actual value of the car, where the high residual/high MF lease will result in more of those payments going towards interest. A great example of this was when Nissan was running 98% residual (18 month) leases on Frontiers about 2 years ago, this meant after making 18 months of payments, your payoff/residual purchase price was only 2% lower than MSRP. It yielded a phenomenal lease payment, but if you tried to get out of it early or tried to find equity at the end it would be impossible. This may or may not matter to you, so this is where the question comes in, does the money factor matter? Well, it depends on what your expectations are from the lease and how much you care about committing to a 3 year lease, but ultimately if you aren't comparing different makes/models and only shopping for one specific model, then its good to be aware of it, but you have no control over it so I wouldn't make it a requirement of any type.

@cs97jb I presume you are referring to the 1% of MSRP rule, this is a great rule of thumb but can be broken by many different leases and does not dictate anything set in stone. In order to compare a proper % of MSRP though, you should be comparing it to an "inceptions paid up front" structure lease. Not to say you need to stick with that structure, but if you roll all your inceptions into the payment your payment will inflate and make it seem like a worse deal using the 1% rule, even if it is a great deal. However, some cars break this rule, Mercedes EQ products for example are notoriously affordable lease payments for their MSRP, I have seen $100k+ MSRP EQS with lease payments in the $500-$600/mo range, well below the 1% rule. Honestly, 1% of MSRP on an EV is probably overpaying for one in some cases. It's still a great rule of thumb, but not a steadfast rule. Having first hand market knowledge of a specific vehicle and area is the best way to know if you are really getting a great deal, so for that I would recommend using the calculator and trying to find a similar deal to what I shared.

One last thing to add to @Tiggs post, I would argue our Calculator tool is better for finding lease programs than Edmunds forum ;) - not that Edmunds won't be accurate, I'm sure they will, but ours is automated (so no asking for specific programs upon request) and can generate virtually all Manufacturer programs up to date realtime, based on your and your dealer zip specifically, for all terms. Want to compare programs in TX vs FL vs NY vs CA for 15 different cars? No problem :)
 
@gerv217 One last note I forgot to mention, while the base buy rate money factor is set by the lender and cannot be changed, there are ways to manipulate the final output (sell rate) money factor.

For one, the dealer can mark up the rate. Depending on the lender, by how much will vary. Using our tool will help check this, if you plug in all the fields and everything lines up but the payment is higher (keep in mind, money factor is not directly disclosed on any lease contracts, people must rely on dealer's word), then odds are the dealer is marking up the bank's rate/MF.

Another way is by doing Multiple Security Deposits (MSDs) which is customer controlled, not all lenders/brands allow MSDs but Mazda Financial does. MSDs allow you to reduce the buy rate MF by giving up front deposits which are typically equal to your final contracted payment rounded up to the nearest $25 or $50. For Mazda it is $25 and each MSD reduces your money factor by .00008. So let's say you do 5 MSDs, your money factor will reduce by .0004 and lets say your final payment is $318/mo, you will have to pay an additional Deposit of $325 x 5 = $1,625. When your lease is done, the $1,625 in MSDs is contractually due back to you and will be returned to you by the bank. Some states don't allow MSDs (NY for example doesn't allow it) so please check your state laws around this, but if allowed by your state and lender, I do recommend using MSDs to reduce your cost of lease interest.

The last way to reduce a Money Factor is by doing a One Pay Lease (working on this feature on a future version of our Calculator tool). This simply means you are doing a lease but paying all your payments up front in one lump sum. Typically if you do this, the lender will give you a large discount on the interest rate/MF for the same reason as MSDs, you are buying down your risk. If they have all your payments already, the risk of you defaulting is virtually zero which means risk is lower and therefore interest is lower. This is not a super common method, but it does happen.
 
@gerv217 One last note I forgot to mention, while the base buy rate money factor is set by the lender and cannot be changed, there are ways to manipulate the final output (sell rate) money factor.

For one, the dealer can mark up the rate. Depending on the lender, by how much will vary. Using our tool will help check this, if you plug in all the fields and everything lines up but the payment is higher (keep in mind, money factor is not directly disclosed on any lease contracts, people must rely on dealer's word), then odds are the dealer is marking up the bank's rate/MF.

Another way is by doing Multiple Security Deposits (MSDs) which is customer controlled, not all lenders/brands allow MSDs but Mazda Financial does. MSDs allow you to reduce the buy rate MF by giving up front deposits which are typically equal to your final contracted payment rounded up to the nearest $25 or $50. For Mazda it is $25 and each MSD reduces your money factor by .00008. So let's say you do 5 MSDs, your money factor will reduce by .0004 and lets say your final payment is $318/mo, you will have to pay an additional Deposit of $325 x 5 = $1,625. When your lease is done, the $1,625 in MSDs is contractually due back to you and will be returned to you by the bank. Some states don't allow MSDs (NY for example doesn't allow it) so please check your state laws around this, but if allowed by your state and lender, I do recommend using MSDs to reduce your cost of lease interest.

The last way to reduce a Money Factor is by doing a One Pay Lease (working on this feature on a future version of our Calculator tool). This simply means you are doing a lease but paying all your payments up front in one lump sum. Typically if you do this, the lender will give you a large discount on the interest rate/MF for the same reason as MSDs, you are buying down your risk. If they have all your payments already, the risk of you defaulting is virtually zero which means risk is lower and therefore interest is lower. This is not a super common method, but it does happen.
Thank you for the information. Do you sell cars or evaluate leases?
 
We are essentially a marketplace and concierge service, we have a network of dealer partners that we negotiate volume discounts with and then pass the savings on to our clients for a service fee, which comes with live reps to walk you through the process. Think TrueCar, but instead of corporate friendly discounts, we go well below market rate and keep our dealers anonymous, and instead of just being sent to a dealer as a lease (how TrueCar works), you deal with our reps instead for pricing then get a handoff to our dealer partner for delivery. It is regional and depending on where you live will determine if choosing us is the best option, but to answer your question - yes, we sell cars!

I will be posting deals on these forums from time to time, but anyone is welcome to use our website and plug in their zip code to search our deals. We operate primarily on the East Coast, but can ship cars from some of our dealers and have shipped out to all sorts of places such as TX, IL, OH, etc. You can search deals at autoninjas.com.

Anyone looking for a personalized experience and wants to work with our reps directly (no cost to do so, only cost is if you decide to proceed with an offer we provide you) I would recommend submits an inquiry form here -

 
FWIW Nothing against TrueCar, but any company that is in bed with the Manufacturer directly also abides by their price rules. Mazda, and many other brands, have something called ad standards. MAAP and LAALP (IIRC) are what Mazda uses which stands for Minimum Allowed Advertised Price and Lowest Allowed Advertised Lease Payment (I might be slightly off but close), essentially Mazda has rules with dealers to keep them from out-competing each other, which isn't inherently a bad thing, but they make it so that dealers cannot advertise below invoice. Which as you see, is an okay price but not a great deal. This means any deal you find on TrueCar, CarGurus, or any other search site that provides a direct price from a specific dealer, will never be any better than invoice. Because our deals are privately negotiated with our partners and we do not advertise any deal from a specific dealer, we do not have to abide by these rules. Manufacturers have no jurisdiction over us. They also cannot penalize their dealers since dealers can sell their cars for whatever price they desire, they just cannot publicly advertise that way.
 
Hey guys, just sharing here I wrote up a Guide on how to use and navigate our Calculator tool if anyone wants to take a look!

 
Wow, that's some great insight into the Lease process, Ninja_Matt- my head is still spinning, and I don't follow all the way, but looking at your other post and the deals, you're getting great lease monthly rates!

I never knew about MSDs to lower the MF, which I was only offered .00329, which was rather high back in Nov 2023...

I'll know who to look up when my lease is up in 18 months...
 
Wow, that's some great insight into the Lease process, Ninja_Matt- my head is still spinning, and I don't follow all the way, but looking at your other post and the deals, you're getting great lease monthly rates!

I never knew about MSDs to lower the MF, which I was only offered .00329, which was rather high back in Nov 2023...

I'll know who to look up when my lease is up in 18 months...
Money Factors definitely peaked last year as manufacturers were grappling with increasing rates and uncertain future residual values. Since used cars have become more valuable around that time, manufacturers were gambling on higher residuals for their leases and offsetting the risk with higher interest rates. Rates today have come down generally speaking, not all nor as low as they used to be historically, but have improved for sure.

We look forward to working with you, and you also never need to truly wait until the end of the lease! During my time at the dealership, one of my key strategies was lease pull aheads, buying people out of their leases early and upgrading them into new leases. The catch is on pull aheads is playing the market and finding if your payoff value is in-line with market value, if not, pull ahead will carry negative equity, but if it does then you can likely get out of your lease with zero penalty and into a new lease. For example, we had a client of ours that leased a 2023 CX-5 Turbo from us about 9 months ago, he had 27 payments left and wanted to get into a CX-90 PHEV. We were able to buy him out clean (no negative equity) and put him into a new CX-90 PHEV Premium for a similar payment 27 months early.

If anyone has a Mazda lease and wants to explore an early pull ahead to see if they can upgrade into a new lease through us, I am happy to review your lease at no cost - just shoot me a DM with your VIN and current miles and I will take a look! I have access to Mazda lease payoff information with the click of a button!
 
Not 100% lease related but sort of, since it is an option to add in: One dealership (Ira Mazda) is offering 3 years maintenance plan for $1,050. Worth it? @Tiggs What have you been paying, since you've had your car for a bit?
 
Hey guys, just sharing here I wrote up a Guide on how to use and navigate our Calculator tool if anyone wants to take a look!

Can you explain Quoted Selling Price? From the 3 quotes I have, I only have their MSRP, Cap Cost, Incentives and Fees (Acquistion Fee, Doc Fee, etc.).

Also, sent in a request via your form.
 
Can you explain Quoted Selling Price? From the 3 quotes I have, I only have their MSRP, Cap Cost, Incentives and Fees (Acquistion Fee, Doc Fee, etc.).
Selling price is the actual price the dealer is selling the car for, MSRP is a static number assigned to a vehicle once built, that can't change (not from a dealer at least) - if the dealer isn't disclosing the sale price then it is a bit of a red flag. Not to say it isn't a good deal, but it is a red flag. You can back into the math potentially with using our calculator tool, if you DM me with your quotes I will be happy to take a look and try to replicate them with our calculator tool for some better comparisons.

Not 100% lease related but sort of, since it is an option to add in: One dealership (Ira Mazda) is offering 3 years maintenance plan for $1,050. Worth it? @Tiggs What have you been paying, since you've had your car for a bit?
I know this was directed at @Tiggs, still curious his feedback - but I'm personally a bit skeptical that $1,050 for the *first* 3 years of maintenance is very much value. Oil changes and tire rotations, 3 years typically doesn't mean 3 years of unlimited use, sometimes just 3 services - so clarify with the dealer on exactly what that covers, but thats $350 per service @ 3 basic early-life services.
 
Not 100% lease related but sort of, since it is an option to add in: One dealership (Ira Mazda) is offering 3 years maintenance plan for $1,050. Worth it? @Tiggs What have you been paying, since you've had your car for a bit?

Agree with @Ninja_Matt, to get a clear picture of whether it would be worth it, you'd need to find out exactly what the maintenance plan covers/includes, and compare it with your projected mileage in that time. For example, if you're not planning to drive more than 10k mi/year, according to the Owner's Manual, you would only need 3 oil and filter changes, an engine air filter replacement, a brake fluid replacement and cabin air filter replacement at the 2 year mark, and tire rotations every 7.5k mi. You would also need to do some basic inspections - fortunately the Owner's Manual explains exactly how to inspect each part here.

With that said, you can get quotes for all of the individual parts and services above to see how much it would normally cost if you didn't get the package. Engine air filter and cabin air filter replacements are very easy and very quick to do yourself, even with limited access to tools/space, so I would never recommend getting those done at the dealer and paying their labour rates for such simple tasks. You might also want to confirm whether the "package" services can be done at any Mazda dealership, because if you happen to move or you want to have work done at another dealership within the 3 year period, you may not be able to.
 
Selling price is the actual price the dealer is selling the car for, MSRP is a static number assigned to a vehicle once built, that can't change (not from a dealer at least) - if the dealer isn't disclosing the sale price then it is a bit of a red flag. Not to say it isn't a good deal, but it is a red flag. You can back into the math potentially with using our calculator tool, if you DM me with your quotes I will be happy to take a look and try to replicate them with our calculator tool for some better comparisons.


I know this was directed at @Tiggs, still curious his feedback - but I'm personally a bit skeptical that $1,050 for the *first* 3 years of maintenance is very much value. Oil changes and tire rotations, 3 years typically doesn't mean 3 years of unlimited use, sometimes just 3 services - so clarify with the dealer on exactly what that covers, but thats $350 per service @ 3 basic early-life services.
Thanks. I'm gathering a few more quotes and putting them into a spreadsheet so once I have it, I'll share it.

NOTE: I did get a reply from Nick Russell from my initial request via your form and responded back to him this evening just before 9pm ET.
 
Thanks. I'm gathering a few more quotes and putting them into a spreadsheet so once I have it, I'll share it.

NOTE: I did get a reply from Nick Russell from my initial request via your form and responded back to him this evening just before 9pm ET.
Great! Heads up he may be a bit slower on response times after today, he is traveling to NY later today for a wedding and will be off for the next couple of days, but should be on for the first half of the day today. Don't hesitate to DM if you need me to jump in at all, I'm coincidentally traveling as well (on a flight FL>NJ as I type) but should be a bit more available.

Apologies in advance for our poor scheduling! On me, his was planned, my almost 90yr old grandmother fell and broke her femur so mine was much more impromptu, but had to go check in on her.
 
Great! Heads up he may be a bit slower on response times after today, he is traveling to NY later today for a wedding and will be off for the next couple of days, but should be on for the first half of the day today. Don't hesitate to DM if you need me to jump in at all, I'm coincidentally traveling as well (on a flight FL>NJ as I type) but should be a bit more available.

Apologies in advance for our poor scheduling! On me, his was planned, my almost 90yr old grandmother fell and broke her femur so mine was much more impromptu, but had to go check in on her.
Thanks - have more quotes coming in from more dealers a little further out...and sorry to hear about your grandmother...hope she gets better soon!
 
Not 100% lease related but sort of, since it is an option to add in: One dealership (Ira Mazda) is offering 3 years maintenance plan for $1,050. Worth it? @Tiggs What have you been paying, since you've had your car for a bit?
I've paid zero maintenance so far - I have nearly 7K miles. I went in for my initial oil change at 5K miles and it was complimentary. I had an issue with my left wipers skipping in the rain and hitting the A Pillar, and I was given a new wiper blade for free.

Ninja_Matt is right - find out what's in that package, and whether it's the dealer that determines if they perform the maintenance, or can you determine what to perform... and of course, how many miles you are driving....
 
I've paid zero maintenance so far - I have nearly 7K miles. I went in for my initial oil change at 5K miles and it was complimentary. I had an issue with my left wipers skipping in the rain and hitting the A Pillar, and I was given a new wiper blade for free.

Ninja_Matt is right - find out what's in that package, and whether it's the dealer that determines if they perform the maintenance, or can you determine what to perform... and of course, how many miles you are driving....
Was the 5K maintenence an offer you got a lease signing? I'm interested to know which dealer/service gave you that... or if you're just a shrewd negotiator :)
 
Was the 5K maintenence an offer you got a lease signing? I'm interested to know which dealer/service gave you that... or if you're just a shrewd negotiator :)
No, Quirk Mazda in Quincy MA offers complimentary 1st oil change for their customers. This is my 4th CX-9/CX-90 from them, an I've gotten that every time.

If you don't get your CX-90 from Ninja_Matt, I can get you connected with my rep (DM me)
 
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