I took a test drive last night. I think i found my next car. Right now I drive a 2015 Hyundai Genesis 3.8. My lease runs out at the end of May. I'm trying to figure out the smarted way to purchase the Clarity. It looks like I should wait at least another month or so. The dealer told me, with out talking to finance, that they usually will pay off the last 2 payments and then what ever they deem the car to be worth, they put towards the Purchase of the Clarity after they buy the car from Hyundai. This is similar to when i got my Genesis. I had a Lexus ES350. Hyundai paid the last 2 payments and got me into the Genesis for no money down. The car payments seemed to be at least $50 more a month than what others were getting, but I was happy because i was paying $200 less than I was paying for the Lexus. What is y'alls typical monthly on a purchase, how much money did you put down? Did you use a trade-in?
I don't know, but regardless of how they say it can be done, you will be still be making those last lease payments on your old car as well as making payments on a new one. So you're starting out in a hole. The Clarity will still be around in June when your lease is up. Then you can turn it in and walk away. You likely won't make any money after Honda buys the car from Hyundai either, but YMMV. You might even end up in another hole. By June, you may even find a used Clarity - which would be practically brand new. My monthly payment is $704, but I only had to finance $25K because of trade-in and cash. I was able to take advantage of the Honda 0.9% 3-year rate which was 1% less than my credit union. So if you financed the full price of the car, you'd have a much higher monthly obligation.
The only way to get the 0.9% rate was 36 months. If you can get a decent rate for 5 year, that could work. I expect auto rates to start climbing soon as a result of some of the other monetary nonsense going on right now, but we'll see.
Just got Honda financing for 1.9% for 5 years. That and 0.9 for 3 yrs are running at least they end of Feb according to my dealership.
