Originally Posted by greybeard
drunkiq: the residual is listed for $20,274.90. The inital cap cost is $33,352. with $2,500 rebate and $4,247.56 cash cap reduction. This seems normal by comparison. Is the high down payment $5,038.11 possibly due to the tax?
yes!
i believe texas and illinois are the only two states that charge sales tax for the entire cap cost of the vehicle when leasing. you are paying up front $2084 in taxes (6.25% of $33,352). which means you are paying $1267 more (6.25% of the residual) than you would if your state's law made sense with respect to what leasing is suppose to afford you - the ability to pay only for the portion of the vehicle you will be using. unfortunately, leasing in tx may not be the best idea because of the tax ripoff. you would essentially be throwing more than 4 months lease payments away. the figure you gave ($5038 down) seems about right. $5038 - $2084 tax - $300 sec dep - $108.55 - $83 = $2462. that's only slightly more than the advertised lease downpayment. and the lowest price advertised lease would make sense to be for the manual trans though some have obtained autosticks for the same price. instead of paying so much up front, which kind of defeats the purpose of renting the car in the first place, why not negotiate to pay $0 down and roll everything else into the lease payment?