Auto Leasing

Wells Fargo Auto Finance

The Effect of the American financial crisis has now started to affect the Canadian Automotive Industry.

Wells Fargo Financial, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, is an $18 billion company providing installment and home equity lending, automobile financing, consumer and private label credit cards, leasing, technology services, and receivables financing to consumers and businesses in 47 U.S. states, all 10 provinces of Canada, and the Caribbean.

An affiliate of Wells Fargo Financial, Wells Fargo Auto Finance a division of Wells Fargo Financial Retail Services Company Canada which has been offering non-prime financing programs to dealers across Canada since 1995 has pulled out of Canada

As of November 12th, 2008 Wells Fargo Auto Finance has made the difficult decision to exit the indirect lending channel in Canada. Wells Fargo continuously reviews its operations and makes changes when necessary to align with the current market environment.

New and used Auto Dealers across Canada were notified quietly  the Effective as of noon Eastern time November 12th, Wells Fargo Auto Finance will no longer be accepting credit applications from Canadian auto dealers.

AutoSourceFinancial.Com

Notwithstanding the fact that leasing is an option that is fraught with a number of disadvantages for the average customer. Leasing regulation in this day and age does not require as much disclosure as buying a vehicle for example.

This in turn has given rise to many leasing scams that trick the customer into believing they are being offered a generous deal when, as a matter of fact, all he or she is getting is a foul deal on the dealer’s terms.

From here,  we look at some of these common scams and how to avoid them:

Artificially Low Interest Rates

Some dealers quote a lower interest rate when in reality it’s much higher. They do this by either purposefully quoting the money factor as the interest rate or calculating the loan without amortizing some closing fees, like the security deposit, into the loan lease.

A useful example would be this: typically, this is expressed as a four decimal digit, something like 0.004. Some dealers quote this as representing a 4% interest rate when ultimately you need to multiply it by 24 to get at least a rough estimate of the actual interest rate on your loan.

In this example, the interest rate is a much higher 9.6% than the orginally quoted rate of 4%.

Ensure that you crunch the numbers and fully understand the formula they utilize to calculate their interest rate. Look out for any fees not included in the calculation. If you are unhappy with the terms laid out to you, be sure not to the lease agreement.

Terminate Your Lease Early For A Low Penalty

This is an all-time leasing scam. You ask your dealer how much needs to be repaid if you want to terminate your lease and the dealer tells you: “You would like to get out early? Sure thing, you only pay an early termination fee of $300”.  What the dealer is quoting is only the minimal administrative charge of early termination – there is a much stricter penalty called early termination fee, and this can run into thousands of dollars.

Do not confuse the early termination administrative fee with the termination fee. Read the small print completely and know exactly how much you will get charged if you feel there is the need to terminate your lease before its scheduled end. 

Pay For An Extended Warranty You Don’t Need

This is another shell game to extend the dealer’s profit at your expense. The dealer includes an extended-warranty into the deal whilst it’s already factored into the monthly payments, or perhaps he tricks you into signing up for a 48-month warranty on a 24-month lease.

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More information and useful pointers such as this are available via www.streetwiseconsumer.com – Save Money, Better Credit, Consumer Tips

Leasing has been lauded as your cheapest ticket to keep up with the industry’s hottest vehicles and trends. The jury, however, is still out on leasing: with the industry long on hype and short on detail, it is difficult to distinguish between a genuinely good deal and a downright up-selling exercise.

So how do you spot a good deal?

First, you need to find out if there are any down payments on the lease. A down payment refers to the lump sum amount that you pay upfront, either in cash, non-cash credit or trading allowance, to reduce your monthly payment. You should think twice before putting money down on a lease: not only are you getting a rough deal, as you’re essentially forfeiting the general rule of leasing: not putting any cash upfront, but the money is not recoupable at the end of your lease. There is another big disadvantage: in the event of your car getting damaged or stolen, you insurance and the gap cost will not cover the loss.

Mileage Limit

Most leasing companies allow you a limit of 45,000 free miles over the length of a 3-year lease. This may seem like a good deal at first sight, but when you consider it only comes to 15,000 miles over a 12 month period it’s not difficult to foresee why it might be difficult to stay within this limit. Even people working from home have little trouble putting 15,000 miles on their cars. If you exceed the mileage limit, the penalty for each excess mile can be as high as 20 cents. This can add up quickly over the length of your lease: an additional 4,000 miles a year over the length of a 3-years lease contract, will end up costing you an extra $2,400 in excess mileage charges! Be realistic about your mileage needs, especially if you have to regularly commute over long-distances, before you sign the contract. Consider padding the miles that you expect to use since it is less expensive to contract for the extra before you sign than it is to pay the extra charges at end of your lease.  

Sales Tax

Sales tax is usually capitalized and added to the monthly payments. However, some dealers choose not to include it in their calculations to drive the advertised lease payments even lower. What they do instead is state in the small print that the monthly payment excludes “sales tax”. Make sure you carefully read the fine print for any extra, hidden costs not included in the advertised monthly payment. Unscrupulous fees that typically slip through the cracks include sales tax, registration and title fees.

$250 to dispose of your vehicle, $1000 for extra miles you put on the clock and $200 to replace the light bulb and the worn tyres-lease agents constantly nickel-and-dime consumers when their lease runs out.  Here’s a rundown of what can trigger those fees, and some steps to take in self-defense. Disposition fee: leasing companies charge you if you choose not to buy the vehicle at the end of your lease. This fee is set as compensation for the expenses of selling, or otherwise disposing of the vehicle. It typically includes administrative charges; the dealer’s cost to prepare the car for resale and any other penalties. Make sure this fee is stated clearly in the contract and is agreeable by you before signing on the dotted line. At lease-end, you are left in no position to negotiate as the dealer can apply your refundable security deposit towards this fee.

Excess mileage charges: Almost all leasing companies will charge a premium for each mile over the agreed upon mileage stated in your contract. This penalty can be as high as 25 cents per mile and can add up quickly. To avoid the risk of running thousands of dollars in excess mileage penalties at the end of your lease, always check the “per mile” charges in your contract and be realistic about your mileage before you sign any contract. If you think the limit is unrealistic given your commutation needs, then negotiate with the dealer to get a higher mileage or contract for additional miles.

Excess tear-and-wear charges: Another potential cost at the end of the lease is any incidental damage done to the car during the lease. This is deemed any excessive damage done to the normal tear and wear of the vehicle. Notice the use of the terms “deemed”, “excessive” and “normal”. There is no standard formula to define what’s “excessive” and “normal” and it’s up to the leasing company to assess – or deem – the damage and determine what they are going to charge. This leaves you at the mercy of unscrupulous leasing agents who set stringent tear-and-wear standards. Make sure you read the description of these standards, understand them and agree to them. If your leased vehicle is damaged prior to the end of the lease, you may find it cheaper to repair the damage yourself than pay the excessive charges of the leasing agent. In the event of a dispute over the charges at the end of your lease, get an independent third party to do a professional appraisal detailing the amount required to repair any damaged parts or the amount by which tear-and-wear reduces the value of the vehicle.

If you are in the market to lease a vehicle, you will hear the term “residual value” recur like a leitmotif. A residual value does not only affect your monthly payments, but is equally used by leasing companies to determine any penalties should you break your lease early and how much to pay if you decided to buy the vehicle at the end of your lease.

Let us first start by looking at the meaning of residual value. The term “residual value”, refers to the value of something after it has been used for some time. In leasing lingo, it refers to the depreciation of the vehicle’s value over the life of its lease. So how does it exactly affect your monthly payments? When you lease a car, you pay for the car’s value that you use over the lease length. Suppose you leased an $18,000 car for 2 years: the leasing company needs to estimate the value of this car in two years time in order to know how much of the car you will be using during your lease term. That’s where the “residual value” comes into the equation. If the residual value is estimated to be $13,000 at the end of your lease, then your monthly payments will be calculated on the $5,000 you will use over 24 months, giving an average monthly payment of $208.3 (plus interest, tax and fees). How about if the car is expected to lose half its value over the same period? In this scenario, you will be using $9,000 over the same period, leaving you with a higher monthly payment of $375 (plus interest, tax and fees). As you can see, residual values are a key factor in determining how much money to pay on your lease and the higher the residual value, the lower your monthly fees. This works in reverse if you build a bond with your car and decide to purchase it at the end of your lease. If we stick with the same example above, the lower monthly payments in the second scenario come at the cost of paying substantially more to buy your car at the end of the lease.

So, since the residual value is so important, how do I know which one is best for me? Well, it all depends whether you want to purchase the car at the end of your lease. If you don’t want to make a large down payment and you want low monthly payments, then a car that holds with a higher residual value is a good deal. If you are thinking of purchasing the car at lease-end, then you need to balance low-monthly payments with a moderate residual value.