Ready-Made Car Lease Deals

If you've explored other articles on this LeaseGuide site, you'll know that the best car leases involve negotiating the best price and selecting vehicles with high future resale values (residual value).

However, there may be a better and easier way.

Car manufacturers such as Ford, Honda, Hyundai and most others regularly offer special monthly lease deals on selected models. The deals are time-limited and have specific conditions and requirements but are often better than any deal you might attempt to negotiate with a dealer.

Where to find special manufacturer car lease deals

All car company web sites list current limited-time special lease deals. The deals are usually found in a section of the site called "Special Offers" or "Current Offers", or "Featured Leases".

Be aware that these deals change from month to month and new deals are generally posted a few days after the first of each month. Some deals are carried over from a previous month. Others are offered for only one month.

Also be aware that these lease deals can vary or not be available in every area.  

Furthermore, the deals are only offered on selected makes and models and not all car companies have such deals every month. Deals on one model cannot be extended to another model.

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Note that any lease deal you might find on a car manufacturer's website can't be leased directly from that company — they can only be leased from a dealer. Furthermore, dealers in your area might not offer the deals you find on a manufacturer's website.

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How can these be good deals?

A good lease is made up of a good price, a good finance rate (money factor), and a good lease-end residual, given an acceptable mileage allowance.

Special limited-time lease deals from car companies usually already have discounted prices, low promotional finance rates, and oftentimes artificially boosted residual values — all of which combine to make a deal you might not be able to put together yourself (you yourself cannot negotiate finance rates or residual values, only price)

What's the catch?

There are several things that you might want to be aware of when looking at special manufacturer car lease deals.

First, you might not find a deal at this time on the specific vehicle you want. If you do, you should jump on it now because it might not be available next month.

Next, the terms of the deal are generally not negotiable — lease months, mileage limits, fees, cash due at signing, or vehicle model. You might be able to makes some changes, for example, in the up-front cash required, but it'll change the monthly payment and might just void the special deal.

Since many such offers have a low finance rate, the deals are only available to "highly qualified" customers, meaning those with Tier 1 credit (720+ score).

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Note that some significant changes in the automotive industry have occurred since the COVID pandemic, particularly with manufacturers' "special" lease offers. Many of the deals are not so special anymore. On the surface, they look good — low monthly payments, but low mileage limits and large down payments.

If you evaluate these leases using our Lease Deal Calculator, you'll discover that a majority of the deals rate poorly. Before the pandemic, nearly all the promoted deals were genuinely good deals. Therefore, in present times, it's advisable to do a little due diligence before you accept one of these deals. You might do better negotiating a deal on your own.

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Are these special leases legitimate ?

Car companies aim to boost sales and attract customers using promotional marketing. They offer incentives, like special lease deals, which are often genuinely beneficial and worth considering, not deceptive tactics.

Make your own deal if you can't find a deal on the vehicle you want

You can make your own deal by negotiating a good price on which your lease will be based but you have no control over the finance rate (money factor) or residual value. These factors are set buy the manufacturer and dealers have no ability to negotiate them.

You can improve your odds by selecting vehicles that historically have shown to have high residual values (percentages of MSRP).

At the time of this writing, 9 of the top 10 vehicle models with the highest residual values (highest resal values after 3 years) are Toyota models.