Yahoo Autos You Can Lease These Cars for $199 Per Month
September marks the beginning of the traditional new-car season. It's a time of year when new-car smell is in the air, along with the scent of burning leaves and pumpkin spice everything. It's also when automakers and their dealers begin the process of blowing out the current-year models in anticipation of the arrival of new-model-year metal.
In our monthly roundup of factory lease deals promoted at around $199 a month, we see that most-but not all-of the deals are for 2018 models. Hyundai (with the Veloster), Jeep (with the Cherokee), Kia (with several models), Mazda (CX-3), Ram (1500), Subaru (Crosstrek, Forester, and Legacy), and Toyota (C-HR and Corolla), and Volkswagen (Jetta) all are getting a jump on the 2019 model year.
As always, our Giant Enormous Chart of Deals (GECD) is harvested from the manufacturers' consumer websites. Yes, you could have done all this work yourself, but you didn't have to. The goal is to provide you a tool to separate the true bargains from the sneakily expensive lease deals.
Leasing works best for people with predictable, stable lives. They know how many miles they'll drive over a period of time and how they'll be using the vehicle. If there are any tax advantages to leasing for their life situation, they know it. Don't lease if you're the type of person who occasionally does stints in prison, can't hold a job, and/or owns several large dogs with an appetite for upholstery.
The cost of a lease is rather straightforward. You (the lessee) pay for the depreciation of the vehicle over the lease term and the cost of the money the lessor is using to purchase the vehicle, plus fees such as security deposits, acquisition fees, disposition charges, and anything else the creative accountants can come up with. Basically, you pay some of that total up front in the form of your initial payment and then a monthly charge that should be-to appear on this list-around $200.
Because so many manufacturer-promoted lease deals are regionalized down to the ZIP code, it's impossible to be totally comprehensive. We build the chart by surveying four ZIPs: 90069 (Los Angeles, a city in California); 60609 (Chicago, a town in Illinois); 48108 (Ann Arbor, the best place in Michigan where Car and Driver could find cheap office space); and 10069 (New York City, where people pride themselves on not knowing anything about cars).
The $199 target price here is a loose one-in some regions dealers may offer the same vehicle at lower or higher rates. If there's one deal on a vehicle near $199, we list all the deals we find on that vehicle, even if those monthly prices rise up toward $300 or $400 a month.
The chart includes calculations for the total cost of each lease: money due at signing, total monthly payments, and additional costs such as lease-end disposition fees. Then we divide that total by the number of allotted miles in the lease to calculate a cost-per-mile charge assuming full use of the agreed-upon miles. What the chart doesn't include are taxes or other charges (e.g., registration) that will vary from locale to locale.
Here are some of this month's highlights-and also some questions.
The Very Cheapest
Honda's Clarity Electric can be leased for $199 per month with just $1499 down. That works out to only 14 cents per mile over a 36-month, 60,000-mile term, far and away the lowest per-mile cost on this month's chart. The Clarity Electric is available only in California and Oregon, but the bigger challenge facing potential lessees may be driving 20,000 miles per year in an electric car with a range of just 89 miles on a charge.
The Cheapest Non-EV
Residents of the New York metropolitan area can get a Hyundai Elantra SE for $139 a month after a $2499 down payment. That's 22 cents per mile over 36,000 miles and three years. Or step up to a Sonata for another $50 a month (but only $2199 down), which works out to 26 cents per mile-a deal that's also available to Southern Californians.
The Rogues Are Bargain Bros
Also in New York City, Nissan is offering both the Rogue and the Rogue Sport-your choice-with all-wheel drive for just $149 per month after $2739 due at signing. Over three years and 36,000 miles, that pencils out to 22 cents a mile. The Rogue is bigger, but the Rogue Sport would be our choice.
At Volkswagen, New Is Cheaper Than Old
The Volkswagen Jetta has been redesigned for 2019, and yet, in some markets, the new version can be leased for less than the outgoing model. Again, looking at New York, a 2019 Jetta S 1.4T automatic is $159 per month with $2999 down, over a three-year, 22,500-mile term. Compare that to the 2018 Jetta S automatic at the same down payment but with a whopping $309 monthly nut. You've gotta really want the older version to pay 47 cents per mile rather than 40 cents.
Where Is the Miata?
Mazda's MX-5 Miata Sport has a base price of $26,190. That's a mere $1045 more than the cheapest CX-5 compact crossover. But while there are always keen lease deals on the CX-5 near the $199 price point, the Miata's leases are usually stuck up around $350. Why can't Mazda help us enthusiasts by supporting a tasty Miata deal at around $200 a month after $3000 at signing? Come on, Mazda-do the right thing.
Why Does Toyota Hide Its New York Acquisition Fee?
Toyota's lease deals are highly tailored to various regions. But unlike every other manufacturer (and Toyota in most other regions), it includes-and buries-a $650 vehicle-acquisition fee in its advertised price for lease deals around New York City. Our chart factors in that mandatory charge, but why does Toyota perform this shuffle for sophisticated East Coast lessees?
Still the Best Deal on the Chart
Every month the best deal on the big chart is the Honda Civic Si, available in both coupe and sedan forms for just over our price point. That's $209 or $229 a month for one of the best driving, most fun small cars sold in America. And the signing cash on these 36-month leases is reasonable, too: $3099 or $2399. We hope some of you readers have taken our advice and signed up for a new Si.
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