Does anyone know if you can negotiate the amount in the contract to buy the car for instead of trading it in.

 

The residual value is contractual. That's how much you'll pay to buy it. They can't charge you more and they won't take less. If you want to sell it privately and it is worth more than the residual value you can negotiate that. with the buyer, even if you are selling it back to Infiniti. Make sense?

 

yes sir, thanks. Actually talked to my sells man and told me same thing. Due to prevoius wreck the car was in I was hoping they would work with me but he said they would just send it to auction.

 

While I have never asked on an Infiniti lease, I can tell you other companies will not only negotiate the residual, but throw in freebies like pre-paid visa cards, heavily discounted extended warranties and off 0% financing.

 

So if you had a residual of say $20K on a car at the end of the lease, you've had the company actually take less than that amount for you to purchase it, like negotiating the purchase price of a buying a new car? Like how much of a discount off of the residual? What company?

 

Years ago the now wife had a VW Jetta leased and they knocked $1000 of the residual and sent her a $2100(!) pre-paid visa in addition to 0% financing so after running the numbers, we kept the car one more year, sold it on craigslist and pocketed another $1500. They offered a discounted extended warranty but we declined.

Now in all fairness this was 2009 and 2010, so they probably didn't want this car going through the auction in May 2009 and in August 2010 we had the advantage because used car prices shot up due to demand. Being an under $10,000 car at that point was a huge selling factor in our favor.

It should be noted, VW didn't want to do squat 3 months out, it was only that last 4-6 weeks after lease inspection they decided to drop their pants.

This was a base 5cyl Jetta with kick-ons too.

 

After thinking about this today, I can't tell you how many times I have heard over the course of my adult life that the residual on a lease is negotiable. Not that I haven't heard wrong and not that Infiniti is the exception, but I really have heard it a lot.