2014 FFE deal I just made in Los Angeles area:

[tabbibus]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the significance of how new or old it is on inventory?

Thanks guys

 

[studio460]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the significance of how new or old it is on inventory?

It's probably mostly an illusional "benefit." I thought cars with fewer days in inventory were less likely to be subject to multiple test drives, errant scratches, and most of all, improper battery maintenance. On my first test drive at a local dealer, they has a 90+ day, in-inventory FFE, with a near-zero percent state-of-charge (we had to test drive another car instead). I thought leaving a Li-ion battery in a state of complete discharge was bad, but I think I'm mistaken, and a low battery condition is mostly benign. I also liked the fact that the car I eventually got came from a beach city dealer. Ambient temps in the San Fernando Valley (where several large Ford dealers are located) soared to 107+ degrees in the past few weeks. Again, probably doesn't matter.

 

[WattsUp]

I thought leaving a Li-ion battery in a state of complete discharge was bad, but I think I'm mistaken, and a low battery condition is mostly benign.

When the car indicates "0%", that doesn't literally mean the battery has no charge. Internally, the car keeps roughly a 10% buffer of charge at each end, using the "middle" 80% of the battery capacity for what is displays to the user as 0-100%. So, when the battery is "depleted", it is actually (internally) still at 10% capacity. This is done to protect the battery.

 

[NightHawk]

I made what I think is a great deal on a 36month lease of a new 2014 Ford Focus electric Oxford White with cloth seats late on Sunday (9/28/14) night. I figured this is the best time to make a deal, end of September.

I had gotten several dealer internet quotes for the past week from Ford dealers in San Diego County that had stock of FFEs with colors and options I was interested in and that showed up in the TruCar quotes. The top choice ended up the dealer that actually was the 2nd lowest total quote (the lowest was about $100 less total) because their selection and location was superior to the other one. The other dealers were hundreds of dollars higher or had poor stock.

The dealer I liked had the widest selection of most of the colors available, so I got to go over them side by side Sunday afternoon to be sure which color I wanted. I quickly narrowed down to one of the whites and decided the more expensive Platinum metallic white didn't look that much different from the cheaper Oxford white to me. I also had decided that leather seats and motorized driver seat adjustments weren't worth an extra ~$1000; but this particular dealer only had cloth seats in all of their stock while other dealers had only leather seat ones in stock so I couldn't compare them side by side only by memory. I've had leather seats in a sports car about ten years ago and found it got tears easier than cloth seats anyway.

The dealer I ended up at Sunday night stayed open over 2 hours beyond the normal closing time (8pm) that night to finalize the deal and do all the paperwork, left a little after 10pm that night when I was all signed. I just had to provide them via email some info the next day including getting my insurance company's proof of insurance after adding the FFE to the policy.

Since I'm doing a trade-in (keeping an old Toyota pickup as a backup and larger cargo vehicle) I also got them to schedule free home delivery since they are almost 30miles from my house, and then I wouldn't need to get a long ride down there and drive the car way back home.

They delivered this morning the car right to my garage and I had them plug in the charger to make sure that worked, since the battery was down to about 50% after the long drive from the dealer to my house.
Spent about an hour with the sales rep who drove it to my house going over all the basic controls in more detail and inspection. He had a buddy drive in a different car come with him to take him back to the dealership.

Excellent service all around and they never even pushed any extras like wearcare, etc at all.
I brought that up myself at the end when I was too sign the lease agreement, and he just said, you wanted that? I said no of course.

My original quote via trucar was honored with a starting price that was $900 under invoice price for the car, not including taxes or fees of course. That was with the dealer giving their own $2700 discount off of MSRP.
Since I opted for the 36 month lease instead of purchase, I got this month's special Ford deal of $11,750 RCL customer cash since I qualified for the best rates.

I had the run the numbers at the dealer when I went there on Sunday afternoon for various amounts of down payment vs monthly payment options. Since the interest rate used was incredibly low (0.25%) there really was only a very tiny difference in the total payed over the 3 year lease between zero down and the max down ($5000 or so) and I didn't care about the individual month payment amount, its the total of all the payments + money down + taxes&fees that I was comparing. Even paying all the monthly payments up front (single payment lease) wouldn't save much of anything, so it turned out zero down was the best option since you keep control of the bulk of your money longer and make dividends on it during the 3 years of the lease, so in the end I went with the zero down lease offer.

This lease deal turned out even better when I discovered the free $11,750 Ford customer cash deal (expired today unless they probably come up with a similar deal again in the near future) covered all the upfront tax and license fees and even the first month payment! The balance of it then reduced the capital cost. I ended up with about $274/month (includes 8% sales tax in my area) and no other fees paid by me since the free Ford customer cash covered all of that and more. I got the car and still haven't payed them a penny! I think the first payment is due in November. They told me Ford doesn't even have those fees some others charge when you turn in the car or exercise the buyout option at the end of the lease. So the monthly payments are all I pay for the whole term of the lease nothing else unless I want to buy the car at the end. So the total cash outlay for the 3 years will be 35 * $274 = $9590.
Plus I put in the application today for the California $2500 rebate that is now fully funded again, so that will reduce the total for 3 year lease down to $7090; the rebate will pay for about 9months of payments.

The Ford sales rep told me today after he delivered the car to my house that when one of the top finance guys saw this lease deal they were amazed and decided they too would do a similar zero down deal but probably on one of the other Ford cars maybe one of the Energi plug-in hybrid models.

I figured out that if I had purchased the car with their $6000 Ford bonus discount instead that potentially would be about $3000 less total (assuming you could take advantage of the full $7500 federal tax credit, which I would not get in full in any case) compared to doing the 3 year lease and then buying at the depreciated residual price in 3 years.
I figured the lease approach would still end up cheaper even if I bought the car at the end compared to buying with cash at the beginning since I don't think I would get even half the full federal tax credit this year anyway. Also since you keep the over $25,000 cash purchase price (before any later tax credit) for 3 years I could make investment dividends during that time to make almost as much as the max $7500 federal tax credit would any how. With the lease part of that $11,750 Ford customer lease cash special probably includes the $7500 federal tax credit they can get since they own the car for the 3 years of the lease.

 

[Brian]

I just purchase a week ago, after several weeks of doing my research.

I was debating between the lease and purchase of the car and decided to purchase:

36,000 was the sticker
-6000 from ford
-2000 from dealer
paid roughly 28,000 + tax and all the other stuff.

I will get 2500 from the state and I know that my taxes are enough that I will be able to take full advantage of the 7500.

When all said and done, I will pay roughly 18000 for the car.

My credit union will redo my loan when I get the state/fed money and I will be paying much less than a lease payment and I will have no mileage restrictions.

I saw a used FFE at local dealership with 8000 miles, I told him that I would give him 19000, he laughed.

 

[NightHawk]

I saw a used FFE at local dealership with 8000 miles, I told him that I would give him 19000, he laughed.

Yep I saw only two used (2012) FFE's listed under CarMax and one is 6K and the other 33K miles, wanting $21,000-$26,000 each.
If they can sell for anywhere near $20,000 used, then I might exercise the purchase option at the end of my 3 year lease for $15,000 and then could resell it and make a few thousand if I wanted to get a new model maybe with higher capacity battery by then!

 

[Brian]

I saw a used FFE at local dealership with 8000 miles, I told him that I would give him 19000, he laughed.

Yep I saw only two used (2012) FFE's listed under CarMax and one is 6K and the other 33K miles, wanting $21,000-$26,000 each.
If they can sell for anywhere near $20,000 used, then I might exercise the purchase option at the end of my 3 year lease for $15,000 and then could resell it and make a few thousand if I wanted to get a new model maybe with higher capacity battery by then!

I was thinking about the residual at the end of the lease, it was around 18000 if I am not mistaken. That is close to 500 a month over three years. The lease was going to be around 350 a month. Simple math tells me that if I want to own this car in 6 years, don't lease it, buy it. If, with rebates and tax credits, you can get the car down to 18000, your monthly is around 270. There is a reason that Ford (and all others) is telling us to lease and not buy, is it good for us or is it good for them?

I don't know about you guys, but I thought that I was going to drive around 1000 miles per month. First week I was at 627 miles. My level 2 power supply unit came in yesterday, wired a plug for it last night and the charge rate is awesome!!! I just might be putting more miles on the FFE than on my ICE vehicle. I was getting 14 mpg in my F150--last week I saved over $160 in gas!!!

 

[WattsUp]

I don't know about you guys, but I thought that I was going to drive around 1000 miles per month. First week I was at 627 miles.

That's the first that hits you after having your first EV for a while. You suddenly realize you don't want to drive anything else.

Heck, I go for drives sometimes in my FFE just to drive it. I take the long way home, just to drive it more.

 

[hybridbear]

I don't know about you guys, but I thought that I was going to drive around 1000 miles per month. First week I was at 627 miles.

That's the first that hits you after having your first EV for a while. You suddenly realize you don't want to drive anything else.

Heck, I go for drives sometimes in my FFE just to drive it. I take the long way home, just to drive it more.

I do the same thing