So my lease is up this month and I can contact my credit union to pay off the residual value, taxes, licensing and AVOID the dealership 100%?
You 100% can dodge the dealership. The only thing you'll need to do is get a 20 day payoff from Kia, either your dealership or KMFUSA.
Theres approximately $3,000 in markup from Invoice to MSRP. Right there, they should be willing to discount a good portion of that if not all. Its not a
Telluride for f*cks sake.
That said:
directly from Kia USA's website:
$2,500 rebate on all 2021's for cash buying or financing. If you're talking 2022 models thats a different story.
But, between $2,500 rebate, $3,000 between MSRP and invoice, plus the fact that the dealer risks sitting on a unit that won't lease worth a damn...I'd say see if they'll go $7k off and you'll go for it.
Thats far more reasonable.
A great way to take advantage of this is to get preapproved with your credit union.
Unlike the dealership, they won't mark your finance rate up.
Stroll into the dealership with your preapproval, Let them know what you'll do on "cash purchase' (you kind of are if you're using your own financing) and when thats said and done, see if they network directly with your credit union. Two scenarios branch off of this:
Either they'll just use your credit unions pre-approval rate
or
They'll try and beat it with another finance company just to get the finance flat fee from the bank to make something.
They'll usually try to beat your credit union just to make a $400 flat from the bank.