I know it hasn’t been the easy for many of you trying to hunt down lease rates this month. I too have been impacted since I was just about to begin shopping for my Sonata replacement. The good news is that a whole lot of you have stepped up to keep things alive, which is phenomenal. This may be the best way to keep things alive in my opinion. Going forward, I will do my best to establish a place to gather and share information, doing my best to provide you with the resources to make leasing an easier endeavor.
Starting this month, you will begin to see some of the changes that I plan to implement to further improve the site. Below are some of the things that you should expect in the coming months:
- Website redesign to accomodate the new structure.
- Crowd-sourced model will be refined (Kudos to Ron for the Google Forms suggestion). In future, I will have a more “home-brewed” system in place. In the meantime, Google Forms will do the job
- Based on the Aug-Sept poll results, lease rates will be streamlined, focusing key brands such as BMW, Audi, Acura, MBZ, Lexus, Infiniti, Honda and VW, with Volvo added whenever supplied. However we will not be limited to only those (see next bullet)
- There will be another list of rates for “one-off” models from all other makes (I decided this once I got a chance to see the Lincoln MKZ. I am really curious as to how much this ride goes for)
- Registration will be required to post questions, requests, interact with me and other members.
- Lease calculator will get a major overhaul and will be planned for mobile devices (this will take time and money to put together so please be patient)
There seems to be some “doomsday” reaction going around regarding this site being “shutdown”. As you know, that isn’t the case. The truth is that my “source” decided that lease rates in exchange for referrals isn’t in their best interest anymore. No other source has stepped since offering to supply me with more numbers, so this is where we are. Should the community choose not to grow from what we’ve built, then we all know what happens next.
As consumers, we will ultimately determine whether sites like this stick around. I have had three brokers supply numbers in the past and they all have stopped. That model was clearly not sustainable in the long haul. Our best chance is to get the numbers independently and share them with the community. We want their cars. We choose who we do business with. We don’t want to be cheated. Is that simple.
I will continue to contribute community to the best of my abilities. I genuinely hope everyone else does the same.
Thank you all for the many years of support. Let’s keep the wheels spinning.