BMW Financial Services vs. Audi Financial Services

[Dennis885]

I'm trying to gauge my lease appproval odds based off others recent experience with BMW FS or Audi FS.  The vehicles I'm interested in would both end up being about $400/month after MSDs and drive offs.

Is one of these lenders more lenient?

Which credit score do they most often pull?  

Tiers? Which qualify for the buy rate MF? I believe BMW bumps the MF .00010 per teir, does Audi have a set bump?

The bad on my report:

I settled a few credit cards and a small loan for less than balance using a debt settlement company.  These won't fall off until 2022-2023. I also have one late payment on a student loan in 2016.

The good:

Outside of the above I've made all payments on time.  I have 3 credit cards I've opened since with perfect payment history and 1-2% usage.

Took out a 5 year auto loan from 2011 to 2016, 100% payments.  Was able to lease thru Honda in 2019, made 22 on time payments (sold last week for positive equity).  I didn't have much trouble getting the lease but had to take tier 2.

The only other debt I have is student loans.  They are currently in forbearance, once payments start back up, they will be about $400/month.   So my DTI pretty solid.

Scores:

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Thanks in advance for any input!!

[Dennis885]

Also will my score change once the recently paid off lease updates?  It still shows a balance equal to the final 14 payments I no longer have.

[dunn2500]

typically a paid off loan (or any i would imagine) drops the score a bit, idk if leases work same way financing does but my score dropped all 3 times i paid off the car loan in last 3 years.....depending on how thick your file is will determine how many pts, mine was thin so it was pretty hefty, but it did bounce back.......again idk if leases work this way 

[Anonymous]

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@Dennis885 wrote:

Also will my score change once the recently paid off lease updates?  It still shows a balance equal to the final 14 payments I no longer have.

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Score change will depend on if you have any other installment loans. The change in installment loan utilization COULD affect your score either positively or negatively, depedning if it increases or decreases. If it is your only open installment loan I don't expect much of a change, you aren't at the optimal threshold for installment utilization (<10%) but you could lose some score boosts from potential installment utilization thresholds (but we haven't reliably identified these thresholds and how many points they are worth).

As far as BMW vs Audi financial, I don't believe either one is more lenient than the other. It will really boil down to how much the dealer is willing to help you with the approval. A dealer that does a lot of leases will typically have a strong relationship with their captive lender and they will have enough pull to get your tier bumps, if needed. Audi pulls TU and I believe BMW pulls EX (I think I also have seen reports of them pulling EQ). I was just approved at tier 1 through VW financial services (same company as Audi financial services) and my TU score was 733 according to Experian 3B report, unfortunately the dealer didn't give me a printout of my score or which flavor of TU they pulled.

[Dennis885]

I've read a few posts saying TU Auto 8 for Audi, but there were 1-2 years old, and I know they can change.

With my payment history with Honda I'm pretty confident I wouldn't have any issue there (or Acura).   Just not sure I like anything in the lineup that much.   That, and the quotes I've gotten for Accords have been terrible.   I'm talking more for a $33k Accord than a $45-$50k Acura. No discount or incentives on the Honda just make it an unattractive lease.

[Anonymous]

Lease deals aren't great in general right now. Most dealers have limited supply, so they don't want to discount and manufacturers are struggling to produce more inventory due to the chip shortage, so they aren't incentivizing anything. Honda has a loyalty program, so you would be approved at tier 1 if you were to lease another Honda or Acura.

I would imagine you should have a pretty solid approval with BMW or Audi though, I think the multiple MSDs should help your case too.

[Dennis885]

I'll probably use a broker this time around, who I'd imagine has a good relationship with the dealer, which should help.

The incentives vary a lot from brand to brand right now, I'm looking to stack a few and make a move near the end of summer, if anything is left lol.

[Dennis885]

The residual and negotiated price are still your biggest factors.   If the RV is near 60% and there's some incentives you can still find an ok lease deal.

If it's a luxury brand with an RV near 50% that's a lot more depreciation to cover over 3 years, so unless you get a big discount or huge incentives, it can be tough to make worthwhile.