I have been lurking on this board for about two years now reading all the great info you guys put up. After going to the Auto Show in Motion yesterday I am convinced that I have to get an 05 GTO (or possibly a CTS 3.6/6M which was great too) I was wondering if anybody here could explain the difference between GM SmartBuy and SmartLease to me. As far as I can understand you make monthly payments and then have an optional baloon payment at the end to own the car with both payment types. However the Smartbuy comes out about $40/mo cheaper for me, what is the difference between the two? Maybe Jason or one of the other dealer people could chime in.

With the employee discount the price of the GTO comes out to $30,979. Are there any additional rebates or lowered financing on the goat to go along with this or no?

Finally, does anybody have pictures of the optional 18" rims you can order on the 05's. I can't find pictures of them anywhere.

 

With smartbuy, you still own the car so you have to pay sales tax when you buy it and property tax every year(atleast in MO). In Missouri, you will get a sales tax credit when you sell your car with smart buy since you actually owned it. With a lease, you don't actually own it so no sales tax credit. With the lease, you pay usage tax, but its included in your payment.

The only other significant difference I can think of is gap insurances. Smart lease comes with it. You have to pay extra to get it with smart buy.

When we bought the Saturn, once we added in gap insurance and rolled in sales tax to the loan amount for smartbuy, it was the same payment as leasing. We chose smartbuy b/c the residual value at the end was lower.