[BMWCali]

I heard BMW is stopping production on the E90 M3 after this year until the F30 lands in summer 2013 (client advisor at local dealer told me that BMW is going to stop producing the M3 sedan), and my brother just placed an order for an E93 M3 so I got the bug again to want to get me an M3... and I really want the sedan so I guess there's some urgency, if that's true.

It's been a while since I've done this so I was hoping you guys could check my math:

I spec'd out a M3 sedan on BMW's site for $74,247 MSRP. European Delivery invoice is $47,400 for the base M3 sedan so that would shave $8,500 off -- I haven't even done the calculations for what the invoice prices take off the options yet. So if I add $800 (profit for dealer to do the paperwork -- is $800 enough of built-in profit for them?), that gets me to $7,700 off. So $74,247 subtract $7,700 is $66,547.

Based on estimating a payment for a 36 month lease at 10K miles/year on BMWUSA's website with $7,700 down (the European Delivery discount minus $800 for dealer profit), it shows a monthly payment of $840.

NOW, I remember hearing never to put your own money down as a down payment on a lease because if the car is totaled, you will loose it all? Is that *really* true? Reason I ask is because if it's not, what I'd like to do is sell the Jeep I'm driving now (which I own out right) and put the $18K I get from it into the down payment. So with the $7,700 + $18,000 from the Jeep sale + $500 from BMW CCA rebate = $26,200 down payment. And if it's a $26,200 down payment, BMW's payment estimator shows a monthly of $282 (heck yeah!). Plus, I suppose once I add the discount for all of the options that bring them to invoice price, that will probably shave even a little more off the monthly. (Alternatively, if I would in fact loose all of the down payment if the car got totaled, I could put the cash from the sale of the Jeep into a separate checking account and just draw part of the monthly off of that each month -- although that would make the monthly payment about $40/month higher.)

Then, I suppose the question is how much will tax add to that monthly payment? Is it just $280 x California's 9.25% tax, or do you have to pay tax on what the monthly would be before any down payment?

If the sedan wasn't going out of production, I really wouldn't do this right now simply because it would strain my finances a bit to do it, but if the sedan really is going out of production, I can make the finance end work assuming my math above lines up.

Thanks in advance for any help!