Leasing Fine With Limits, Says Honda Financial Rep
Done right, leasing helps everyone. Done wrong, it hurts residual values and brand strength.
![ldquoWe have to be carefulrdquo LeBlond says ldquoWe have to be carefulrdquo LeBlond says](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt7121b6ec5c11097b/bltc8a898ce3e607629/6619a9d2fda0944cdd435d3d/stephanie-leblond.jpg?width=1280&auto=webp&quality=95&format=jpg&disable=upscale)
LOS ANGELES – Car dealers like leases, but Stephanie LeBlond of American Honda Finance warns of overdoing it.
“You could say, ‘Gosh, 100% of our portfolio should be leasing,’ and some of our dealers are almost there,” she says. “But as a conservative company, we can’t do that.”
After bottoming out three years ago, vehicle leasing is resurging. To some extent that worries LeBlond, assistant manager-sales and marketing for Honda’s captive financing arm.
“If we throw (overly) generous incentives at customers to lease, they become less loyal,” she says here at the Automotive Customer-Centricity Summit hosted by Thought Leadership Summits.
Honda offered an average of $1,554 in incentives per car in August, ranking No.4 in such spending behind Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, says Edmunds.com.