Nissan Motor Acceptance Co. launched a lease program Monday called SignatureFLEX that has customers start with 5,000 miles per year and add more as needed throughout the life of their contract.
The flexible lease is available on the Rogue and Rogue Sport crossovers and the Pathfinder SUV. Nissan Motor Acceptance expects to offer SignatureFLEX on additional models early next year.
The work-from-home trend, combined with rising gas prices, puts an extra strain on consumers having to guess their driving needs for the next three years at the start of a lease.
Jim DeTrude, vice president of NMAC sales and marketing, said customer data show a desire for lower-mileage leases. In response, Nissan last year introduced a 10,000-mile-per-year lease that became the most popular option for its new-car contracts. That was a change from 2020 when 67 percent of new-car leases were 12,000 miles per year.
NMAC created SignatureFLEX in part because of "the trends we were seeing on reduced mileage and came from our dealers that were recommending, based on what they were hearing from their customers, a desire for a lower-mileage option," DeTrude told Automotive News last week.
NMAC is training dealership F&I staff to help customers decide if the 5,000-mile lease is the right choice for them, DeTrude says.
"I'd rather the term align with their driving habits and not where they're actually incurring additional expense versus drafting the lease initially at a 10,000- or 12,000-mile term that better fits their needs," De Trude said. "It is a great option for someone that doesn't need as many miles but also wants the flexibility during the lease period rather than at lease end."
Nissan also is offering customers the option of allowing NMAC to access odometer data from their in-vehicle Connected Car Services. This will allow Nissan to deliver personalized monthly messages to a customer's online portal, telling them how many miles they've driven, how it lines up with their lease terms and helping customers decide if they want to purchase additional miles.
"If they're sharing that data with us, we'll actually take data and do a forecast model," said Scott Gorte, NMAC senior manager for financial product planning. "We'll consume data on a weekly basis, but we'll deliver it to customers on a monthly basis. We don't want to overwhelm people."
Since these are one-off transactions, they will not impact the monthly lease payment and will not affect the residual value, according to NMAC. The company has not targeted any specific demographic for SignatureFLEX, Gorte added.
Scot Hall, executive vice president of operations for automotive lease marketplace Swapalease.com, says a 5,000-mile-per-year lease is fairly unusual and more typical on ultra-luxury vehicles such as Porsches or Lamborghinis.
"COVID would be a great example that a lot of people's mileage needs went way down," Hall says. "I've seen people allowing you to buy additional miles at a discounted rate midstream (of a lease). The advantage of doing that midstream, as opposed to the end of a lease, you'd be buying them at a cheaper rate than what the penalty would be."
Most mileage penalty rates are at least 25 cents per mile and usually affect the residual value, Hall adds.
Tyler Slade, chairman of the Nissan National Dealer Advisory Board, said in a written statement: "Nissan is taking action on customer feedback and market trends to create more flexibility for our customers."
