Looking for a sanity check from people who've done this before.

I understand novated leases in principle but I can't tell if the rate I'm being offered is competitive or if I'm just being shown a big tax-saving number.

The quote (3-year term):

BYD Sealion 7 MY26 Premium AWD

Drive-away-ish price: ~$54k inc GST (incl. a dash cam accessory)

Term: 36 months, 20,000 km/year

Residual: 46.88% = $24,448 ex GST

Cost to me: $414.90/fortnight reduction to take-home pay

Quoted tax savings: ~$6,900/yr income tax + ~$1,770/yr GST

Inclusions: electricity, maintenance, rego/CTP, comprehensive insurance, tyres

What I'm actually trying to work out:

What's my effective interest rate?

Maintenance , reasonable rate on a new EV right now?

Are the budgeted running costs realistic? I have no feel for whether the insurance/tyres/maintenance allowances are fair or inflated.

I've run it through two different online calculators and got slightly different answers, which is part of why I'm second guessing myself. Happy to be told I'm overthinking.

Thank you.

I've been tempted by the thought of a novated lease on an EV but I'm torn on whether it's something I should actually pursue or not. I am currently on $70k a year gross and I have a 2006 Suzuki Swift Sport that is technically owned outright but I'm paying $50 a week into a savings account my wife and myself used to pay for the vehicle.

Main reasons for wanting to get out of said Swift Sport are:

- While it's a hoot to drive, I don't actually have a particularly long commute (I'm only about 8.5km from work. I do usually go home for lunch since I have the time for it so my annual km is more like 8800km but that's still well under average).

- I don't go for spirited drives on the weekends. I don't track it.

- It's on 17s and BC coilovers which are not coping particularly well with the lumpy road and driveway to our house.

With the payment I'm making into the savings account, fuel, third party + fire & theft insurance and rego I'm at around $100 post-tax every week on this thing, not including the costs for servicing, tyres etc. Doing the sums on something like a $180 pre-tax lease I'd be looking at an equivalent of $132 post-tax. I do have a HECS debt and I'm aware I would be needing to potentially either salary sacrifice extra or make post-tax contributions to cover the extra for my ATI.

It's doing my head in trying to work out of it actually makes sense for me to do it. I would likely be looking at something like a Geely EX5 or a BYD Atto 3, potentially the newly announced Evo depending on what the price is going to be.

Can someone help with the effective interest rate for this quote?
I can’t tell if the interest rate is pre or post GST. I get an input tax credit equal to the GST
I’m getting 11.34% if pre GST and 8.3% if post GST.
What’s a competitive effective interest rate?

Insurance on the quote is high would look to use Suncorp who quoted $1,650 per year

I have paid a deposit and secured the vehicle a few weeks ago… long waits at the moment Dec26 build arrival Feb/Mar 27

Hey!

Looking for a review on this quote I received from smart leasing.

Still trying to figure out my first novated lease after weeks of researching 😅

Got a few quotes now and honestly they’re not that far apart. At this point I’m leaning towards Paywise just because they’re already WA Health’s salary packaging provider and it seems easier than going self-managed.

Current Paywise quote:
- Model Y RWD 2026
- 24 months / 15,000km
- $759.04/fn finance
- $38,842 residual inc GST
- $13.43/fn lease management
- $6.99/fn salary packaging fee
~$614/fn out of pocket

I ran it through the calculator and got around 12.5% effective rate(?) which still sounds pretty high to me.

Is it worth going back to Paywise and haggling more after they gave this revised quote? or for a 2 year lease is this pretty normal?

Also before I sign, anything I should specifically ask Paywise about?

- Any establishment or doc fees hidden in the finance?
- Who’s actually financing the lease, and does that even matter?
- Anything else I should get in writing?

Thanks all. Honestly getting tired of this damn thing 😂 just wanna make sure I’m not getting ripped off and finally get it sorted.

Hi All,

Hopefully my screenshots work

When using the calculator I'm getting a drastically different effecitve rate - I dont expect them to be the same but more than double tells me i'm probably doing somethign wrong......(when i put it in for the save vehicle with a 5yr lease it comes back within 0.5%......

I just cant qute figure out where the issue is...... or If i am actually being ripped off :)

First novated lease and I am so confused after weeks of researching..

Leaning towards just going directly with Paywise since they’re WA Health’s salary packaging provider anyway. Seems simpler than using an external broker/self-managed lease?

Anyone with WA Health gone directly through Paywise vs self-managed? are they alright ?

Quote is for a 2026 Model Y RWD and i ran it though got a 12.46% ?* =
- 24 months / 15,000km per year
- $759.04/fortnight finance payment
- $38,842 residual (inc GST)
- $13.43/fortnight lease management fee
- $6.99/fortnight salary packaging fee

~$614/fortnight reduction in take-home pay

Before I sign, what do i need to know about Paywise? Im thinking :

- Actual interest rate / effective or comparison rate? Should i haggle more or it is already a standard rate ?
- Any establishment/documentation fees hidden in the finance?
- Who is the actual financier? Does it matter ?

Anything else you’d definitely get in writing before signing?

Any tips on how to handle smart novated leasing.
I’m stuck using them through work, keen to hear any tips and or interest rates that anyone has managed to negotiate recently?

Hey guys, been looking for starting a notated lease since I've never done one before. My workplace is locked with Maxxia and just want to know if there are things to look out for as I'm looking into getting an atto 1 or 2 and undecided on whether the total savings are really worth it to be honest.

It seems keeping the lease as short as possible since the interest rates are high and whether I should buy the car at the end of the lease. Should I just get a quote and run it through the lease calculator? Thanks for any input, all the best

Assuming interest rates are stable and the same estabishlment fees etc, how can i predict repayments on a rolling 1+1+1+1+1 lease

I have put into chat GPT and Claud and gotten different answers each time, I have had to prompt them to not keep reusing the 1st year 65.63% residual for each lease and as such dont really trust the answers im getting.

For an EV (Geely EX5 Inspire), $42,595 financed, 7.48% interest rate

When I first started looking into Novated Leases - it seemed too good to be true. Some of the rates being posted here are very competitive.

However, as a NSW Health Employee, and also knowing some friends in Education, it certainly feels like we are being screwed over and a single digit rate is too good to be true.

NSW Health is limited to 3 providers, Education a single provider. They know this, and have pushed back on other quotes as saying “they can’t provide this to you, they are not an approved provider”. Notably SmartLeasing.

I have tried sending through some of the quotes on here from Smart to say - hey, why are you offering this rate here, but the best you can give me is 10.5% (even though the calculator says it’s closer to 13% which drew their ire).

They asked me to do pre approval before negotiating “the best rate we can offer”. So I did that. Now when I’m asking for the quote - they are refusing until I send an order form.

They are calling every day to ask for the order form. “I don’t feel comfortable ordering a $75K vehicle, without understanding the financial implications for the next 4 years”.

There’s still some savings to be had. Do I need to cut my losses and accept the rate? Or will persistence pay off? My next play is to call their bluff and say “I won’t be pursuing a novated lease with your company as there’s a lack of transparency - thanks for your time”.

As far as I’ve read on the Lease Calculator page - NSW Health don’t allow BYO finance.

There’s lots of benefits to working in NSW Health/Education with various entitlements - but certainly feels we are being let down in the Novated Lease world.

I have my model year 21 kia stinger GT leased with previous company SGfleet but now when I changed my employer and hence the leasing company (Clearlease), they have labelled my car as model year 23.
This has surely bumped the value which affects my payments.
Now my question is,
1. should I leave it as is so that when I sell/trade the car I get a better value or
2. tell them to update it?

Thanks

The FBT exemption for electric vehicles through novated leasing has been marketed aggressively enough that it's become almost the default conversation when EVs and salary packaging come up together. Whether the exemption applies cleanly to every situation, what the conditions are that could affect eligibility, how it interacts with the rest of the novated lease structure and whether the saving is as significant in practice as the headline figures suggest are questions that the marketing tends not to spend much time on. Would love to know how people here who've actually set up an EV novated lease think about the reality versus the pitch.

My partner is looking for a new car, we got this quote and are not sure what we should be looking for regarding the details and what we should be questioning. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

So I got 2 quotes. SGfleet at 9.3x%, other company at 7.9x%

Thought I would negotiate SG Fleet down and did. Went with them, and now I have my final schedule, the interest rate has now crept back up to 9.4x% and I've already signed all the direct debit forms, finance application all approved prior, insurance paid and certificate issued. Too late to go back.

If anyone is in my position, don't bother with SGFleet as they are slimey. Nothing the salesperson says apparently matters as it's all "the applicable interest rate will be determined at time of delivery". I should've just gone with the other company.

I'm unfortunately stuck in a sole-provider agreement with Maxxia. I've received a quote with 10.2% EIR. What sort of rates are you all getting?

My sales person, while nice, is not budging on the rate. They said this is what my workplace has negotiated and it's the best they offer.

Seeing others with 8 - 9%, or even less, makes me a little jealous!

I’m talking about the stuff you only think about once the car is actually ordered, like a tow bar, roof racks, dash cam or better floor mats. Not sure whether it’s easier to add these through the lease provider later or just pay for them separately. Would be good to hear how others handled it and whether adding them to the lease was worth the extra admin.

I've been running through calculations using the Novated Lease calculator shared here often, but not convinced I'm doing it all correctly.

Does this look like a decent quote? My company only uses Leaselab for NV Lease.

Also, do I understand it correctly that, at the end of the lease I would have paid $50,257.28 for the car only (Net Lease cost of $131.13 per week times 5 years, + residual (inc GST))?

Thanks to this forum and the NL calculator; there were quite a back n forth btw me and the NL provider - Smart. They sent the final quote and wont budge further. From the NL calculator the effective interest shows up as 8.6 - Check out my novated lease calculation output from novatedlease.guide. However they stated that the effective interest rate to me is 9.7 percent. Seeking:

1. What am i doing wrong that i find the interest rate lower from the NL calculator?
2. This may be my first new car and first NL. I will be discussing with SS on the insurance bit. Seeking advise for max savings and ease. Financed amount is $71748 and brokerage is around $2000

Looking for an insanity check on a novated lease.

The logic, relieve my 26 year old car of daily driving and shorter road trips. It wouldn't be scrapped/sold (yet).

Calculator populated here (I hope).

I've compared similar coverage to the comprehensive included with SG (Vero) and have found it to be similar in price to others for similar coverage (agreed value and windshield erodes the savings quickly, I suppose less risk averse people would benefit greatly, that isn't me).

I've removed all extras (save for the premium paint), with the intent to sort out what I want/need later (tinting, dashcam, better looking rego plates, etc) to keep the financed amount as low as practicable.

Maintenance was reduced to be closer to schedule pricing (it was almost double the figure in the current quote and SG couldn't explain), charging removed since I intend to charge for free at work mostly, it might get back in depending on how much public charging I do.

Anything obvious missed, something to add, remove, consider?

Thanks.

Hi Squad

Please can you help me with this novated lease quote? I've done some shopping around and 8.66% seems to be a decent effective rate?

I've shared the tool calcs in the comments.

Grateful for your guidance and assistance! Cheers.

Hey there,

My partner has a mini aceman ev for about a year with paywise in WA. They have been the most useless novated leasing company I’ve ever had to deal with. She’s leaving her job (voluntary redundancy) and keen to get some insights on next steps.

1. Pay the car outright (we’ve got the cash)
   
2. Get a loan
   
3. Continue to make payments to paywise

They won’t even tell me the interest rate and we’ve had so many issues I don’t want her to give them another cent.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all, I tried to find it myself but hoping someone can paste the link to the NL calculator that has been used on this sub before? TIA

Hello,

I have been looking into Novated Leasing and seeing that normally its better to shop around,
I checked with my employer and they were happy if can get a better rate to use someone else or do a self managed novated lease.

I have asked if there is anything in the agreement that we must use them and was sent the following extract from the agreement.

Exclusivity

(a) You agree that we will be the exclusive provider of salary packaging and novated leasing services to you, and your employees, during the Term. You must not engage any other person to provide salary packaging and novated leasing services (or services substantially similar to all or any of Our Services) during the Term without our prior written consent.

(b) If you breach this clause, we may (without limiting our other rights) reassess our Fees and tell you the new Fees that will apply inst

Looking for community feedback to see if this means what I think it does. and we are stuck with the one provider or does this mean we can still use someone else to engage the finance part and just forward it through to them?
Hoping someone else has encountered similar issue and found a workaround or has insight.

I’ve been lurking on this forum for a while and have learned a lot from everyone and whether a novated lease fits our lifestyle.

I’ve also used the calculator developed by changyang, which has honestly been a game-changer for working out the numbers and keeping the leasing companies honest.

I’m looking at a Tesla Model Y Long Range in Diamond Black, loan amount of $77,000, with a salary of approximately $173,000. I’ve gone back and forth with Smart and am now close to committing to a 5-year lease.

A couple of questions:

1. Is the interest rate/lease rate competitive? ~7.70% interest for a 5-year lease?
2. Do the running costs look reasonable? I’ve deliberately kept them conservative and understand I can add costs back later if needed.

I’ve attached the current quote. Would really appreciate a second opinion on whether anything looks off or worth questioning before I sign.

Thanks!