How I leased another Ioniq 5 like a normie (and liked the process)

Some 365 days ago, my wife brought home her first new car in more than a decade: a 2024 Hyundai Ioniq 5 SEL RWD that she leased for two years. Hyundai has had aggressive lease deals on its entire full-EV lineup, including the Ioniq 5, for the last year plus, and that’s what tempted us into her car.

Well, that and me telling her what an awesome car it is.

Honestly, it’s one of my absolute favorite “normal” vehicles of any fuel type available in the U.S. today. Great size, great driving, great features in the SEL trim, efficient, practical and fun enough so you don’t hate driving it. Sometimes you need a car that isn’t a turbo Miata to do the things that normal people do, and this one, IMO, does it better than anything else out there.

Anyway, we put about $3600 down on Dana’s car, and she’ll be making $283-per-month payments for two years with a max of 24,000 miles–which she’ll easily stay within. Looking forward to those pre-turn-in road trips.

I’ve never been a lease guy in general, but when it comes to EVs, especially ones with generous manufacturer incentives, I’m fully open to the possibility. EVs tend to depreciate far more than the actual depreciation you’re paying for, and the technology is moving at a rapid pace, meaning the ability to be bound to a car for only two years makes it easier to keep up with the improvements.

And yeah, I know we’re talking about leasing boring daily drivers, but there was no way my wife was going to be happy doing a daily commute in anything remotely resembling a “project.” She has a 20-mile highway commute to and from work, and rightfully wants something efficient and 100% reliable, sporting modern safety features (including automatic emergency braking), and with good visibility and a warranty.

She doesn’t want me to have to do anything more than check tire pressures and wax it once in a while. Not out of any lack of trust, just out of the feeling that if you sign a contract for a new car, then any scheduled maintenance is someone else’s job. And I totally see her point there.

Anyway, she loves her Ioniq 5, and I love her Ioniq 5–even though I rarely get to drive it.

[Video: How does the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N perform on track?]

But I always keep an eye out for deals. In today’s volatile economic climate, these insane lease deals on Hyundai EVs could disappear as quickly as the next surprise tariff announcement. Even if additional tariffs never go into effect, their mere potential creates enough economic uncertainly that manufacturers could start raising MSRPs to test the market for its reaction to potential tariffs. And certainly, dealers will be looking to cash in and will use any excuse to do so.

With Dana one year into her two-year lease, I didn’t want her to hit the last month of her lease next year facing dramatically increased prices on new cars or a buyout price that would certainly be instantly upside down. So, my thought was that I might keep my eyes open for a good deal on another Ioniq 5; then, if I found something, she could start her two-year clock over with the new car and I could drive her car for the rest of her term.

It would give me something new to drive for a year, at which point I may buy the BMW 435i project car from the company, get another Ioniq or figure out something else. The main point is that I’m way more flexible than Dana since she has a fixed commute, and both of us want to make sure she can do it safely, comfortably and efficiently in a reliable machine.

A recent check of Hyundai’s site showed a deal similar to the one that allowed Dana to get her car. With a slightly higher amount down ($3999 versus $3499 for our 2024), lease payments started at a pretax/options/fees $239. So, I emailed a few dealers for quotes. Some wouldn’t send me one, while others sent back quotes that were just offensively high. Even the best ones quoted over $4000 owed at signing and $280-plus monthlies.

I decided to try my luck on Leasehackr. The site claims that it brokers prenegotiated lease deals with minimal hassle and better pricing than the consumer could get from the dealer. Cool. Whatever. Doesn’t cost anything to try and get on its list, so I went for it when I saw an Ioniq 5 deal in Florida with just under $4000 due at signing and $243 per month (plus options). I put my quarter on the machine for the deal and waited for contact.

The next day, I was contacted by a guy named Nathan from a company called Auto Ninjas, which was the company promoting the deal on Leasehackr.

Honestly, at this point I expected to be mired in a web of AI-generated communications with chatbots that resulted in nothing but frustration with no real bargains to be had. But when my first phone call with Nathan–I really wanted to get on the phone with him to make sure I was dealing with a human–started with, “Is this really the guy from Grassroots Motorsports?” before he told me all about his Evo IX track car, which sounded pretty rad, I was reassured.

Nathan explained the deal: Auto Ninjas pre-negotiates contracts with a web of dealer partners. I pay its $699 fee for access to those pre-negotiated deals, then the dealer contacts me to finalize the paperwork and deliver the car. If the numbers that come from the dealer are different than the number that Auto Ninjas sent, my fee is refundable.

So, I ran the numbers again. They were far better than anything I had gotten directly from a dealer when I was contacting them myself. Were they $699 better? Yeah, probably close. Even if it wasn't close, they certainly seemed $699 easier.

Turns out they absolutely were. Nathan told me not to pay the fee until he was sure one of their partner dealers had a car in the color and spec I wanted. It was getting close to the end of the month, so stock was thinning. The next morning, he confirmed a vehicle on the other side of Florida outfitted as I wanted.

A few hours later, the dealer contacted me and sent a final quote via email, then a lease agreement and a link to make my down payment via credit card. An hour later, they called back and told me they could deliver it to my door near Daytona Beach, Florida, the next day for $200 from the dealership in New Port Richey.

I could have gone and picked it up with my truck and trailer, which would have cost me about $120 in gas and the better part of a day, or enlist my wife to drive over, which would have cost us both a day, and in both cases I wouldn’t have been able to do it for several days.

So, I splurged for the $200 delivery and had the thing in my driveway the next morning, barely 48 hours after first contact, never setting foot in a dealership and dealing entirely by email and phone.

Most normie auto transaction ever. Also by far the simplest and least stressful. Like, not even close.

Look, I love cars and love playing with them. But I don’t want my “normal” cars to be a source of stress. I’ll do plenty of stupid, time-wasting, stress-inducing, illogical things for project cars. But my God, how wonderful it felt for this transaction for my everyday, boring, utilitarian car-tool to be barely more complicated than buying a set of headphones on Amazon.

[Yes, you can now add a Hyundai to your Amazon cart]

Did I get a “better” deal ultimately than I could have gotten on my own? Maybe. Maybe not. But when I think about the effort, time and hassle it would have taken me to get this deal, based on the initial quotes I was seeing from dealers, that $699 fee seems entirely reasonable, if not an outright bargain.

And no one involved in this recollection is owed any promotional consideration. This is simply a personal recounting of a favorable experience. But I have to give shoutouts to Auto Ninjas and Hyundai of New Port Richey for making my life easier.

And I still insist that the Ioniq 5 is one of the best all-around daily drivers available in America, EV or otherwise. I know that the EV use case isn’t a great fit for everyone, but this car definitely makes the argument that an EV is more suitable than a lot of people realize.

Now we just have to figure out how to link them up, Voltron style, to create the mythical Ioniq 10.

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