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Although I've never leased a car, I've helped a few friends negotiate deals on their cars, some of which have included leasing. If you think negotiating the purchase price is fun, wait until you try to lease---it's like a shell game. So I decided to create a spreadsheet which mimics the BMWFS leasing system, so I could easily keep track of all the moving pieces. The attached spreadsheet calculates the monthly lease payment exactly the same as the BMWFS system does, so you can't get a snow job from your friendly dealer. Once you have a view of all the important variables, it makes the conversation with the dealer so much easier.

Lease Spreadsheet

enieves

Very good spreadsheet. I have a very similar one that I have used your years that gives the same payment results. It is a great tool, especially when I bring my laptop to the dealer and start negotiating.

My only question on your numbers is that I noticed you had a down payment of $3,050. Did you put this down payment when you leased your car? Did you considered not putting any money down. I am also planning the lease a new 550i and I thinks that it might be better not to put any money down. What do you guys think?

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As I said in my post, I've never leased a car--the example in the spreadsheet was for a car I helped a friend buy. She wanted her total drive away to be $5K, so the ~$3K cap reduction was not a conscious amount.

How much (if any) down payment (cap reduction) is one of those questions that doesn't have a right answer. Some people would rather have no down payment (which causes higher monthly payments, all other things being equal), while others might be trying to get to a certain monthly payment and use the down payment to achieve that.