espo35 said:
Noone is forcing you to do it.... but if you want someone to work for you, they generally expect to get paid.
Would an honest service technician advise the bogus "Generator Oil Change" for $250, or should a "Service Manager at a busy Nissan dealership," allegedly for 35 years no less, know it is bogus?
And thus is the real question. Is the dealership "working for you," as our altruistic OP states, or are they trying to rip you off?
My experience with leasing a LEAF from Nissan of Brandon Autoway suggests the latter. Through emails, which are still available for documentation, a deal was worked out for $x at the Tier 0 rate, which I specifically stated. I went there with a counter offer, for $y. The manager came back and said that he would accept that offer. No words were stated that it would be at a different tier, only that my offer was accepted. With the "great news," we went to the finance guy. Everything was going great, UNTIL he got to the point about "money factor." He said the number, I said, "What interest rate does that mean?" The finance guy was completely confused :lol: . He said it was "just a number," and he knew of no connection between the money factor and an interest rate :lol: . I badgered him for 10 minutes about it. I asked, "Was it Tier 0?" He didn't know :lol:. Finally, with my young son jumping around the office, I stopped pressing the point. It is still my opinion, though I can't prove it because of their electronic paperwork, that the money factor which the finance guy stated was different from the money factor printed on the form after it was electronically signed. I am still hoping to follow up with the State's Attorney about this. So it ended up, for a person with an over 800 credit score, that I was paying what I think now was a "Tier 2" rate (for somebody with credit scores in the low 600s as I understand it). And they believed their ripoff was complete. Because you see, the "deal" that I proposed at the lower price wound up costing much more because of the inflated interest charges. The finance manager explained that a lease was a contract, and if it was paid off early I would have to pay each payment as listed on the contract, so I would end up paying exactly the same no matter when the lease was paid off. A complete lie. I guess he didn't know about the "payoff amount" on the monthly statements sent by Nissan?
The next step was to go to Jenkins Nissan here in Lakeland. I talked to the finance manager there, who explained that they would be happy to do the lease payoff, but of course they would have to charge their $699 dealer fee, since the car wasn't purchased there. I explained that I was definitely interested in doing that, and he said, "Come back some time during the week, when we're not as busy." The place looked plenty empty to me at the time, but I said, "Sure." So they couldn't be bothered with two hours of paperwork for essentially $350/hour. Does that constitute "working for me," or a rip-off? And they were even too lazy to do the work for that amount.
So I found an excellent dealer in Orlando. Southerlin Nissan took care of everything, no extra fees, great to deal with, completely honest about everything, and even threw in their license frame as an added bonus. So rip-off lease taken care of at 1.99% from my financial institution after only one payment, Nissan loses out on all the additional interest, and Nissan of Brandon got a scathing report, which Nissan promptly throws into the trash.
Now, which dealer will I be going back to service for? The one 10 miles away who was too lazy to do the paperwork, the one 25 miles away who seemed to have an excellent technician but works at a dealership that appears to me interested only in the rip-off, or the one 50 miles away with an equally competent technician who is genuinely interested in helping ALL their customers?
The only time I'm going to NOB Autoway will be to hold my sign, "Thinking of buying from Nissan of Brandon Autoway, I would bring my lawyer and a CPA, I wouldn't believe a word they say, I wish I would have stayed away." But maybe they'll let me recharge the LEAF and bring me a donut while I'm there.