shady dealer tactics

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cwerdna

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 3, 2011
Messages
13,671
Location
SF Bay Area, CA
I finished listening to https://www.npr.org/2023/02/04/1152932192/yo-yo-car-sales tonight (Even after you think you bought a car, dealerships can 'yo-yo' you and take it back, transcript at https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1152932192).

I'd heard of stuff like this happening every now and then but had no idea why. Fortunately, I've never been the victim of crap like this but then again, I've never gotten an auto loan from a dealer. I have leased only twice, but they were via NMAC and Kia Finance.
 
I had that happen once many years ago when we traded in my wife's car fairly soon after we were married. Her car had some mechanical problems developing so we decided to trade it for something newer (a program car about a year old with less than 10k miles). We had the car for a week or two when I received a call from the dealer. I told them to have our trade-in ready and we would bring the car back that evening. We got to the dealer and our traded car was "not available". We wanted to keep the car so we agreed to additional down payment to satisfy "the bank" with no change in price or interest so the payments actually went down a little.

I had paperwork problems another time at another dealer: I read the contract carefully and pointed out some problems with some intermediate numbers in the contract, but the terms and bottom line were correct. The dealer claimed everything was OK so we completed the deal. The manufacturer announced a new rebate and special financing the next day, but we accepted that as "things happen". A week or two later, the dealer called and wanted us to come in to sign a new contract because the incorrect numbers were keeping them from completing the loan transfer to a bank (said this happened on several sales that week after a software upgrade). I told them we had a valid contract according to our paperwork and that we would not sign a new contract unless they would compensate us for the rebate that started the day after we drove the new SUV home. They could not/would not give us the rebate or any other compensation when we stopped by the dealer that evening so we left after telling them we were satisfied with our present valid contract. They kept calling because they were not able to sell the loan and I kept telling them they needed to compensate us. After this went on for a few days, they finally agreed to give us an extended warranty in order to get us to sign the new contract (same terms, but with correct numbers in all the blanks). The 6-year, 100,000-mile warranty was worth about the amount of the rebate so we were OK with redoing the contract. I did not feel a bit guilty playing hardball with the dealer because we had pointed out the original paperwork errors and they refused (or were unable) to fix them the day we purchased the vehicle.

My first experience with a shady dealer was over 40 years ago when a dealer was advertising 4% interest (at a time when car loans were probably running around 15%). I negotiated purchase price and trade-in allowance, but the payments seemed quite high for 4% interest so I left without completing the deal. I calculated the actual interest when I got home and it would have been 21% APR for 4 or 5 years if I had completed the deal.

FWIW, all three of these new car dealers are no longer in business.
 
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