Samurai,
Great idea! The problem is that this car has LoJack. Now I know why.
Rieuk,
Thanks for letting me know about your story. I was able to secure financing and it shows on the Kia motors website that my first payment was made 1/1/2017. I leased the car on 1/1/2017.
Hence the confusion.
Thanks again!
Hi Phantomcypher,
Thanks for your suggestions. I need to speak to Kia motors first and they are closed until Tuesday. I want to be clear about what options I have before I negotiate anything new.
I agree that itâs possible something is wrong on their end.
Thank you
Hi Naderade,
Thanks for your comment. I have financing with Kia motors. I donât think many banks will loan money for a lease these days. I could be totally wrong.
Thanks again
Theyâre in a hurry (the older and more miles the car has, the less value it has for them). You donât need to be.
One could be on a XXXX mile roadtrip and who knows when one will receive such a letter in the mail.
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Look at your registration, if youâve gotten it. It should show Kia Motors or their finance arm as the owner. If this is the case, I donât see how the dealer can demand the car be returned â your contract is with Kia Motors, and the dealership should be out of the picture. Any issues they have are their problem, or an issue between them and Kia Financial Services. I just donât understand how the dealer or even Kia could unilaterally cancel a legally binding contract. You may want to actually read your lease agreement as well, to see if there are any clauses that address cancellation or recision of the contract.
Unless there is some ridiculous and obvious error on their part (for example, they are charging you $10/month for something that should be $510/month), I just donât see how they can demand you return the car. I would hold fast.
Furthermore, if your contract is with Kia, if the dealership somehow tried to have the car seized or repoâd, that would seem to me to be car theft. Again, at this point I believe Kia Finance is the owner. Unless and until Kia Finance somehow notifies you that the contract has been terminated, no one else has a right to tell you what to do.
Look forward to an update on this. Good luck!
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This is my first post after lurking for a while as I sympathized with your situation. Whilst most on here have the right idea, it can be the case that the dealer can legitimately take the car back from you
Read the above link and if any of this applies to you - he could have you bang to rightsâŚor itâs a yo-yo finance scam.
I had personal experience of this with a Mercedes dealership in Ventura - has a K and an E in itâs nameâŚa lot of scummy people work thereâŚfrom the top to the bottom.
Unfortunately I didnt know this until after we had driven off In the car.
I did a deal on a vehicle I had heavily researched and knew all the metrics onâŚhigh RV, low MF, discounted vehicle cost that I could get etc. and I have an excellent credit score with all the bureaus âŚdeal was so good, and not dissimilar to the fabled E class lease on this forum. Imagine a $70k car for under $400/mth!!!
It also happened to be that I did this deal just before a long weekend where I was actually going away for the weekend on a long trip in that vehicle. I actually closed the deal 24 hours before the long weekend, -and was very clear with them that i would only pick up the vehicle when i received confirmation the finance was approved. I got the call and was asked to make sure I got it that night as it had to be concluded to be on their sales numbers for month end. No problem, suited me.
I got a call from one of the finance guys on the Friday afternoon saying I must return with the car right away to review the deal, as it hasnât been accepted by MB finance. Thatâs funny, the dealer confirmed approval and an account was set up and I had the vehicle already with payments down on it etcâŚ
He said it could be as simple as putting more down to keep the original leaseâŚwhich then turned into a steadily crappier deal and the lease never getting close to the original dealâŚlower mileage, higher MF and higher lease cost.
I pressed further and after a lot of bullshit on their end I said none of it makes any sense and I was on vacation so wouldnât be able to come back til Tuesday. All of a sudden he got particularly aggressive. I knew it smelled fishy and I knew I had him at that point.
I said Iâm 600 miles away, and they can come and pick it up. He started spouting nonsense that it would affect my credit rating, and Iâd be charged for hire of the car at some ridiculous rate etc even intimating some kind of police action as it would be technically theft- I said good luck with that and hung up.
My next call was to MB finance who confirmed they had my account number and confirmed it was approved with them no problem. Confirmed my payments etc With no issues on their end. After explaining all the scummy things the dealership had done and that it shouldnât have come to this, and that Iâd be contacting a lawyer to sue as well as the CFPB to investigate. MB finance guy was very good, listened and agreed it was all very fishy and he would investigate. It got late and MBZ financial was closed (his department was anyway) He didnât get back to me until Tuesday to say everything should be ok.
Got a sheepish call from the same guy at the dealer who did not apologize but said there was some kind of BS mix up with MB finance and that I am free to enjoy the vehicle. I said âgo F⌠yourselfâ and hung upâŚ
Tl;dr got a great deal on a lease, dealer tried to screw me,called Mercedes Financial who called the dealer and told them to honor the deal.
This was my experience, and yours may be differentâŚso Iâm not advising you that you will to do what I did, but you should definitely do due diligence, assuming you still want the car that is. Tell them to put everything they are contesting in writing, in detail, study it all and continue to debate or palm them off as long as you can. Show them screen shots of your internet account with payments made etc and say youâll have it investigated by the Credit Bureau.
Call the finance company on Tuesday, and only then if it all checks out and you are compelled to take it back, tell them to pick it up from your house as you have cancelled insurance as you donât own it and canât drive it 
Have a look at this link too, I wonder if you too can get 10 days before it has to be back at the dealer - look into this some more and see if you can buy yourself time.
Good luck.
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For those of us about to pull the trigger on a new lease:
What about the dealershipâs online credit app?
Doesnât this give us an almost-instant credit approval?
Wouldnât this protect us from this spot delivery scam?
Hi ISP,
I looked at the Temporary Registration the dealer put on the car and says
Sold to
Hyundai Lease Titling Trst (Lessor)
And I know that I will make payments to Kia Motors. I think it may all be part of the same company.
Mike,
You make a good point about the trade. Hopefully this is all a mistake. I can log in to my account and see my payment from 1/1/2017 to Kia Motors. Kia motors and Kia Corp are closed until Tuesday or I would call and get this messed cleared up today.
Thanks for your comment.
Morning AMM,
Your post was very helpful and sounds very similar to my experience. I didnât receive a phone call from anyone, just a letter in the mail. The only way this all makes sense is that itâs a huge mistake.
I think just like your story, this will be resolved with a phone call to Kia Motors financing Tuesday. This is a three day weekend and they are closed. When I did my lease with the finance person he wasnât able to explain some minor discrepancies. He did fix one. He has been in the business many years so it seemed a little strange. This is my first lease and like you I did a lot of research before starting the leasing process.
I am waiting to call the dealer on Tuesday in case they really do want the car back despite my high credit score and the fact that I do have the financing with their lending company. I want to be clear about my options.
I found the first article you recommended while I was doing my research. I actually emailed Al from that website and he thought my situation was strange. Every article I have read (except your story) where the dealer wants the car back revolves around the dealer Not getting financing for the car. That wasnât true for us.
I like your idea of getting any changes in writing . As much I love driving my new electric car, if this is Not a mistake, I am willing to walk away. I really donât enjoy the dealership experience and did my lease negotiations via email. Thought I would avoid any problems. Ha ha
You said something about contacting CFPB. Iâm sure what organization that is.
Thanks for all your feedback!
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Morning LeaseNewbie69,
This is my first lease too. I hope some of the experts on this forum see your question. I will give you my opinion, but Iâm no expert.
From what I understand the online credit apporval does NOT guarantee loan funding. I have read that some people wait to pick up the car After the funding is secured by they dealership.
I knew nothing about leasing two months ago and then my boss told me about leasehackr.com. I started doing a ton of research. Leasing a car is very different than making a purchase. Learning simple translations like that Capitalized Cost = Cost of vehicle.
Good luck!
So, did you trade in a car? Did your trade count as a down payment against the lease? I could see the dealership feeling like they paid too much for your trade, and now they want to try to make you pay more. However, what they want to try to get you to do and what you are legally obliged to do are two very different thingsâŚ
Hyundai and Kia are sister companies â I think Hyundai owns between 30% and 40% of Kia; so, Hyundai Lease Titling Trust is likely a financing arm of Hyundai, and they are probably doing lease financing for Kia as well.
ISP,
Yes I did. You make a good point. Hereâs a little back story. I wasnât going to trade my car, but the dealership I chose was 30 mins away. Instead of driving back to get my car, I decided to trade it.
The dealership puts LoJack on all their cars and I ddinât want it. I felt like it was an after market product I didnât want. They only took $100 off the LoJack. I told my sales person that I would want the highest amount for my trade since I had to buy LoJack. She said her manager said they were giving better values on cars since it was the end of the year. We were emailing December 31 and I went in Jan 1, 2017 because they were busy on the 31st.
When I went in they checked out my car and offered me what I wanted ($2000) with no negotiation. They offered a number I liked and I took the deal.
From the CFPB website : We are the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a U.S. government agency that makes sure banks, lenders, and other financial companies treat you fairly. So maybe this is helpful for you.
If they sent a stock letter then thatâs not useful for you to respond to, but perhaps it has specifics. Like you say get it all in writing if there are discrepancies and put your side in writing too.
The trade in might make things awkward as Iâve heard some horror stories where the vehicle is damaged and they say it was there before etc. however $2k for a trade is nothing to the dealer, they can pretty much make up whatever they want for a trade to work into the numbers of the overall deal. To unwind it all is a pain and not worth it on a few hundred bucks on a trade.
Also there has been a hard pull (or numerous) whilst you were shopping for a vehicle. By the time you get this all sorted, it will be on your report and if you give this car back, getting the next deal might be more difficult⌠something to think about.
Ultimately, as you say you are happy to walk on the deal which is the right attitude. Iâm not surprised you wanted to avoid the dealership experience!!
Perhaps they wrote the deal on 12/31/16 with those incentives/terms, and the Kia lease terms changed on 1/1/17? Do you know if your particular lease offers were good through 12/31/16 or 1/3/17 like GMâs were?
Thank you for the details on the CFPB.
Hi Adam,
Yes, the incentives expired on 1/3/17 like GM. I offered to go into the dealership on the 31st knowing it would help their year end numbers. We agreed the 1st would be better since it was late, I was 30 mins away, and they had a few customers they were working with that night.
When I went to the dealership on 1/10 they still had an EV in the air with the rebate number ($14,500) on the same car I was driving.
Oh, ok. Was just trying to maybe see their point of view.
Call there bluff and tell them youâll return it when youâre back from your road trip in a few weeks. It should have approx 7000 miles when you come back.