Hi All,
I’m looking for a little guidance. We leased a vehicle last week and today received a call saying they had somehow processed it at 6% tax rather than the correct 7%. They now want us to resign all the paperwork (because we have unlimited time).
We had negotiated a monthly payment, including taxes and MF, can the dealer now try and raise the lease the extra 1%? It sounds petty to even care, but it is not the first red flag we had with them and it feels like they bait and switch. If they ask us to increase the payment are we able to unwind the deal and walk away? Out of sheer principal we refuse to pay more given the surrounding deal and what we negotiated hence my asking.
It’s not even about the car, we love it. In saying that, we weren’t overly impressed with the dealer from the get-go and can replace the car at any number of dealerships if they are going to try anything dicey. I’m at the point where if I could I would unwind it regardless because it’s somewhat incompetent.
Thanks!
I’m no lawyer, so take my input with a grain of salt…
I am one of the Challenger Hellcat leasers (search the form if you haven’t seen the thread) that was impacted by miscomputation of taxes. The dealer did offer to unwind the deal, but ultimately, it was in both of our interests for the deal to be made whole.
I was offered (had to ask to some extent) concessions to make the deal right (on top of them eating the tax miss) and they obliged. In fact, my tax was actually miscomputed twice and I just signed my third iteration of the lease paperwork. Each time I singed, the deal got a bit better for me.
I would tell the dealer that they need to honor their original deal; if they need you to come in and sign new paperwork, I’d request something in return. If you feel that it’s a scam (e.g. Spot Delivery) and the dealer is pushing for more money/repo the car, etc…, I’d suggest consulting an attorney.
Good Luck!
Please don’t have my wife searching these forums about the hellcat deal. I will never hear the end of it. 
Well if we can unwind this and get into a sweet Hellcat I’m down! 
Thanks so much for the advice cdk 
Do you live in an area that actually has 7% tax? If so and the dealership figured at 6%, I think that is a mistake that you could have caught yourself by looking over the final paperwork, or the final numbers you were presented with.
Bait and switch is not what happened here. Sounds like perhaps a dealer wasn’t on the ball, and that you bought on a payment without seeing what was used to arrive at that payment.
If you feel that strongly about it, tell the dealership you will not resign and they can have the car back. I’ll bet they will go ahead and absorb any mistake. How much of a difference is the 1% going to add to your payment?
Here is a website where car salesman and managers answer questions. You might want to post your question over there and see what they have to say. First thing I bet they will say is to never reward a bad dealer. That is exactly what you did by ignoring the red flags you said you noticed right from the start and still doing a deal with them.
Sounds like you should have perhaps not even done business with this dealership from some of your comments but maybe the price was what sold you?
If they can’t do proper math or type things into a calculator then they deserve to eat the 1%.
I default to the three options:
- Tell them to pound sand and take a hike.
- Tell them to eat the 1% and you’re not signing any new contract.
- Tell them you’re bringing the car back with lots of miles from your recent road-trip you’re on. Also, you are demanding they cancel the contract and refund all money paid down on the car when it is returned.
Agreed.
They both entered in a binding contract, if one party (the dealer) wants to change or rip-up the contract before it expires they will need to get his approval. As of now they (the dealer) have to eat the one percent.
Thanks so much for the advice and input Is973800. You raise some very valid points. When it comes down to it we agreed to a price and we said if they can make it happen for x amount, not a cent over, we would proceed. That being said when they agreed to the price I didn’t even think to check the tax rate in all honesty. My primary concern was the total monthly payment amount/terms etc. If they ask to increase the payment after agreeing to the set price, out of principal I think we will refuse. Sounds ridiculously petty I know, it’s not that it’s that much money but there were a couple of things about the dealership that rubbed us the wrong way. We don’t regret buying the car, we love it. The payment is affordable but we did extend farther than we intended and they knew that our max $$ was literal as we had planned on buying a Camaro 1SS and got up-sold into the 2SS - well worth the extra for the bells and whistles and we do enjoy it.
You are right on the red flags, we let them go but after the calls today they are right back up there. We allowed a persistent salesman to lure us back after we had initially walked away from an utterly ridiculous offer they posed - to put it into perspective, they initially tried gauging us on a V6, a week later we negotiated a 2SS for thousands less than the V6, and the sticker price on the 2SS was $19k more. I’m all about businesses making money but they really were trying it on with the V6 to an insulting level - which we told them outright. Appreciate the link
We haven’t been unhappy with the deal on the 2SS, had no regrets. You are right though, perhaps we should have sought an alternate dealer after the first encounter turned a little sour. It’s just meant that this “error” doesn’t sit well with neither my husband or myself. Receiving multiple voicemails tonight while I was working about how it’s urgent we get int here to resign just added to the frustration.
I will see what they come back with tomorrow!
Thanks again
You are a product of something called “bumping”.
See here on Motortrend:
Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. I had no idea there was a name for it, but you taught me something.
At the end of the day the budget we had intended was self-imposed and we didn’t over-extend with what we ended up with, but we were definitely bumped.
In hindsight, this was the first lease deal I had ever negotiated and next time I will do it differently to save time in the first instance 
(We normally buy cars, this is our second lease - hubby negotiated the last but this was to be my car so he let me at the negotiations)
What type of vehicle and how much extra money are you talking? Do you live in a state that taxes the entire sales price? My dad had a similar experience with a Nissan dealership several years ago. They agreed to a monthly payment including tax. After the lease had been going for about a two years, Nissan Motor Credit contacts him and says you owe an extra $300 in county taxes, the dealer calculated the tax wrong. My dad, who had owned or leased 10 Nissans over the years and about to lease another, told them to get it from the dealer who messed up (and lied about it) and dealer refused. Nissan Motor Credit paid it but then dinged his credit which he had to dispute. But Nissan lost a good customer over $300. I wouldn’t sign new paperwork unless they compensate you somehow and if they refuse then give back the car.
Thanks Grandmaster. Sounds like your dad got the short end of the stick there! Tax is only applicable to the lease payment so we are talking under $200 across the life of the lease. It’s the principal that has us unwilling to budge. We didn’t trade my car in, it’s still sitting in the garage so if push comes to shove we will refuse and hand them the keys back if we are legally within our right to do so. As far as we are concerned they should not even be contemplating asking us to pay the difference, we agreed to a monthly price including taxes etc. It’s their issue to deal with, not ours.
Did they actually tell you that payment will change or just said you need to sign new contract? There is a difference. Not saying they will not try to add $200 to you payments, but maybe not and you just need to sign contract with new tax rate and the same monthly payments.
I’m waiting on that information, I left a voicemail asking for clarification as the voicemails they left were somewhat ambiguous, not to mention oddly frantic.
I thought I would ask here to get advice so I was prepared when they call tomorrow
Good luck and hope it works out in your favor, which it should! Please let us know the final outcome.
Thanks I most definitely will. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to weigh in and provide insights and advice
Use email instead. Always better to have things in writing.
As Ursus said, you can sign a new contract with the same total payment
PS did I miss something with the red flags? All he tried to do was make a large profit on the V6 and then upsell you from 1SS to 2SS? I’m sorry but why are these red flags?