I negotiated a zero drive-off lease with no dealership addons, inclusive of taxes and fees over text/e-mail.
Surprise, surprise: the offer was not honored in the finance office. Not even close. They wanted a significantly higher selling price and tacked on mandatory addons (wheel locks, VIN etching, paint/leather sealants).
I confronted the GM, who lied and said “the original offer was my salesman’s mistake,” so I walked away.
In retrospect, the dealership was clearly never going to honor the offer, costing me hours of my time, a hard check on my credit, and a frankly humiliating Uber ride back home.
Aren’t there consumer protection laws against this kind of thing?
My quick search came up with SB 478 and the FTC CARS rule, but I don’t have the legal expertise to know if either of these sorts of things apply here.
What do you guys think? How do you fight this sort of BS?
I do have the initial offer in writing (all text/e-mail/screenshots).
The caveat is I don’t have screenshots of the upcharged/revised lease offer.
I wonder if this could constitute a bait-and-switch. While technically they didn’t offer me a different vehicle, it was altered so they could upcharge me…
First off, I am not a lawyer. I usually post memes and shitpost @li8625 as my primary contribution here. Soooo with that out of the way:
If you have an articulated communication text/email from an agent of the dealership that comprises a reasonable offer for your lease deal, I think have sufficient grounds to initiate a claim against the dealership for deceptive trade practice in California. If they clearly made a mistake (like said you could lease a car for $0.99 a month or something), I doubt this will help you.
Before you retain counsel, please advise your dealership that in California, you believe their practice violates the Business and Professions code § 17500 with fines that include jail or $2,500. Furthermore, it seems to violate Cal. Veh. Code § 11713 Prohibited Advertising with penalties ranging from $100 to $1000.
Tell them unless they agree to honor the terms that you had previously agreed via email/text (and thus appeared at their showroom), then you are prepared to submit a claim with proof of deception to the following:
The CA DMV against their dealer license:
The CA Attorney General against their unlawful business practice:
AND
The CA Department of Consumer Affairs:
FTC CARS rule is at the federal level and has been blocked so far by NADA and lawmakers in states that tend to show up as red during an election cycle. You can’t expect CARS to do much here.
Yeah the Catch-22 of this is that even if @goosebot had the dealer agree to the terms, they may screw him again in the showroom since they’re a-holes. Plus, the experience to get the car is basically a 0/10 on the survey at which point nobody is going to have a good time resolving this.
Being said, if this initial shady-ass dealer actually agrees to the terms again, @goosebot should demand that offer be documented in a formal contract that he will counter-sign in advance of re-entering the show room.
With such an offer documented, he may be able to just go to another NorCal dealer and request the new dealership match the terms exactly. If he can get the same deal somewhere else, it’ll be a win win 10/10 survey and no more BS. A bit of a pipe dream if the original accepted offer is a net-loser for the showroom though.
@thevolvoguy how can a customer nuke a dealer from orbit on the survey if they don’t buy a car from them? heh
I’m curious what was the offer, but at the same time I kind of don’t want to know haha.
Haha. I felt like it was a good deal considering it was a new model that only just hit the market:
Zero drive off, $6K under an MSRP of just over $100K. According to them this was $2K under invoice (though not sure if I trust that). The lease terms were pretty mediocre (0.0038, 60%) but not marked up from the buy rate.
Perhaps it was unrealistic of me to believe them, but they knew what they were doing and 100% were trying to bait me.
I should take the offer to another dealership, shouldn’t I?
Yikes… yeah a brand new model release 2025 QX80 is going to command a stiff premium right now as dealers attempt to maximize their margin on the early adopters.
If you’re super hard up on getting this car, just be prepared for LH to blow you up as throwing money into the dumpster. Play hardball with the shady dealer to hopefully get them to put in writing the deal you were actually ok with paying. Then take that contract to another showroom and tell them you’ll sign/drive right now. San Jose Infiniti, Redwood City Nissan/Infiniti, and Stevens Creek Infiniti have some 2025 QX80’s on the floor.
IMO I’d rather get a discount GLS or X7 than $6k off MSRP on this Infiniti. Maybe a Lexus LX. Heck, even an Escalade at this point I feel like would be better.
Oh yeah, totally aware this is not an “LH-worthy” deal by any stretch… but
I always thought invoices were like 5-8% or so lower than MSRP–am I mistaken?
The GLS/X7 does seem to lease quite a bit better than the other options. The Caddy is practical but that residual is so bad, and it’s so expensive out of the gate (unless you go really barebones)…
Yeah you’re right, I always think of dealer margin in terms of total MSRP to cost then the dealer holdback to get to a dealer net that is usually ~12% below MSRP (ignoring trunk money, pack, commissions, etc). I don’t think 6% off MSRP was $2k below dealer invoice though.
The general theme on LH is these 7-passenger-luxo-barges are cars to buy via a loan, not to lease. Ideally folks would buy a low mileage used one, and add an extended warranty. The lease money factors, lame residuals, and lack of rebates tend to make leasing them a losing proposition unless you’re expensing the vehicle to offset business taxes.
Like $77k list off of an original sticker of $93k… 4,300 miles. Makes way more sense than $100k for a new QX80 I guess. It wasn’t even a loaner.
IANAL, but it seems like a significant part of the bait and switch is intent to deceive.
If you dealt w/ the salesperson, but not the GM the entire time, except for the day you went into sign, and then the GM says that the salesperson made an error, I don’t know you’d be able to show intent to deceive.
If it’s a formally advertised price (w/ no fine print) and they don’t honor that, you have more proof.
Ughh, you hit a nerve. My spouse is completely dead set against buying used.
Thanks for the advice. I had been starting to get the impression that not a lot of lease deals were to be had with these big luxury SUVs. Perhaps manufacturers are pricing in those tax incentives with these 6000+ lb vehicles to the detriment of the rest of us.
Seems like the best thing to do is to let the Fed do their thing, wait until the end of the year, and finance…
I guess it depends on what level of proof is required.
Would you consider the salesman texting me “My GM is offering this, zero down / He is really great” proof that the GM knew exactly what he was offering?
