I say “legal loosely.” And I’ll preface all of this by saying that while I was dumb enough to sign this terrible lease, I did hit the record button on my iPhone each time I was in the dealership so everything that’s said in the below can be verified.
Anyway, I’m new and it’s a pleasure to be here— I wish that I had found you guys before I walked into the car dealership to get reamed 4 days ago.
First off, to avoid any passive aggressive + aggressive comments, I will say right away, that the way I went about leasing a car was very schmucky. I was a schmuck. I’ve lived in Manhattan my entire life. Nobody drives there. It’s all subways and cabs. I had a 4-Runner in college, but my parents took it away after only one semester— apparently they didn’t appreciate it when I crashed into a Pizzeria.
I just moved to California and now I need a car. I liked the look and price of the Mercedes C-Class so I just walked into the car dealership (Big mistake). Whatever low level associate on call rushed over. I said I was looking to buy a CPO car (since I haven’t driven in forever and know nothing about cars I thought it best not to buy new). I said I’d also be interested in leasing a new one.
There was one 2018 C300 on the lot for $28k with 16k miles. I drove it. It’s nice, but it’s a blinding blue color that is just too blue for me. So we walk to his desk so he can check what new models he has, and we pass a lunar blue C300. He says that it’s a “demo” car so he can get me a huge deal. I had no idea what a demo car was but he kept saying demo. He tells me that it has 8k miles and is around $48k. I say that’s pretty expensive for a used car and he said not to think of it as a used car, think of it as a new one, since it’s only been given to “VIPs” to test drive. I don’t think I need to tell you, but I’d later find out that it was actually a loaner, not a demo.
Here is where things get fishy, and I want to know if he and/or his sales manager did anything that was glaringly unethical enough to get me out of my lease contract. Or if it was just purely a slimy move.
We went to his desk and he presented me with this sheet of paper (attached) showing the MSRP for the car. Let me preface this by saying that the only reason I have a copy of the invoice is because I snuck a picture of it while he wasn’t looking. When I first asked if I could take it home he said “no,” and his reasoning was that it belonged to Mercedes and he couldn’t let it off the property. That’s weird. How was I meant to research this vehicle or even look up its vin? A sales listing didn’t even exist for the car. So, when he wasn’t looking, I snuck a pic. The purple highlights were made by him.
As you can see it’s $47,950. To start with, is it fair to show me the MSRP for a non-existent car? I didn’t know it, but I was looking at the price tag for a brand new one. Why show me a sticker of a year old car? Apple wouldn’t sell me a used 2019 iPhone for the price of a 2021 iPhone. So I’m under the impression that this was our starting off point and that this was the fair market msrp for a “demo” car (I now realize that there is no such thing). I had no idea it was for the same car brand new from a year earlier. I later went on the MBUSA website and built this exact car, and it came out to $47,220 (and that’s custom built, with no miles and a 2021 model).
Lastly, this document is either for another car or someone at the dealership just started throwing things onto this invoice because: My car DID NOT come with 1) a comfort box 2) an illuminating star or 3) wheel locking bolts. That right there alone jacks the price up $900.
Also 4) Aren’t the AMG twin spoke wheels with black accents already part of the AMG Night Edition package? (There’s another $500 they tacked on) 5) The AMG Night edition already comes with MB-TEX Dashboard & Upper Door Sills (that’s another $350). 6) isn’t the 12.5 digital cluster standard with the C-Class (there’s $750)? Aren’t heated front seats standard? (There’s another $580. I don’t realize any of this because at the time I was still just totally unaware of what anything on that sheet meant.
He goes and talks to his sales manager and says he can sell if for 43k or $460/month with 5k down. I said that was too much and I asked him for the invoice price. He tells me that there is no invoice price, this sheet (the one attached) is the invoice price. I didn’t know what that meant but I told him that I’d go home and do some research. This is when he tells me I can’t have the piece of paper with the detailed invoice.
I leave, not thinking I’d be back. The next morning he calls and says “you won’t believe it, I spoke with my sakes manager and he can take another couple of thousand off,” the usual pitch. He can now do it for $420/mo with 5k down and I have to get there quick because there’s a lot of interest. I knew that was BS so I took my time I wasn’t in a big rush to get there.
I ask him to send me the vin # before I come, just because I want to see if he’s trying to hide something from me, and he says he’ll find it soon and then stalls and I say that I’m not coming in until I get it (even though I already had it). I buy a Carfax report and see that the car is actually only worth 36k with CarFax and $35k with KBB.
I tell him that I’m no longer interested and he says he can now do it for $420 (after tax). So I go in with print outs of the KBB and CarFax estimates. I also have about ten comps printed out from nearby dealerships. All were less $, had fewer miles and were all CPO. I tell him that I want to speak with his sales manager.
I go in and this guy points to the $47k price and says “that’s what its really worth and this is what I’m actually able to do for you,” and points to the 41k price. So I’m thinking 6k off, but I still say it isn’t enough and I show him the estimate and the comps. He says that the estimates are wrong because they don’t include the AMG Night Edition, which I’d later go back and realize that the estimates did in fact factor this in. He looks at the comps (which are all less $ and CPO) and he says that these don’t count because they’re not being sold by exclusively Mercedes Dealerships and don’t have nearly the same premium packages (lie). the fact that I didn’t seriously question him here was my biggest gaff, because I didn’t realize at the time, but the one I’d be leasing was in fact not CPO and that this very dealership also sold used cars by other brands.
So I lease the damn thing.
They rush me through the paperwork and I say to the manager that since my carfax report was “wrong,” can he give me one. I only thought to ask that Bc of the damn fox in those commercials. He says that I could, but it won’t say anything because nobody has ever owned it, it’s always belonged to them. Again I just take him for his word. On the contract there is a section that asks if the client was given a used car report and it just has a N/A written in.
So after a day of driving the car, it just drives like a rental car. You know when you’re in a rental and you inexplicably want to just push its engine to the limit? And it felt like everyone before you had the same idea? It just drives like that. So I go and take it to a local auto shop to get it fully inspected. While it’s in the shop I call the dealership to ask them to send me the vehicle’s last inspection report. They ask why and I say that I’m just getting the car inspected and I want to make sure everything lines up. I get hung up on and then all of a sudden nobody can find my salesman or the manager. Finally I’m persistent enough to get the salesman and he says that he’ll send me one right away. He then sends me a file that lists the car’s tire pressure. That’s it. Just the tire pressure. I call back and the manager now says that they don’t need to provide me with one since it’s a used car. All of a sudden now they call it a used car.
So I’m pissed. The auto shop can’t do the full inspection they Mercedes is capable of doing, but they say that the car looks fine except for the fact that the onboard computer said that it’s battery had died twice. WTF?
Also, there was never a sales listing for the car until after I leased it. I went on CarFax today and saw that the dealership had listed it for sale the day after I signed all the papers. The listing was then taken right down.
So I got screwed here and most of it is my fault for not doing my own due diligence. Since this whole debacle, every single other comparable is much better priced, has fewer miles and better packages. But I’d like to know:
1- is a salesperson allowed to call a car a demo when it’s not? Is he allowed to shop me a price tag for the car from a year earlier and 8k miles less? I genuinely thought that was the value of the car and was the start of the negotiations. And he told me that there was no invoice price.
2- aren’t I meant to be shown a car fax report if I’m buying a used car? I asked for one but was told I didn’t need it since the one I brought in was wrong.
3- is he allowed to say that the KBB price is wrong and that the msrp of a new car is the right one?
So was the dealership “allowed” to do what they did? Do I have any angle that might make it so that I can return it and lease a new one? Does the fact that the car didn’t come with two of the features from the MARO sheet matter?
Thanks! And sorry if I broke any forum decorum!
