Hey friends, I need some advice on handling this situation.
Yesterday, I leased a Mazda CX-70 PHEV from a dealer with Toyota Lease Trust as the leasing company. I agreed with the sales agent that the total ownership cost would be $12,000, resulting in a monthly leasing payment of $332.98. I also verified on my contract that the “Total of Your Scheduled Payments” was $11,987, which matched my expectations, so I was comfortable signing the contract.
However, I missed seeing a section in the contract labeled “Amount to be Paid in Cash,” which stated an additional $3,300 that I hadn’t noticed. The dealer didn’t ask me for any upfront payment, so I assumed it was just the $332.98 per month and drove the vehicle home without paying anything initially.
This morning, I received calls and texts from the sales rep demanding the $3,300, threatening to escalate the issue to a collections agency if I don’t pay.
I need advice on my options here. Can I return the vehicle, or does anyone have other recommendations? It has less than 50 miles on the Odo.
If returning the vehicle is an option, there’s one more complication: I traded in my previous leased Mazda vehicle (buying it out and trading it to the dealer). Would it be possible to get my previous vehicle back?
In order to thoroughly analyze your situation, I will need to see additional portions of the contract including the section that details the payment calculation and the itemization of the gross capitalized cost. What is your sales tax rate? I believe it’s 3% but could be mistaken.
WHAT??? Why would the dealer threaten to escalate to a collections agency if it’s only been 24 hours since you signed the lease and picked up the car? Doesn’t make one bit of sense unless you said something that may have triggered such a response from the dealer.
In the future, I suggest that once an agreement is reached, ask the dealer for a review copy of the lease agreement and all contract addenda BEFORE you go to the dealer and sign. Moreover, it’s helpful to know the terms and conditions of the lease contract such as early termination liability criteria and purchase option criteria as well as lease amortization methodology and excess wear/tear criteria.
If all is as agreed, tell the SM that you’ll come in to sign right away. You don’t want any surprises or dealer excuses like …. Oh, we made a mistake. That’s unacceptable and shouldn’t be tolerated.
If the dealer isn’t transparent or is uncooperative or showing signs of incompetence, WALK AWAY AND MOVE ON!
Leasing is time-consuming and requires a good deal of study and attention to detail. If you don’t have the time to commit, perhaps your best alternative is a good broker. There are some outstanding brokers on this website. However, if you’re willing to commit your time and resources, always control the deal. That can only be achieved with education which breeds confidence and increases the likelihood of success.
Were any of your discussions about the TCO being $12k in writing? The lease contract has wording that It supersedes everything, but having some evidence that the contract doesn’t reflect what you thought you were agreeing to would give you some leverage in trying to unwind it.
I think you are out of luck unless the dealer agrees to unwind the deal. You really need to carefully understand where the money is coming from and going to in a lease deal. It sounds like the Finance guy may have taken advantage of you, but in the end you signed the papers.
Thanks for Section 8. You didn’t provide an itemization of the gross cap but that’s okay. I figured it out. There is $1164.06 worth of capped fees. The 650-acquisition fee is one of them and it appears that the remaining 514.06 is 3% tax levied on the 17101.95. If you think about it, 2000 of the 3329.17 cash is applied as a CCR (cap reduction). Bad idea.
Here’s what I suggest…
It’s very unlikely that the lease contract has been funded. I would restructure the contract so that your DAS is minimized. Never pay any money upfront except for the first payment if it is avoidable. Otherwise, you risk losing that portion used to pay for part of the cap reduction if the car is totaled or stolen and never recovered. Remember, a car is an expense and a depreciating asset, not an investment.
I don’t believe you’re out of luck yet. If you’re interested in restructuring the contract, I can do that for you at no charge. However, you need to contact the dealer immediately and tell them that you’re working on restructuring the contract. The dealer doesn’t lose anything. We’re just going to move some dollars around by doing a reallocation. PM me if you’re interested.
It’s not unheard of. If someone with good credit didn’t have their checkbook the dealer would rather close the deal immediately than risk losing it by sending the customer home to get their checkbook. Or, what happened to me once, I was putting part of the DAS on a credit card and the dealer’s only credit card machine was in the service department and service was closed.
But it’s definitely shady for there to be no discussion of DAS before the car leaves the lot. Clearly this dealer knew the deal would blow up if they mentioned the DAS in F&I so they didn’t.
