Are car leases covered by TILA (Truth in Lending Act) or similar?
(Car loans are covered by TILA, as are other types of credit transactions).
If yes, there would be specific legal/regulatory requirements for how finance charges have to be disclosed.
You wouldn’t be able to legally call finance charges a service contract and still be compliant.
And non-compliance with TILA isn’t a trivial risk to a business’s longevity.
Ok so OP wins, and has to return the car. Then what.
I think this logically ends with OP getting the maintenance package they paid for.
They can do whatever they can do in their accounting internally, if I signed a contract saying I purchased something, then they must fulfill it. That is , keeping the deceptive sales process aside. So, OP can pursue cancelling and getting it refunded if sales contract OR his state law allows it.
What if you just wait 30-60 days and try and cancel again. I doubt the finance teams will remember it was in there to make the deal and instead just think you don’t want it anymore and maybe you will get a different finance guy to help cancel.
Just a thought
Ask them for documentation on the service contract. If it’s a real service contract, you can likely cancel it for a prorated refund.
Are you able to DM me the dealer name? I’m also in metro detroit & would like to avoid…
How high was your MF that tire and wheel supplanted it ?
Buuuutt, since you were smart and did all your homework, you knew you were getting the best DAS and monthly, regardless of how they arrived at it …. Right?
Its shady and deceptive, and I’d push to have it removed and lower the payment accordingly before my lawyer has to get involved. I’d be very specific about what the payment amount should be once it’s removed.
They love to play the payment game, but the terms of a contract override any previously agreed to payment. The game with paper they ask you to initial with a payment is not legally binding (if you did so), the actual contract is.
I’d do this in writing, and be sure to CC the GM, Finance Manager, and whoever else’s email I could scrape up that has an important role to said dealership.
It’s a $2,000 fine in most cases, basically a joke. If I had to guess they packed payment by marking up on original pencil a rate higher than the max allowed mark-up (.00100) and faded it when he got into finance. The trick is when they get into finance, F&I adds a product, take out the rate that was non-existent in the first place since it won’t fund over max MF, and slide it by the customer. Happens all the time and in most dealers eyes it’s worth the risk of a $2k TILA fine if they make $2-3k more per deal.
I had a similar experience with my BMW dealer. I did agree to a payment ahead of time that, unbeknownst to me, included a $600 “maintenance plan”. (It IS an actual plan that includes some things outside of the free maintenance.) I was getting buy rate MF plus lowered it some by paying MSDs, so I wasn’t sure of the exact-exact payment. Then the really slick thing was the F&I guy got me to sign off on it! I had specifically told him twice, and he acknowledged, that I didn’t want any extras, so I stupidly didn’t look closely at the computer screen to realize I signed off and it added an extra $18 to my payment. A few weeks later, after a lot of back and forth where he tried to double-talk me, he eventually refunded it to me. Then I asked for the extra $72 in interest and he refunded that as well. Lesson learned. Did you sign anything for this $1800 maintenance agreement?
Biggest moral of the story: don’t talk numbers with a dealer until you know what deal you’re trying to get.
I dont have the exact numbers, but looking at the lease agreement it was priced at $1649. They took about 5000 off the car, so i was comfortable with the MF markup as I knew that number was too big of a discount in the current market.
It really benefits me as the car was just declared a lemon, so on paper that 1649 will likely come back to me in full.
This is precisely what I believe happened in my case. I’ve got a VM into the General Mgr. and will continue to follow up until I can speak to him directly.
Quick update, the dealer has agreed to fix the issue. Going back to the dealership to re-sign. Appreciate everyone’s input, you all are a very knowledgeable group!
dumb question…are you talking about the total payments as if amount you would have paid by the end of your lease (ie 36 months)?
You can cancel the VSC, aka Warranty… You will receive a refund which will go to your principal, however your monthly payment will not change as you signed and agreed to the monthly payment… If the dealership refuses to cancel the warranty… Find out who the warranty is through ( and let them know ) that you want to cancel it and the dealer is refusing to cancel
$1,880 total for the “service contract” divided up over 36 payments is how it would have been paid.
Update: Went to dealership yesterday and to re-contract. Peace and order have been restored in my universe. Thanks for all the tips everyone!