[Updated with Final Numbers] Dealer not honoring promise from Dodge CEO to protect lease payment due to delivery delay

Ask the Hackrs
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41

The problem with the Charger Daytona is that at the time they announced the First Call program, there were no incentives or offers aligned to that specific model. No financing or lease programs. It’s like they weren’t in sync with the rest of the org. Not surprising given the state of things of STLA.

It was only a week or so before their sites refreshed and began to show what was available. Up to that point, even my dealer and those I spoke to at Dodge Customer care, didn’t have a CLUE about this car. I had to walk everyone through everything myself. Handholding along the entire journey. Same still applies to this day. I also don’t want to insult my partners at the dealership, but where I am from does not have the country’s best public education system. This experience is not unique to buying cars here. It’s common theme with all business interactions in this city. Again, observation; not a judgement. I am used to being the one to drive every deal. (I buy/sell/lease about 3 cars a year).

So my situation is unique, in some ways. They announce the car. Delay the original Summer '24 launch, and don’t start taking orders until October, when the expected launch shifted to a November/December timeframe. They announce the car again, and open it for orders under the banner of the ‘First Call’ program.

I was one of the first to jump on it and was reassured that once offers and acquisition programs were released, I would have the first set of offers, and then whatever was also out at the time of delivery, available to me.

That’s when I went home and hit refresh on Dodge’s site for an entire weekend. Once they appeared, I would reach out to the dealer, but they weren’t interested in helping a guy who had what appeared to be a vaporware car with an unknown delivery date. They were busy selling in stock cars to customers in their showroom (and understandably so). Can’t fault them for that. At least I kept all records of our communications.

So while I don’t disagree with your assessment and trust your experience, I believe this is a matter that must be resolved on an individual basis. They even have a brand manager assigned to my case, and he is working to dislodge my car from Motipark storage and get it to me ASAP.

I’ve started to build a bit of a (tiny but growing fast) following on YouTube, and have become known as “The only car Youtuber who wants one of these things.”

Not acquiring the car would kill the organic growth my channel has seen since I started posting about the Charger Daytona. Views and subs are up 400%.

Thanks for reading and I appreciate your advice. I’ll update as things progress.

Cheers Everyone!

42

But the incentives were retroactive to BEFORE my order date. Therefore they were to be included in my sold order. It is not my fault that there was a delay in the launch and the release of such incentives.

This topic has already been covered with my contacts inside Dodge and I have their reassurances they applied to my Sold Order.

43

It sounds to me like when you placed your order, there were not incentivized peograms in place, so there werent any programs to lock in. The fact that after you ordered programs were put into place doesnt change that.

Now, that doesn’t mean they may not do some good will action to make up ror the confusion with the ceo, but it seems that you’re not asking for sold order protection of the programs at the time of order, but instead sold order of programs that were released later.

44

I can’t fully keep up with what’s going on here but if the price is the same as originally agreed to, who cares how they get there. Just take the deal. You are only going to get so far dealing with a CDJR dealer, they will sell that thing to someone else if you keep harping on it.

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45

I don’t understand, are you actually upset because you’re paying the exact payment you agreed upon but you don’t like how they got there?

Or you now think you should be getting this $11k off plus additional rebates you believe you’re entitled to?

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46

This right here is a problem. Have you tried pickleball?

I applaud you for gaining some sort of social media/internet fame that you have somehow monetized.

Numbers can be very easily manipulated

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47

Allow me to clear up this confusion.

When the car was ordered, no programs existed on the day my deposit was placed. It was too new, and their systems had not been updated to display the incentives, bonus cash, invoice price or lease/purchase programs via SFS. But I was forced to place the order at that time, due to the upcoming expiration of the First Call benefits program (marketing gimmick and not related to the usual offers [2 days at Radford Racing School, Dedicated VIP Concierge for the duration of the warranty, a pretty decent swag package, and official vehicle certification as a ‘First Edition’ unit]).

Programs and Incentives were released a few days later, with start dates that were set back to BEFORE I placed my order. However, only after the programs were announced, did I return to the Dealer and put a deposit down on my unit, and get a “Sold Order” confirmation (End of October 2024). We were still awaiting updates about lease structures, which dropped shortly thereafter - yet again, retroactively dated to prior to my order being placed.

I was told that I was covered and qualified for those programs and that those first round of programs and offers would be available to me, OR I could use whatever was in effect at time I took delivery. I have confirmed ALL of this with Dodge and their Incentives department. I don’t get why everyone is hung up on this topic.

During this time, in the early phases after my order, SFS dropped the Lease Program details for this model. My dealer knew I had been waiting and took it upon themselves to “run the numbers” and text them to me; but since they were slammed with end of year sales, the Finance Manager just put in the MSRP, and the $7500 EV tax credit. Even though he knew, my SA knew, and I knew that I had invoice price discounts, bonus cash, and military discounts. He simply wanted to show me what the RV/MF numbers were.

That’s what you see in the documents I included in my original post. The first swing at providing me insights into the structures. It was at that same time that Dodge began to advertise these lease deals, and even won some meaningless media award for have the best Residual of a EV for 2024 (RV of 59% at 10,000mi/yr, MF of 0.00006). I only included the original MSRP contract to PROVE I had that lease program available to me at the time of the order.

Fast forward to today. Car is inbound, and dealer is invoiced - and that means they are ready and motivated to sell a car that is technically in their inventory and I become a priority. They have since updated their records with all my qualified programs, incentives and bonus cash offers from when I placed my deposit.

All of those equate to $10,644.30 in MSRP price reductions. Bringing the cost of the car to $75,320.70, before the application of my $1000 deposit and $7500 EV Tax credit (treated as a factory rebate for the purposes of the lease).

So if you recall, back when the dealer ran the lease numbers with just the MSRP, the payment came to $851.63 (3yr/5000mi/yr - RV 61%/MF 0.00006)

My Lease Calculation spreadsheet, using the same lease structure, showed a payment of $503.97, when all the discounts, programs, offers and cap. cost adjustments were applied [MSRP-($10,644.30+$8500) = $69,132.17 Adj. Cap. Cost]. That’s what I expected to see when the dealer ran the numbers again.

I even doubled check my calculations with LeaseHackr’s own calculator and RateFindr. It all matched.

However, that was not the case, when the dealer sent over their contract. So when I say, “The payment remained the same.” What I am trying to convey is that the new payment (with all my cost reductions) was the SAME as when it was straight MSRP contract! Wouldn’t you have expected it to drop?

The new payment they sent over, this past weekend was: $729.71

This is due to the fact that the dealer is claiming that while all my discounts were protected, the incentivized lease structure was not.

So the lease numbers went from: RV of 61%/MF of 0.00006 at the time of the Sold Order, to RV of 52%/MF of 0.00005 at the time of delivery.

In the end, I think I got what I needed from this post. I have the names of people at SFS to reach out to for help, and confirmation that STLA and SFS have demonstrated Lease and Price protection in the past. Thanks! I’ll provide updates as I have.

48

Like you alluded to, tiny numbers can show 1,000%+ growth and still remain really small when it comes to monetization.

Save yourself the money; there isn’t a big enough of a market for 36 months of Dodge charger content.

49

Well at least this is clearer now. You want the original RV/MF, and the question is was there ever a time when that was the RV/MF and you also had those additional rebates, if so, and you had sold order protection, then yes, I’d expect that to be honored, but I’ve always heard sold order protection is a bit eh when it comes to CDJR.

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50

Thanks for confirming that I am finally making sense. :sweat_smile:

As well as providing your insights. :pray:

51

Bmw will honor, but it is usually only 90days from order ( iirc), and can depend on model/trim.
Dec '23 you could lock x3m340i but not x3m

52

Then sold order protection shouldn’t exist, since there was no program to protect.

People may have said stuff after the fact, and.you may get some sort of goodwill action based on those statements, but the lack of programs to protect at the time of order would be why you’re in the situation you’re currently in.

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53

You have stated now multiple times that you put the order in before the lease programs were released, so which one is it?

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54

The lease programs were in effect during my order phase and deposit phase. They just not been made publicly available, and my dealer did not have access to them at the time. Had it been an existing model, that had not taken a year’s hiatus, this probably wouldn’t have been the case. Things with this car’s launch have been a bit of a mess, they acknowledge that. Another member pointed out that they are in the midst of a major organizational shakeup.

Once SFS revealed the existing Lease Program, with effective dates that were BEFORE my order, I was entitled to them. Last time I am going to say this: I have already confirmed this fact with Dodge, their CEO, members of his team and their customer care team.

The ONLY issue at hand is getting the dealer to see the reality of the situation, that myself, Dodge and their CEO all agree upon: My lease payment (meaning the original structure of the contract (RV/MF) are protected.

55

Every time a car reviewer becomes popular on YT (demuro, throttle house, etc) they start getting more and more expensive/exotic cars thrown their way to review. Which means an empty space opens up that they just vacated (for content around more normal cars).

And even if you don’t believe me on the above point, you should probably reconsider whether buying/leasing a car is a scalable way to grow your YT presence. How many times can you do that and how sustainable is that business model?

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56

Have you had separate conversations with him or are you referencing this singular twitter post?

If you can make it work, great. They may do a good will action to make things work for you. You asked questions regarding why you’re in this situation and it still appears to me that this is a result of their not being released programs at the time of order. If programs had not been released to dealers on the date of your order, even if there were internal plans in SFS that were later pushed out, it would be the likely reason as to why they don’t have something to price protect.

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57

I have had direct conversations with people that report directly to him, and have been tasked with managing this situation. It’s their counterparts at SFS and the Dealership that aren’t coming back to the table.

What your explaining does make sense, and my apologies if I focused more on other items and didn’t acknowledge that you’re right in many regards.

I completely understand that this is a very unique situation that will require a bespoke solution. I was just curious if others had much success breaking through this type of barrier in the past, with similar conditions.

I appreciate all your insights and feedback. Thanks!

58

If you are really going to push this all the way, you need to start focusing your efforts less on Dodge Corporate and the dealership and more on SFS, they’re the only people who matter now.

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59

I hear you, and appreciate your words of caution while confirming what my own analysis pointed to. when I decided to take what was already an existing habit and hobby, of building a car collection while churning through new units in order to feed my constant desire for something new and different.

The reason I set out to do the content piece was so that I could achieve exactly what you outlined: Shift from fully funding this addiction, to having it supported by an active community of viewers and partner support from marques/dealers. All the while expanding my existing LLC to cover the potential liability and provide certain tax savings.

I don’t want to spoil too much, but I also have another car on deck as well. This is a lifestyle for me, and I am very fortunate to have developed a career that allows me to afford it. I realize how privileged I am to have these opportunities and hope that I don’t come across as entitled. I am wide eyed in the understanding it could all come crashing down if not managed properly. That’s why I have people who support me and keep me focused. I run each decision by then and value their feedback.

I restarted my life from scratch, 30 years ago, and organically grew things to where they are today. I know what it’s like to be a car lover, dreaming of having something cool, but not being able to afford it; and I hope my channel grows to be something similar to the earlier years of those YouTubers you referenced. I want provide a source of entertainment and insights, for people who are like I once was, and share this journey with them. Perhaps in turn, I will inspire someone to step up when I create a space as my content creator career advances.

Thanks again for you comment.

60

100% This is the track I am on, as we speak.

I have begun to message the Dealer’s account rep at SFS directly, instead of using the Finance Office Manager as my conduit. I’ve also connected my Dodge contacts with them, and will wait to escalate to Tommy Moore if it appears that is required.

I’ve learned to not go around people unless absolutely necessary. I don’t want to burn any relationships with local dealers while I am trying to create partnerships with them for my content creation.

Main reason I dropped in here was to vent and beg for advice. Which thankfully you all have provided and helped to at least allow my mind to stop thinking this was a dead deal and to try other avenues instead of sulking.

Cheers all! I cannot wait to share the details of the final deal once it has been sighned.