Anyone had this issue when purchasing a new car from a dealership?
stylinhonda
Member Posts: 52
My wife and I purchased a new car from a local dealership. We were looking at brand new 2014 models. However, to get the items my wife wanted, we were going to have to place an order and pay MSRP. I went home and got on the dealerships web site and noticed that they had a few 2013 models left over that were still brand new. I saw that they had a special price of around $8,000.00 off. Asked my wife if she would be interested in a 2013 for a cheaper price. She said she would go look at it the next day. She went in to test drive the 2013 and she liked it. However they said the sales price was over and they were asking MSRP for the car that was almost 2 years old and not the updated model.
I went in to negotiate the price and they stated that the car was never on sale for that much (even though I took a picture of the add online.) After a bit of negotiating they started to move down a bit, but still no where close to where they had the car listed at two days ago. A week or so passes and they email me stating that they can do the price they listed, told me what they would give for my lease trade in. I told them they were getting closer and I would come in to see what we could do.
While doing the negotiations I noticed the sales tax on the new car that they were charging was around $130.00. We have 6% sales tax here so I was confused. I asked about it and the sales guy stated that the state of Kentucky passed a new tax credit on July 1st that on trade in's and leases you only have to pay the difference. I said well that's fine, whatever you guys have to do to get to the price I want. We purchase the car and a month goes by. I call a few times and ask when we will get the registration and license plate.
Finally get a call one day from the sales guy that says he has bad news. He stated that the tax credit they gave me will not work on a lease and that I need to come up with the $1,400.00. I told them I did not agree to this and would not have purchased the car for $1,400.00 more. I felt it was a breach of the contract. The 10 times I have purchased a new car prior to this, I have always negotiated the out the door price. I asked my attorney about the situation and after looking over the contract he states that the car dealership messed up and is trying to make me pay for the mistake. I'm not sure where to go from here? I would rather return the car than pay $1,400.00 more for it. I'm not sure if they planned this from the start, thinking we will get the deal done for this months numbers and then deal with this later and have him pay the difference. If not and it really was a mistake, would you be ok with them passing this mistake on to you? Has anyone had anything like this happen?
Comments
So are you saying that the dealer is holding your registration hostage until you come up with the sales tax?
I will say... the sales tax credit in KY is brand new.. While a salesperson might not know exactly how it works, there is no excuse for the dealer's F&I department to not know. I doubt it was intentional, though.
The sticky part is the lease trade-in. Have you checked with the lessor to see if you account has been settled? It's pretty easy to say, "I'll just bring it back, if you won't eat the $1400, that was your mistake", but hard to back it up, if they haven't paid off your old lease.
You are in the right, but the dealer may hold the cards.. Let us know how it works out.
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Thanks for the input! I've heard of these tax credits before and I think KY has had them from time to time. It had to get past the salesperson, manager that we were dealing with the and finance guy. I know for a fact they knew the car was a lease. The have paid off the lease with Acura Financial and our Acura is still on the lot at this time.
I'll update you guys to see what happens, hoping it will not costs me to much in the process.
Yes that is correct. They are now passing it along like it's my issue and I need to go pay the taxes. The conteract states sales tax paid for the difference. I told them it looks to be a mistake on their part and I don't feel that I should be paying for it. We agreed on a price out the door. That's what I was willing to pay. I'll return the car if need be, but they don't want to do that with 600 miles on it.
My attorney said they will want to get this resolved soon, because if my wife were to get into an accident, the car is still in their name. I feel like they are waiting for the temp tag to expire and then they figure it's my problem.
Attoney is sending a letter to the dealership. We will see how that goes.