Car dealer tricks

[oceanpacific]

Re: Car dealer tricks

Craig, you have to understand that the original sales contract indicated it was an installment sales contract. It was never a lease. No mention of "drive-off charges, annual mileage allowances, excess mileage charges, or residuals." When Pflueger Acura "took care of the paperwork," they had it recorded as a lease with American Honda Financial, who also happened to be the lender. She subsequently received the title from American Honda Financial after getting the pay-off amount from them. American Honda Financial signed off the title as lien-holder, but not as "leasing agent." My sister also signed off, but DMV rejected the transfer because the certificate had the letters LSE, indicating this was a leased vehicle. It took several days of constant back-and-forth phone calls to get the correct line signed by an authorized person. Then, they had the nerve to try to blame us for their blunders, saying that we "should have known the car was registered as a leased vehicle" by the letters LSE on the title. How are we supposed to know that? The dealer handled all the paperwork.

What do you mean, "they had no error to admit to?" They certainly had made a tremendous error from Day One by registering the vehicle improperly. They got paid $225 to get it done right and failed to do so. That error remained undetected for nearly three years.

The dealers get the title on their trade-ins or outright purchases signed by the previous owners, but undated. They have the opportunity to transfer title, but often don't. They tell the sellers that the dealership will take care of the signed (and also undated) white transfer card and the $10 fee, so no need to worry.

How about answering my original question: charging vehicle registration fees on cars already registered? That fee is pure profit and goes into the dealers' pockets, almost never to the DMV.

The rest of the commentary about leasing vs. buying is another topic altogether. It is irrelevant to this particular discussion.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Car dealer tricks

Craig, you have to understand that the original sales contract indicated it was an installment sales contract. It was never a lease. No mention of "drive-off charges, annual mileage allowances, excess mileage charges, or residuals." When Pflueger Acura "took care of the paperwork," they had it recorded as a lease with American Honda Financial, who also happened to be the lender. She subsequently received the title from American Honda Financial after getting the pay-off amount from them. American Honda Financial signed off the title as lien-holder, but not as "leasing agent."

To be fair to Craig, I must say that your initial account of the snafu re: your sister's Acura wasn't altogether clear on a couple of points and probably did contribute to much of the confusion.

The trouble started when he tried to transfer ownership. It was discovered at the time that the dealer, Pflueger Acura, had registered the transaction as a "leased" vehicle, with American Honda Financial as the actual "owner." So, American Honda needed to sign off on the transfer form.

So in your initial account, you said that Honda's financing entity was still listed as the "owner" (rather than the "leasing agent") at the time that your sister's customer tried to transfer ownership. Had you been more precise and stated that Honda was still the "leasing agent" instead, then the matter would have been clearer from the start. I have to admit that I, too, was wondering if by "owner", you meant that Honda was still listed as the "lien holder," which would make your whole story sound a bit wacky. (How could your sister have gotten title to the vehicle if Honda financing was still the lien holder, right?)

The problem was that her original transaction had NEVER been a lease to begin with. It was an outright purchase, and we had the original sales contract to prove it.

Your sister didn't lease the Acura in question. But neither did she make an outright purchase on the "original sales contract." She financed it. I pretty much gathered that, when you stated elsewhere that it took her 3 years to pay it off. But still, the way you described it sorta muddled the picture in my mind.

But as far as the snag in your sister's sale of her Acura.... I absolutely agree with you that this was clearly an error on the dealership's part. And for them to pin the blame on your sister is simply unprofessional. Human error is understandable. But not owning up to this clerical error and deceitfully passing the blame betrays a lack of trustworthiness on Pflueger's part. On the surface, it does seem incredulous that they would do such a thing, especially if you had been referring customers to them in the past. But maybe whoever was dealing with that guy who bought the Acura didn't know the seller of the car was your sister. Hence, the Pflueger employee was just trying to get that guy off his/her back by pointing the finger of blame at your sis. That's just awful. And if you never refer another prospect to Pflueger again, no one could blame you.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Car dealer tricks

Thanks for clearing that up FM, but on the issue of the blame game, I don't think it was entirely any one's fault on this matter. There are always two sides to a story and we heard a very convoluted one side that needed quite a bit of clarification. Red flags everywhere tell me there is more to this story than being told.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Car dealer tricks

Craig, you have to understand that the original sales contract indicated it was an installment sales contract. It was never a lease. No mention of "drive-off charges, annual mileage allowances, excess mileage charges, or residuals." When Pflueger Acura "took care of the paperwork," they had it recorded as a lease with American Honda Financial, who also happened to be the lender. She subsequently received the title from American Honda Financial after getting the pay-off amount from them. American Honda Financial signed off the title as lien-holder, but not as "leasing agent." My sister also signed off, but DMV rejected the transfer because the certificate had the letters LSE, indicating this was a leased vehicle. It took several days of constant back-and-forth phone calls to get the correct line signed by an authorized person. Then, they had the nerve to try to blame us for their blunders, saying that we "should have known the car was registered as a leased vehicle" by the letters LSE on the title. How are we supposed to know that? The dealer handled all the paperwork.

What do you mean, "they had no error to admit to?" They certainly had made a tremendous error from Day One by registering the vehicle improperly. They got paid $225 to get it done right and failed to do so. That error remained undetected for nearly three years.

The dealers get the title on their trade-ins or outright purchases signed by the previous owners, but undated. They have the opportunity to transfer title, but often don't. They tell the sellers that the dealership will take care of the signed (and also undated) white transfer card and the $10 fee, so no need to worry.

How about answering my original question: charging vehicle registration fees on cars already registered? That fee is pure profit and goes into the dealers' pockets, almost never to the DMV.

The rest of the commentary about leasing vs. buying is another topic altogether. It is irrelevant to this particular discussion.

I'm glad you added to your story because the first post wasn't clear enough to explain fault.

As for answering your original question, you were indicating "documentation fees" and profit. In your sister's case (as this is being applied to) the dealer had to pay for that "registration fee" to DMV. Your sister's vehicle wasn't preowned it was brand new. The dealership paid for those registration fees and they are recouping that cost.

Every dealership is different and some won't charge a "Doc fee" for a used vehicle that is currently registered unless there are other documents that needed to be worked on or paid for.

If this is a scam the Federal Trade Commission would be all over the dealership. They would be sued up the ying yang and that story would be on the front page of your local newspaper.

But from what you indicated because there were no fees associated with a lease, it was a financed deal to purchase. You indicated that after the fact. Your initial post wasn't clear enough to even determine that. With what was presented there had to be clarification and you provided it.

Clearly Honda made a clerical error and should have corrected it with proper action and an apology. From the way you entered into this financial agreement with Honda with your examples of dealing with an OTD price, I can only assume that your sister got a fantastic deal and that should have helped in dealing with this error.

[oceanpacific]

Re: Car dealer tricks

There are two separate incidents in my postings. The first has to do with car registration/licensing fees charged by the various counties. On new car sales, this is usually estimated to within a few dollars of the actual fee. When we purchase a NEW car, this is added to the purchase price of the vehicle, along with the G.E.T. and the "documentation fee." For USED cars, it is a common practice for dealerships to add this registration fee even though the car is already currently registered. This money is generally NOT paid to the county and provides another extra bit of profit to the dealership.

In the second case, the point is that Pflueger charged my sister a "documentation fee" of $225, then proceeded to "screw up" the entire process. The reason she got the title was that she paid the pay-off, after which the certificate of title was forwarded to Pflueger in which American Honda Financial signed off as lien holder, but not as the leasing agent. She herself didn't run into any problems getting the title in her name because the transfer was being done for my classmate, the buyer. My sister signed off as "registered owner," American Honda Financial signed off as "lien holder," but not as "leasing agent." The fact is that Pflueger Acura handled all the paperwork from the start and were the ones who received the title from American Honda Financial after the pay-off was made. There is no "other side" to this story - Pflueger simply screwed-up and didn't want to take any responsibility. Don't make excuses like they didn't know my sister was the seller - they had the documents pass through their hands and her name was on the certificate of title that needed American Honda Financial to sign off as leasing agent.

These are two separate incidents involving dealerships. The merits of leasing vs. buying are irrelevant here.

My dealings on cars, whether new or used, revolve around "out-the-door" (OTD) prices. As long as I'm happy with the total price, I don't care if the dealer adjusts the selling price lower to account for the fees. As long as I meet my OTD objective.

OTOH, I had one client who reviewed the registration fee on the certificate, found it to be $6.00 less than the fee on the sales contract, and marched down to the dealership to demand her "change." I'm sure that she expended more than six bucks in gas and time.

[oceanpacific]

Re: Car dealer tricks

To be fair about my recent rant on automobile dealerships charging vehicle registration fees on used cars they sell that are currently registered, I found one dealer, Servco Subaru, who did not add registration fees to their quoted out-the-door (OTD) price. The salesman said he agreed with my reasoning.

In addition, I found a car at JN Automotive in which the vehicle's registration fee was actually paid by JN as titleholder in April 2010, according to the CARFAX report. It would be interesting to see if JUN might charge the registration fee again to the next buyer as the car had been previously sold a mere twelve days prior to being returned to the dealer. Why? CARFAX does not say, only that the car has had two private owners, the second for twelve days, in addition to the fact that the dealer has held title in their name.