Anyways, my husband and I decided a month ago to get a van (a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan), because I'm due in September and our current small car cannot fit more then the one kid we have, plus we often have our MIL staying with us so we need room for her in the car too (entirely different rant) ;D
We went to about 5 different dealers and decided on one, went back to that one and started talking about it. The deal we made in the end was that we were paying $33,600 (total) for the van. We had a bank deal lined up for 33,6 that would draw from our house equity to pay for the van, however the guy at the bank said that would take at least 30 days to go through, and we wanted to get the van soon because we had a long car trip lined up and it'd just be easier, because long trips in the car mean we're all sitting squished in with our luggage.
So we went back to the dealer and talked to them about it. The salesman and the sales manager told us we could sign the total up through one of their leases (the total they told us was still 33,6), make one payment on it (they said they can't fully close out a lease when there's never been a payment on it, so at least one payment would have to be made before it was bought out), and then we'd be able to buy it out without penalty and there would be no additional fees for doing it this way, they guaranteed us the price would remain 33,6, because they considered us still as buying it out with cash, just with a delay on it.
We signed about 3 contracts stating the total was 33,6 at this point and agreeing to buy it at 33,6. Then my husband goes to sign up the lease papers and the lease manager said the same thing the other guy said, though he said there would be a 300$ penalty for paying out early that he would 'waive' anyways. So my husband signs.
Now we go to pay off the lease and they're saying we owe 36,500 (and we've already paid a 500$ payment)
I don't know where these extra fees are coming from. The salesman we spoke with and his sales manager are trying to see what they can do on their end but the lease manager isn't budging on it.
My question is, can they just change the total between contracts without going back and changing all former contracts? Because now we have about 4 contracts stating that we will get this car at 33,6 and one contract saying 37,000, which is insane. We only made the bank draft for 33,6 based on the other contracts, so if we can't get them to reverse this then that's 3,400 that we owe out of pocket that we don't have.
(I know my husband was dumb for not leafing through the entire contract before signing it, trust me I gave him shit on that one)
But I was just wondering, is there a way we can push to get it changed or get out of the contracts when they've raised the price halfway through without verbally even telling us and while all the time guaranteeing us nothing like this would happen? I mean now the contracts say something different, you'd think that would void one contract since they backed out of the price they agreed to us on?
And this isn't even one of those shady autodealer no/low credit places, this is one of the top dealers in Calgary for Dodge.
The salesman we worked with and the sales manager are providing very good service, they're working to see what they can do on their end because they agree with us, this shouldn't have happened, but the lease manager is a slimeball and not budging on anything, and not even explaining why all these extra fees are there.
edited to add: I thought I'd say quickly to avoid confusion or people saying "duh it's probably just taxes", it's not taxes. The 33,6 was the grand total of everything, including the warranty packages and the taxes on the warranty package, it was the sign, seal, deliver TOTAL price.
Also adding because it's come up: the loan was set at 0% interest, not only because that's the deal they were offering at the time but we made sure it meant absolutely no interest, and they kept assuring us that the only thing we'd pay is the 33,6, because they knew that's the exact amount we were drafting the equity loan for at the bank