Helping Consumers Decipher Misleading Auto Advertising
If you want to make some sense of the auto ads in your local newspaper or dealer’s website, here’s a short primer on spotting some often misleading terms. You may also need to break out a powerful magnifying glass as well. I’ll list just a few in this blog to help to demonstrate how these ads can be so deceiving: An ad reads: Sign & Drive, $0 Down on a new 2011 Infiniti G Series $339 for 24 months. Disclaimer in small print at bottom of page: 10K mi/yr, plus tax, license title & doc fee. The harsh reality here is: You’ll have to sign a 2 year lease, allowing you to drive only 20,000 miles before getting hit with a $.25 charge for each excess mile. The $0 Down misleads because the tax & fees add up to about $4000 you’ll have to pay on delivery. A real $0 Down lease would mean including the taxes & fees in the lease payment, which will boost the advertised payment to over $500 per month. Adjusting the allowed mileage to..