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 15,000 miles a year, which more people typically require, jumps the payment higher still. Choose an extra piece of optional equipment or two to the advertised base model and you can easily wind up with a real world payment of double the advertised $339 per month.
Similar Ad reads: New 2011 model – Lease for $469/mo. with $4464 due at signing plus tax, title, license and doc fees. The harsh reality is: When you add in the tax & fees to the $4464 due at signing it will actually require about $8,000 due from you at signing!
An ad reads: O% APR X 72 mos. on every new Nissan! Disclaimer in small print at bottom of page: Not to exceed $10,000. May affect selling price. The harsh reality is: This offer is both ridiculous and worthless. It is not a manufacturer’s offer and strictly a ploy to deceive you. They’ll actually charge you a higher selling price on the vehicle to cover their cost for using their 0% APR offer. The maximum amount you may finance at 0% is limited to $10,000 or less – no thank you! This is absolutely useless, but many consumers only see and retain the 0% APR X 72 months message, only to be disappointed when they try to make a deal at that dealership.
Dealer’s website ad lists: A 2010 Chrysler Sebring with a sale price of $12,200 listed. Disclaimer next to description of vehicle: WOW! Dont miss this super value! This Sebring is an untitled dealership owned car with extremely low miles! All incentives applied, add for tax, license, title, doc fee, destination and prep. This is a manager’s Year end special that expires on Saturday 01-29-11!!!! DONT MISS OUT ON THIS FANTASTIC PRICE !!!!!! The harsh realities are: 1)”the untitled dealership owned car with extremely low miles” simply means it was used as a demonstrator 2) factory rebates are already applied to the price, so if you wanted any alternate special rate APR that was offered, the price would be $1500 higher 3) a $700 – $800 destination charge will be added as well as several hundred for dealer prep, raising the advertised price even higher 4) This special price expired on Saturday January 29th, yet it was still listed on Tuesday February 1st, rendering that price meaningless now. Short expiration periods are intentionally created to give the dealer another excuse to try and get more money when you call on that ad.
The common thread in all these ads is that the disclaimers are always in small print, usually buried at the bottom of the ad, but are key in really understanding the offers. They have to be there to make sure the ads comply with regulations, but are not always listed properly. The “clever” ads are the ones that make consumers believe that their offer is better than the competition.
The take away here is that dealers have one common goal when they advertise, and that is to get consumers to contact or visit their dealerships. People must read all the fine print to avoid being mislead by great sounding offers that inevitably have a catch. Being on your guard and reading the fine print carefully will help you avoid many of the traps before you respond to these offers.
