The Consumer Complaints Blog

Business involved:
Yorkdale Volkswagen o/b 2031113 Ontario Limited
600 Wilson Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M3K 1C9
Phone: 416-741-7480

I leased a new VW Passat CC through this dealer. They used an offer to lease form which doesn’t include the selling price of the vehicle on it. They told me the purchasing price was $34,735,which included the base price of $31,975 + $1,400 for auto transmission and $1,360 for freight and PDI. The leasing company is VW Credit Canada Inc. The numbers were the same as posted on VW Canada’s website. The monthly payments were a little more than what I wanted to pay so I asked if they could lower the purchase price enough to make the monthly lease payment an amount of $350 per month (this included an $8,000 trade-in). The salesman told me that he required my credit card in order to present this to his manager. He came back with a reworked offer to lease form and told me I have a deal. At that time, the salesman took my ownership papers for the car I was going to trade-in.

What they did not tell me was that they retained the same purchase price, but increased the amount I would have to pay up front, not to mention that they used a slightly higher interest rate to calculate the lease payments than the amount posted on VW Canada’s website. After I released what they did, I called the new car sales manager to complain and ask for my $1,000 deposit back. He would not give back the deposit. He agreed to reduce the my up front payment by $700, while maintaining everything else the same. Further I was told that I could have the car in the colour scheme that I wanted by the end of the week. I later found out that they do not have the car I wanted, and promised to order one for me from the manufacturer. The car arrived three weeks later. It did not come from directly the manufacturer. Instead, they acquired it from another dealer and had a manufacture date that was ficve months old, meaning it had sat through the Canadian winter — they did not disclose this to me.

When I picked up the car and fill out the leasing paperwork, the leasing rate offered by VW Credit Canada had dropped from 4.9 to 2.9%. The dealer had forms for me to sign which stated that the interest rate was 2.9% but the monthly payments or up-front payments had not changed. The residual value had been lowered by a mere $340.00. Again the purchase price was not disclosed on the new offer to lease form. When I pointed out that the lower interest rate should have a more significant effect on lowering either the up-front payments or the monthly lease payments, I was told that the effect was minimal. The Business Manager told me that they made $250 and he would make it up to me in services. At this point they already had my car and my insurance had already been transferred to the new car. So I just took his word for it. However, the lease agreement itself, which is an entirely different document, only presented to me after all of the above had occurred, contained a Vehicle Selling Price that was 37,662.83. This price was significantly higher than the MSRP of the vehicle, and when I questioned it I was told it includes freight, security deposit and first month payments as well as some other small charges. Not having a computer with me at the dealership, these items cannot be easily checked. After getting home, I realized they the selling price only included freight, not security deposit and first month payment and was $3,319.83 above the selling price I had agreed to.

Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.