Car dealership nightmare

Legacy_user

Hello all.

I am hoping that one or more of you can shed some light on what has been an awful day!

My partner and I have an 8 month old and despite changing our car only 8 months ago, we soon realised it was not practical. Today we went to Vauxhall dealership and looked round a used car which we thought would be much better.

We decided to go for that car and looked at doing a deposit with the remainder at 3% finance which was a friends and family rate which could be applied at their discretion apparently?

We went through the details of the finance and were then asked to wait whilst it went through. We then got called back in to the office and the chap was going through the paperwork. He told us it had been agreed and proceeded to explain the payments. We were then greeted with there will be a final payment of 500+ which we were never made aware of, there will also be administration charges which we were told their wouldn't be. We then find out it was infact 3% per year totaling 9.9%.... when we had been told 3%.

We challenged the sales manager and he said he was sorry about the administration charges but if he went through and checked every provider then it wouldn't work. He said he had told us it was per year, and I firmly told him under no circumstance had he stated it were 3% per year. Had he have told us this then we would have sought our own finance!

He said he would try and speak to a different finance company to see what they could do.

We decided to leave it and leave our deposit of £1( with then to see if we could source our own finance and if not we would have a refund. At this point we had been there over 4 hours.

As we were about to leave the sales manager said one last option and he could get us 0% finance. So as he was trying to rectify the situation we agreed. This meant a further credit search on my partners file.

This came back trumps and as we were happy with the amount the paperwork was signed.

We then went to the salesman who was sorting our tax/insurance etc. My partner asked to pay for the tax and the salesman said no need as taxed until June....

In the end we had been there for 6.5 hours

When we got home after a long and somewhat stressful day. we finally went through the paperwork as you do and we found no new keeper suppliment (green slip), we then researched and as tax is no longer transferable, how on earth are we taxed until June?
Something not sitting right my partner then paid to have a HPI check in our newly purchased car and it came back as having outstanding finance on it!!!

Absolutely mortified! We purchased this to make our lives easier and the whole experience has been terrible!

The outstanding finance is from 2017. Their website also states that they fully hpi check all vehicles.

So now we have a car that potentially has finance owing on it. that we are potentially not taxed to drive and don't have a v5. How will we know if there isn't a log book loan on it if the dealership don't even have this.

Needless to say we are heading up there tomorrow when they open.

I mean good lord it's a main dealership this should not happen and if they have sold the car and it has finance outstanding in it, then that is illegal.

I just want to know where we stand and how far we can take this if it turns out they have fluffed up big time??

oddjobbpb

Don't worry about the finance - when you buy from a dealer you get title anyway when this happens and it's 99.99% they will clear it anyway.

Re the green slip & tax - no, tax is not transferable any more. Get the green slip.

You can actually check online if its taxed or not (which it may well be as you haven't been shown as the new owners yet)

Above all don't worry, especially about the finance, that will be ok for sure. The green slip is just admin and faffing around but no big deal/

macman

Finance is always quoted as an APR, because that's what you pay. You don't pay 9.9% flat over 3 years, because each month you are paying off some capital. The whole point of an APR is that it gives you a way to compare different offers, even if the terms are different lengths.

AdrianC

Lottie_1987 wrote: »

We then find out it was infact 3% per year totaling 9.9%.... when we had been told 3%.

Finance interest MUST, by law, be quoted as APR - Annual percentage rate. It's legal to give other figures, too, but APR must be there. It would be illegal to give a single interest rate and it be "for the entirety of the loan", as well as deeply unusual and misleading.

3% over three years, assuming the loan is fully paid-off in that time, would be around 2% APR. 3% APR, again assuming fully paid-off, is about 4.6% total interest - for every £1,000 you borrow, you repay £1,046. A total interest rate of 9.9% over three years (£1,099 paid back) would be about 6.4% APR.

Why on earth did you stay there for over six hours? Why did you not walk out earlier?

System

There was alot of the sales man going to the sales manager and walking off to do goodness knows what. Lots of delays.

I know I'm asking myself the same question.

The issue of the Apr was resolved as we got 0% in the end but my argument was that he never confirmed Apr, but rather 3% total.

AdrianC

What he may or may not say is irrelevant. You MUST see the rate on the paperwork before signing.

wavelets

See responses to your earlier thread here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5956190/car-dealership-nightmare

Arklight

I enjoyed reading this and the story about the block paving.

Does the new car go up the driveway?