![]() ![]() “I need you to leave,” the manager responded. “Can someone answer the question? In an email?” Weinsier asked. “We wouldn’t be in this position if someone would answer the questions.” “Why are you all forcing people to certify their cars?” Weinsier asked. When Weinsier showed up to the dealership, he was asked to leave by the general manager. Since January, we have been trying to get someone from Gunther to answer questions about the forced certification on lease buy-outs, but we’ve been ignored. “I certainly wasn’t going to pay something I didn’t think I owed,” he said. Kane was a loyal Gunther customer, having bought or leased four vehicles there in the past. “I felt like I was being ripped off and that is not a good feeling,” he added. ![]() “If it had bald tires and (was) out of warranty, that was going to be my problem.” “This was our car, and it was staying our car,” Kane said. ![]() He was told he had to pay an unexpected dealer fee plus a forced certification. Kane was hit with the same scenario when he tried to buy his daughter’s Jetta out of their lease, also at Gunther VW. “So my first reaction was, ‘Excuse me? Where in this contract we have together am I required to pay you a dealer fee or pay to have it certified?’ Their simple answer is, it wasn’t in their contract, it’s their store policy - their dealer policy,” VW client and attorney Jonathan Kane said. “‘We cannot do anything for you because you did not buy the car here.’ Basically, ‘go away,’” he said. “Completely disappointed, feeling like being ripped off,” he added.īeltran decided to go to another VW dealership – this one on Bird Road. “Did you tell them I don’t want the car to be certified?” Weinsier asked.īeltran said he did, but the dealership told him, “that is what it is.” Remember he paid a dealer fee when he leased the car three years ago, now another? To buy out the car he’s already driving? There would also be a $989 dealer fee on top of that. ![]() “On top of a dealer fee?” Weinsier asked.īeltran said the only way Gunther would sell him his car was to certify it with an average cost of over an additional $900, plus he’d have to pay to fix anything that Gunther mechanics found wrong. “They needed you in order to buy this car, to certify it, correct? Meaning there was going to be a fee for their mechanic to look at it, tell you what was wrong with it?” Local 10 investigative reporter Jeff Weiniser asked. He said they claimed it was state law, which it is not.īeltran took his Passat to Gunther VW in Fort Lauderdale where it came from, which is where the second surprise comes in. In the past, you could simply cut them a check and the car was yours.īeltran was told that now you have to go through the dealer to buy out the lease. His first surprise came when he called VW Credit – technically, they own the car and he’s been making lease payments to them. It read “NA” - Not applicable.īeltran, therefore, thought he would just have to pay the residual and the taxes, but he was wrong. That’s the agreed amount he can buy the car for at the end of the lease.Īlso on his contact was a spot for purchase fees. He said everything was spelled out three years ago when he leased the Passat, including the residual value. Juan Carlos Beltran thought buying out of his lease for his 2018 Volkswagen Passat would be easy. With inventory shortages and the enormous surge in used car prices, more people than ever are buying out their leases. – If you’ve tried to buy your car, truck or SUV out of your current lease you may have been knocked out of the driver’s seat with huge fees and dealership demands that aren’t in the contract. ![]()
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