Ken Grody Ford location at:
6211 Beach Blvd.
Buena Park, CA 90621
888-284-2914
Appears to be violating California's Car Buyer's Bill of Rights (Effective July 1), details of which can be viewed at: http://www.dmv.ca. Gov/pubs/brochures/fast_facts/ffvr35.htm
I was a Ford customer for 21 years and currently own 3 Fords and was planning on purchasing a 4th Ford vehicle. I applied for financing on an advertised car and was offered a 10.9% interest rate even though I have a 794 auto fico score and was going to put 30% down. My credit union offers 4.49% for 60 months with 20% down.
The sales manager proceeded to tell me that they needed to give me such a high interest rate as they were taking such a large hit on the front end that they needed to make it up on the back end with the kick back from FMCC of around $1000 by giving me a 10.9% rate.
California law limits the amount of the kick back the dealer can receive from the lending institution to 2.5% for loan terms less than 60 months and 2% for loan terms greater than 60 months per the Car Buyer's Bill of Rights mentioned previously.
He went on to tell me that I could not use my credit union through CUDL to finance the vehicle because of the $1000 FMCC bonus cash which was an incorrect statement. Their ad incorrectly listed the wrong incentives for the 2009 Fusion of $2500 customer cash, $1000 FMCC bonus cash when the current incentive is $3500 customer cash.
I went back on a subsequent day as I had forgotten to receive a copy of my finance application and my fico as well as to discuss the sale further with my assigned salesperson. I produced evidence of the current incentives with printouts from Ford's web site and their own web site and they insisted that what they advertised were the correct incentives.
I showed the sales person a printout of the Car Buyer's Bill of Rights and the limits on kick backs and he went to the sales manager who apparently relented in letting me purchase the car with financing from my credit union. I asked the salesperson to provide me an out the door price from the sales manager. Upon reviewing the out the door price, I noticed that it incorrectly reflected the wrong customer cash rebate of $2500 when it should have been $3500.
Apparently the dealer uses these incorrect rebates to leverage the negotiations so that the customer finances through FMCC at unusually high rates. Remember, I have a 794 auto fico. They also apparently use these misrepresentations in the event that the customer obtains their own financing to credit the customer with a lower rebate amount and pocket the rest.in this case, they only credited the out the door price with a $2500 rebate and apparently intended to process the $3500 rebate for an additional gain of $1000 on the transaction.
FYI, I checked 4 other local dealer ads, and they all listed the correct incentives for the Ford Fusion. Also, the dealer's ads reflected the incorrect incentives for multiple weeks which leads me to believe that the advertising director is extremely incompetent or they knowingly engaged in such practices to maximize their profit.
Part of the problem here is that it appears that FMCC lets the dealer set the interest rate on the loan regardless of what the person's credit scores are. Once again, per the Car Buyers Bill of Rights in California, the law limits the amount of kick backs that the dealer is entitled to from the financing company to minimize these types of abuses.
I sent an email to the company management regarding my experience and to their credit, they had the sales manager contact me to "make everything right" and honor the correct incentive and finance me at the same rate as my credit union. Unfortunately, I did not feel that this was a genuine attempt to correct the true problem of their questionable business practices, but rather a way of buying my silence regarding this experience. As much as I like the car, I can no longer continue to be a Ford customer because of this experience.
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