Tanger
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2021
- Threads
- 4
- Messages
- 27
- Reaction score
- 14
- Location
- New Jersey
- Vehicles
- Premium RWD SR
- Thread starter
- #1
Came across a bunch of normal dealer crap when looking for a Mach-E (e.g. ADMs, made up fees), but Fullerton was the only one uniquely bad enough to warrant warning folks.
I wanted a three year lease and was happy enough to use Ford Options, since it's "close enough" due to the option to return the vehicle in lieu of making the balloon payment. Most the dealers I spoke with about their inventory cars gave me a legitimate Options quote and the rest (other than Fullerton) didn't know how it works or weren't doing Options financing.
Fullerton was different: they gave me an Options quote with a monthly rate that was well below where others were (full $5k lower than typical quote over the 36 month period). It took multiple layers of questions before they disclosed that their financing has a higher residual value than Ford's 46% and no option to return the vehicle in lieu of balloon ("you can return, but you owe the difference between the value we assign to it and the balloon").
Unfortunately this isn't just some junior sales guy going rogue; I spoke with their sales manager (Joe Orlando) that confirmed that their "Ford Options" financing has no return option and he's already done 10+ of these this year.
There are certainly some charitable and less nefarious explanations (e.g. this is a bait and switch and F&I gives people the real monthly cost later in the process), but the fact that someone senior at the dealership insisted to me that they've done a done a bunch of these loans makes me worries enough to warn others about their predatory lending practices. This is similar to 2006-era mortgages: this would lure in someone to buy a more expensive car than they should by promising low monthly rates only to then leave them with a liability in year 3 instead of a clean return with no obligation (beyond the $475 disposition fee) that someone reading Ford's Options webpage would expect.
I wanted a three year lease and was happy enough to use Ford Options, since it's "close enough" due to the option to return the vehicle in lieu of making the balloon payment. Most the dealers I spoke with about their inventory cars gave me a legitimate Options quote and the rest (other than Fullerton) didn't know how it works or weren't doing Options financing.
Fullerton was different: they gave me an Options quote with a monthly rate that was well below where others were (full $5k lower than typical quote over the 36 month period). It took multiple layers of questions before they disclosed that their financing has a higher residual value than Ford's 46% and no option to return the vehicle in lieu of balloon ("you can return, but you owe the difference between the value we assign to it and the balloon").
Unfortunately this isn't just some junior sales guy going rogue; I spoke with their sales manager (Joe Orlando) that confirmed that their "Ford Options" financing has no return option and he's already done 10+ of these this year.
There are certainly some charitable and less nefarious explanations (e.g. this is a bait and switch and F&I gives people the real monthly cost later in the process), but the fact that someone senior at the dealership insisted to me that they've done a done a bunch of these loans makes me worries enough to warn others about their predatory lending practices. This is similar to 2006-era mortgages: this would lure in someone to buy a more expensive car than they should by promising low monthly rates only to then leave them with a liability in year 3 instead of a clean return with no obligation (beyond the $475 disposition fee) that someone reading Ford's Options webpage would expect.
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