Lease End Fees?
 

My lease is up in January and I was planning to buy it out no questions asked... until the dealer presented the laundry list of new charges. Alarm bells started ringing as soon as I saw $750 for a safety inspection, which is a 100+ point inspection to make sure that my car is safe to sell to me. This really irks me as this is the dealer that has serviced my vehicle for the past few oil changes.

Here's the break down - does this sound fair?

• Lease Pay Off - $16k
• Safety Inspection - $750
• Vehicle Selling Price (???) - $16,750
• Sales Tax - $1,358
• License Fee - $8
• Postage - $3
• Tire Fee - $5
• Documentation - $400
• Lieu Tax - $306
• Air Quality - $1.50
• Title - $4
• Balance Due - $18,859

I'll be calling TFS once they open in the morning so they can run a second set of numbers.

I sold car for mazda a while ago (~10 years) and while I haven't been implied in many lease buyback I can't say I remember any extra charges. Certainly no inspection fee, and "Lieu Tax" (what is that btw ??!). I'm not even sure if we had any documentation fee. But if we had it was probably around 100$.
Maybe a call to the head office could help because it looks like they are trying to milk it for as much as possible. They already made their money when you leased the car.

They probably want you to take a new lease and to buy back your frs to sell it on their used lot to make as much $$$ as possible.

Too many fees. Of course, it could also be due to what your state/city/municipality requires as well.

That was my one thought as well that it could be AZ laws... but still excessive!

What does your lease contract say?

Some of that is really out of their hands. The lieu tax looks like it's your Arizona property tax on the vehicle, or at least the internet says that's what it is. Sales tax is going to be based on what you pay for the car. Most of the other stuff is too small to complain about.

Where they're trying to make money is on that safety inspection and the documentation fee. Both of those sound high and are just there to make money for the dealer as a broker between you and the finance company. I just checked on Edmunds and KBB, and a 2013 with normal miles on the used market is going for about $17.5K to $18K in Phoenix right now (plus taxes and fees). The folks at the dealership know this, and they're inflating their fees to get closer to retail. Their thinking is that you'll pay it when you realize you can't get a better deal by just telling them to fuck off and buying a different one yourself.

This, like any other car purchase, is a negotiation, and they have made you an offer to sell you the car. If you've already indicated an interest in buying the car, you've already lost the first round. But you can still bargain hard to get those fees reduced. Personally, I would counteroffer $150 for doc fees ("because I know you guys have to make money too") and absolutely nothing for a safety inspection. Then negotiate to a middle place from there. They may not budge, though, since they already know you want the car and can sell it for more money if you just return it.

Pay it off directly by calling TFS. You'll skip all those bogus fees. Once a lease was signed, the dealer has little to do with it unless you want to return the car at lease end. Otherwise it is just you and TFS.


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Most of the fees seem reasonable if you did not already pay them when you leased. Check your agreement to make sure you have not.
The inspection fee is pure theft (I think) call around to some independent shops and see what they charge for such an inspection. Bet it is not even close to that. Tell them you will have it done elsewhere if they will not meet the lowest price you can find. They can not force you to have them do it.
What the hell is a "lieu" tax anyway? Get that one explained and see if it seems real.
The other unreasonable fee is $400 for "documentation. Ask exactly what that is for and what YOU get from it. It is not up to you to pay for their costs of doing business. Personally, I would walk before I would pay them this unless it in some way was a benefit to me.

Which dealership is charging you these fees?

This is Autonation Toyota.

Thanks for all the input!! I'm glad I walked out as soon as I saw the Safety Inspection. I'll chat with TFS in the morning and go from there.

OP, you'll be needing this..


http://www.unilever.com.au/Images/va...m72-298021.jpg

Google says:

http://www.pivotaltax.com/arizona-pe...-property-tax/

In Arizona, travel trailers, cars, and other vehicles are considered personal property, and thus owners pay a registration fee based on the value of the vehicle, rather than one based on the age or weight as in many other states. This fee is comprised of a registration fee and an “in lieu” tax which is collected by the Arizona Department of Transportation.

There are discussions out there about how high registration fees are in Arizona because of this tax. It appears to be legit.

Well there won't be any getting around that one then. Unless the OP can get the dealer to eat it of course.

Sounds like a ripoff to me. That inspection fee is complete BS. So is the documentation fee. They probably didn't get to rape you on the documentation fee when you signed the lease, so this is their big chance. If they cut that doc fee in half, it would still be good for them and less bad for you.

If my only choice was to pay $750 for them to pencil whip an inspection or walk away, I'd walk away.

Tell them that that instead of inspecting the car they can inspect...

http://i3.cpcache.com/product/161448...=225&width=225

edit: Op you did the right thing by the way. If you ever feel uncomfortable or uncertain in a dealership get up and walk. If it turns out you were wrong suck up your pride and return to the dealership, some people would have you think that it makes you less of a man to do that... But as they say in my country... "That's retarded".

Try Right Toyota in Scottsdale. At least you'll pay less sales tax. Scottsdale sales tax is 8.9 which I believe is the lowest of the cities in metro Phoenix. Another thing to factor in is that you save on the lease turn in fee when you buy your lease outright.

Yea most of those fees aside from out right buy tax should have been included in the monthly

Let us know TS

Lease End Fees?
 

The tax rate is based on your garaging address and not dealer zip code.


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@MarcusM117

Post your results whatever the outcome. This is interesting and could be helpful for others.

Maybe in LA. In Phx ... the individual cities have their own sales tax rates. Doesn't matter which Az city you live in. It's where you buy that matters. You buy a car in Scottsdale ... you pay 8.9% sales tax. Phx, Glendale, Mesa, etc are above 9%. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but with a large purchase .... that fraction of a percent adds up.

Talked with TFS this morning. As everyone mentioned, you are only responsible for Payoff + Taxes. In my case, state + lieu. TFS is writing up a package with all of the final numbers so I can have my personal bank cut a check. ETA is 4-5 business days so Friday or Monday next week.

Throughout the day, the dealer called 3 times. I finally answered and let them know what TFS said, she goes "well if you find out you do need a safety inspection we'd love to have you come in, I'll call again in a few days." What a joke, prior to me walking out they argued that it was mandatory and any dealer or private bank would require such an inspection! I've used my private bank for a handful of vehicles now and they've never bothered me with anything extra.

I'll update if TFS comes back with any surprises but I think the conclusion is stay away from Autonation Toyota.

That really irks me, when someone flat out lies with a straight face, gets called out on it, pretends like it never happened, and just moves on to the next hook. I've had that happen before and it's one of the few things in life that pretty much makes me lose my temper. How much money were they going to STEAL from you had you believed them? That really... just makes me want to wring someone's neck. :paddle:

We used to cover the lease inspection fee, but lease refi's cost the dealership money. So we had to start charging it. With that said, ours is only $135. This inspection fee is required (at least in California) since the car is technically being sold as a pre-owned vehicle. The only other fees would be TTL, and for us, reinstating expired warranties.

If you'd like, you can PM me your VIN and I can look up your payoff amount to verify that what that dealership is telling you is true.

Sales tax on leases are paid on a monthly fee, not the whole selling price of the car. Client is responsible for the remaining sales tax due. More likely your registration is up, so you're renewing the reg. I don't recall seeing tire fees being on our lease refi's. Documentation charges is a (CA) state regulated 80 bucks. Don't know what lieu tax or air quality is.

Thing is, if they had charged $135 (which is still a lot of money for an inspection) and not had such a ridiculously high documentation fee, they probably would have gotten the sale, no questions asked.

They figure one or two people like the OP walking is a small price to pay if they can rip off most of the others and get away with it.

It's an hour's worth of labor to conduct that inspection. You're paying for time/labor.

I take it AZ doesn't regulate their doc fees????

Dealerships like that piss me off cuz it makes my job harder as it makes people automatically assume all dealerships are your traditional sleazy dealerships.

While looking for my FR-S I ended up dealing with one sales manager who was big into pressure tactics.

Her shtick was that if I didn't purchase the car that day her "nephew" who had transferred colleges was coming down the next day to purchase the car before he headed off to school.

To add "credibility" to her claims she was even "nice" enough to show me her text conversation with her "nephew"...

Two things I immediately picked up on were that:

1. The text conversation the sales manager showed me was between the sales manager and her "nephew" Rebecca (odd name for a "nephew" don't you think?), who had as "his" phone picture the image of a 30+ something year old woman.

2. The date on the messages were over two months old... While the car had only been on the lot for less than two weeks.

Needless to say I walked out...

The kicker though?

I noticed a few months later that the dealer still had the car on the lot (suckers!).

I tried calling the sales people I had initially dealt with to see if there was a deal to be had (and politely call them out on their bluff) but couldn't get a hold of anybody...

So on a whim I decided to stop by the dealership again - and lo and behold the dealership was under new management, and having caught wind of the sales tactics of a certain sales manager had decided to let her go!

While I didn't walk away with the FR-S that day - I came back about two weeks later and closed on an out the door price that was $2,000+* less than what I would have paid had I walked away with the car when dealing with Sales Manager #1...

*Dealer price dropped the car twice from when I initially looked at it and ended up purchasing it, I ultimately convinced them to come down further waive some of their fees - explaining how I had been tracking the car for a while and knew that it had been on the lot for few months :lol:.

You could've called the GM of the dealer and told them about a past experience and got it dropped a bit more as well....

Yeah, I definitely should have made a ruckus and at the very least got some freebies thrown in... Not really my personality I guess.