I just sold my M3LR to a local dealership. I had a loan of about $25K still owed. If the selling price was $40K, the check to me should be $15K, should it not? The check to me is about $50 short and the dealership can't explain why except possibly that the payoff amount was too high. Is this normal practice -- to charge a small fee to sell to a dealership?
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Hidden fees when selling to dealership?
- Thread starter animatorelt
- Start date
AS9.9.
Member
I have recently sold my Hyundai to a mercedes dealer, had no fee whatsoever (though they did take over a month and a half to give me my check!). No fees were charged. I suggest you triple check your payoff amount and make sure to include the monthly payment you may have already made / the dealer didn't account for in your initial sell price? That's the only thing I can think of that could change the final amount paid to you.
An amount like that normally would have to do with the payoff amount going up due to the fact that the car was paid off after the payoff date. That would lead to more interest being charged than shown on the payoff quote.
The other thing would be if you looked at the amount left owed on your loan and assumed that was the payoff amount. The amount left on a loan isnt the payoff amount, you have to request that separately.
Likely one of those two things is what happened.
The other thing would be if you looked at the amount left owed on your loan and assumed that was the payoff amount. The amount left on a loan isnt the payoff amount, you have to request that separately.
Likely one of those two things is what happened.
You said the loan amount owned was ABOUT $25K.
So your check should be ABOUT $15K, just like it was!
Those numbers are way too round to be true.
The loan payoff amount is unlikely to be that well rounded, and it would be changing (growing) up to the day the payoff is processed. The interest keeps accruing until the loan is fully paid off!
No.
And you can easily confirm by requesting that all constituent transaction amounts be itemized down to the pennies.
Then you will know.
HTH,
a
The payoff amount was determined by the bank. Yes, my numbers are rounded for ease of understanding. The actual info: payoff quote per bank was $25,904 and good thru 3/17. Dealership payment was posted on 3/10, in the amount of $25,899.12, with ending balance of zero. So, I don't think interest was the reason. I was told the dealership also uses my lending bank for their loan servicing, so they have same day wiring capability.
Purchase price of my M3: $40K. Expected check to me should be $14,100.88 ($40K-$25,899.12) on the high end or $14,096 ($40K - $25,904) at the low end . Instead, the dealership gave me $14,050.
It's been 2 days since I've asked them for an explanation. Shouldn't my check amount be pretty straight forward: purchase price - payoff amount, with no other fees? None of my paperwork indicates extra fees either.
Purchase price of my M3: $40K. Expected check to me should be $14,100.88 ($40K-$25,899.12) on the high end or $14,096 ($40K - $25,904) at the low end . Instead, the dealership gave me $14,050.
It's been 2 days since I've asked them for an explanation. Shouldn't my check amount be pretty straight forward: purchase price - payoff amount, with no other fees? None of my paperwork indicates extra fees either.
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Was there a payoff request fee? I know it sounds unusual but sometimes the bank will charge a fee to generate a payoff amount.
Perhaps it is. While it doesn’t make sense for us to use a third party if you can imagine handling many open loans and processing both payments and payoffs the dealer may use a service to handle this and avoid having to pay for an accounting resource to do the work.
ColoradoMike
Member
Not certain if it is "legit" or not but someone had to take the time to do whatever company was used to pay off the loan. I don't think that it is unreasonable. Not a banker or a car dealer person here so take that comment with a grain of salt.
Whether it is or not, it is an issue between you and that particular dealership. It sounds to me like a fee they buried in the deal, ESPECIALLY since you said at the beginning "the dealership cant explain it".
What it isnt, though, is what it appears you were implying in your first post, which is Tesla charging some sort of specific fee.
Thanks for the replies. My suspicion is that my sales guy probably wasn't aware that there is a transaction fee and thus did not include it in our purchase order. I texted him to see if they can eat that cost instead of me. I argued that there is no mention of fees of any kind on our contract, nor is there anything of the sort implied. We'll see what happens. The contract was pretty simple: purchase price - payoff = amt to me, payable via check in 4-8 weeks....with both our signatures -- nothing more, nothing less.
jjrandorin: I never said anything about Tesla charging a fee.
jjrandorin: I never said anything about Tesla charging a fee.
I mis interpreted the part of the first post that was talking about the fee. I apologize for that.
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