Today I decided to visit the Manhattan Toyota dealership located on 645 11th Ave. I was responding to the following advertisement:

I saw the fine print and shady wording being used. It states it has 0% deals for up to 60 months. In the fine print it says only on select models. So my wife calls in and specifically asks if "Camy Hybrids are available at 0% apr for 60 months). So the sales person says come right in tomorrow and schedules an appointment with the manager (Genie). When I get there around noon time Genie is busy and asks me to talk to Jean, a West African gentleman who seemed pretty likable.  

Right off the bat I tell Jean that I am only interested if they are offering the Camry Hybrid at 0% apr for 60 months. He first takes us to the showroom to look at the car. A Muslim finance guy says salaam to us and tells Jean to come to him if he needs anything and he wants to take care of us. Jean takes the advert and goes to discuss it with someone. He comes back with a sheet which more or less looked like this.  So he says the Camry, Hybrid in particular is not part of this specific sale. So then he looks into my credit and comes back praising my credit score and says that maybe they can do something because of my great credit history. He asks me if I want to make a downpayment and I agree on paying $500 as a down payment. Then I go for Jummah (Friday Prayers) and come back.

The first thing he tells me is that he has brought the car over and they are preparing it for me, and that I can take it home today. The next step is to get my insurance, so I call Geico up, and they tell me that I have gotten 3 tickets in the past 5 years and as a result they have to charge $130 more than what my initial quote indicated. So after dealing with that mess, Jean tells me he has to speak to the Financial Bosses  but he wants all the paperwork in hand and keeps assuring me that everything is going smooth and I'll get to take the car home today.

So he goes up talks to them and comes back down after almost 40 minutes. I ask him if everything is set. And he tells me we are almost good to go. He says I have to see the finance people to talk about security systems and other additional products which I may want to look at. We're asked to wait for another 15 minutes. Then we meet one of the financial bosses, Jaime. He has the license plates ready and on the table. He gives me the title paper to fill out.   He then asks what Apr was set. He says "5.9 right?". And I'm like.. ugh... no... From the beginning I have been talking with Jean about getting this car on 0% APR for 60 months, and I told him: "this is the deal I am looking for or else I am not interested". He acts as if he is totally surprised and says he knows nothing about a 0% deal.  

 So he walks in and out of the room a few times. And then he says its not possible. He flips through some pages he has, charts and such on finance rates. He then calls in Jean and asks him if he told me that I can't get the Camry hybrid for 0%. And Jean says "That's what I've been trying to explain to him". Thats when I got pissed off. And I told them straight up again: This is the deal I want, either make it happen, or let me end my long (ass) day. So they ask me if I would consider other models.. When he kept insisting that I go with a low rate of 5.9% I told him that as a Muslim I don't deal with interest, giving it, taking it, or witnessing it. Then he says "well we have alot of Islamic people who do this, why can't you do it too?" The dude even starts making sly comments about specifics about my credit report i.e. a Family member who I have a cc card under who owes money on their card. Then he calls in some guy with Red hair named Hind who is the sales supervisor. And he basically says no they can't do it. Then they say the best they can do is 24 months at 0% or they can hike up the price by $7,000.00 and then do 0%. The guy had the gall to say: "Where is the bank going to get their money?". This fiasco finally ends with him taking the license plate off the table and stuffing it in a drawer in a dramatic fashion. That was my cue to leave.

 I know and if you are reading this you know that I was set up. This sales person was trying to get my hopes up of taking this awesome car home. Meanwhile he is pretending that the deal I am looking for is possible and has been approved thus he does all the paperwork.  Only to take me to the financial bosses hoping that I will fall for one of their rates. I was there from noon time till 6 PM. I had invested my entire day (a business day, missed work) to be played like a fool. I stood my ground and was being straight forward like I was from the beginning. Genie could have saved my time by telling me what I needed to know on the phone (Like Bay Ridge Toyota had the courtesy to do). Jean could have easily spoken to the financial people and told me they were not going to do it around 2:30. Instead all these people tried to deceive me into doing something I told them I did not want to do. I'm sure these guys had a game plan. The result of their game plan was a lost customer.

Lessons I learned from todays debacle:
-0% isn't commonly offered, especially not on cars which are selling well. Unless you get really lucky on a deal i.e. VW has a zero percent deal running till Sep 4.
-Never trust a sales person, ask to first speak to someone from Finance Dept first before taking the time out to fill out any paperwork -Oh and NEVER EVER mess with Toyota of Manhattan, they will waste your time and treat you like crap!

And finally here's how APR rates work... According to Car.com this is how finance rates work at the dealer: