Hey Folks,
This is not a complaint, just an experience that i 'd like to share. It could be a bit long.
I sent Nissan a bank draft of the left over amount of the loan last week, transaction has been completed, and now, i don't owe anything to Nissan Canada. yohoooo!
It was my first new car and yes, i bought the cheapest car in Canada, I am not allowed to complain, but just sharing my experience with this purchase.
Long story short, last year, I had about 20k free in cash for a new car, and we picked Micra. When bargaining with the salesperson, i insisted to full pay in cash, because i don't want to pay any interest and deal with the headache of budgeting.. But salesperson insisted that if i take the loan, and make 3 payments, then clear the balance, he could give me an extra 300$ discount... this sounds like a good deal right? but i had to ask him.. "for the first 3 months, there will be interests right?" silly question, but i need to make sure...
then he showed me some numbers:
1- The interests for the loan after the downpayment and trade-in for 65 months will be 2250$
2- Then he took the 2250$ and divided by 65 months and times 3 (2250 /65 *3) =103.85$ which is approximately the interest i will be paying with my loan if i clear the balance after 3 months.
3- Then he "carefully" said the following: "of course, we know that loan interests works like your mortgage interest, the interest portion of your payment does not distribute evenly throughout the period of the 65 months, so it will not be exactly 103.85, it's just to give you an idea...
i then make some calculation inside my brain, $300 discount - $103.85 interest, i still get 200$ off, at worst, if the interest is a little higher like 150$, i still get 150$ off.. well why not? I took the bait...
So after i made the 3 first payments and called Nissan Canada to find out the balance, i was given an amount that is about 150$ more than i expected. I questionned Nissan for the difference, the agent told me that the interests portion of the first 3 payments was actually 250$ and not 103.85$ that i was estimated by salesperson, not 150$ that i calculated in my head.. so, instead of a 200$ discount that the salesperson made me believe, it was actually just 50$...
Anyways.. I am 100% sure that the salesperson is well aware of the final interests, otherwise, he wouldn't carefully said the point 3... but at the end of the day, i still got a 50$ discount, i cannot complain about it...
But the conclusion that i draw from this experience is "car salesman may not be the most honest person in the world, and buyers really need to be very smart and careful of what they tell you."
end of the story.