ComplaintsforColony Ford

• Initial Complaint

  03/02/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  When I financed the brand new Ford Fusion Energi 2018, in March 2018, the price we all agreed upon was $200 canadian biweekly. We were about to sign the contract when a sales person (D. M. or Andy P. B.) offered me a maintenance plan for a $9 biweekly that would cover various inspection and fixing of the car every 6 months or 8000 km (whichever comes first). He told me that they will build the price for maintenance into the financing plan. At that point I did not realise that they were going to entrap me into a finance plan that I did not agree upon. They said the financing would now be $209 biweekly with the maintenance plan included. On Jan 27, 2022 when I went to do the maintenance at my local Ford Service center in Kitchener, the person at the counter told me my maintenance plan had expired! She was able to show me that it was only up to 80,000 km or March, 2023 whichever comes first. At this point, my idea was: going forward, I would pay $200 biweekly since the maintenance had expired. But another lady at the ********* Ford told me to my surprise that I would have to pay the same amount regardless as this was built into the financing plan! I now understand, it was their plan from the beginning to trap me in a $209-plan rather than the one I agreed on. Clearly, this was not transparent. Had they made this clear to me at the time of contracting, I may or may not have agreed to have the maintenance built into my finance. I definitely did not agree on the $209 biweekly plan for the car alone! Despite no service, I shall now have to keep paying a higher premium than I agreed on. I want them to reduce the pay to $200 biweekly or extend the maintenance plan for as long as I have to pay the finance.

  Business response

  10/02/2022

  Thank you for contacting us about the attached.
  
  Unfortunately the maintenance plan he purchased is a fixed price which is added to the finance amount at the time of purchase to cover the cost. Even though the customer went over the mileage before the expiry date the cost of the contract doesn't change and therefore we can't reduce the bi-weekly loan amount as he hasn't paid the full contract amount plus tax until the end of his finance term. The cost of the contract was a specific dollar amount and this cost is spread over his 84 month finance contract. The cost doesn't go down if you go over the contract terms which were 80000K or expiry date of February 28, 2023 and clearly if he was told it was expired it was because he was over the 80K mileage.
  
  I will have our Business Office reach out to this customer to explain.

  Customer response

  10/02/2022

  (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
  The complaint was never regarding the character or nature of the finance plan. Most, if not all, financing works the same way. My complaint was rather about the transparency of the process that was not maintained in the way the contract was made. Both parties agreed upon a price of maximum $200 biweekly and then it was cleverly increased to $209 by adding the maintenance plan! If the maintenance was not going to be for the lifetime of the finance plan, why a fixed amount of $9 was inserted into the biweekly instalment? They should have proposed me a separate contract for the maintenance alone! They did not do it because it was always their intention to trick me into agreeing to a larger fixed cost for the entire period of the finance. They were not transparent in their conduct. In the receipt, you will see they charged a cost of $2095 for the maintenance. I could easily bought that as a separate plan and could get rid of it by now. Instead, I am going to keep paying the extra amount for the rest of my finance. How is that fair?!

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