Lorne Mack

Review of Waverley Mitsubishi

While we ultimately did purchase a vehicle from he...

While we ultimately did purchase a vehicle from here, I cannot recommend this business. In Manitoba, it is illegal to attempt to add additional "administration fees" to the advertised price of a vehicle. Despite that law, many companies still do it (google CBC News I-Team Manitoba Dealership Fees), and it would appear that Waverley Mitsubishi is one of those. After test-driving the car, we felt we might be interested in it.

We requested that we be able to take it to our regular mechanic (to whom we have been taking our cars for over 20 years). While the salesperson said that this would be no problem, there was serious pushback from the Sales Manager, who - at first - indicated that we would not be able to have the vehicle independently checked out. This was a deal-breaker for us, so the dealership relented, and we were able to have the car checked out. The reluctance to let a third party check out a potentially major purchase certainly raised red flags for us.

We asked the salesperson to let us know the final price (after trade-in on our old vehicle). On the Offer Sheet, he wrote: a) The advertised price less b) the trade-in value, and then an *asterisk* "plus taxes and fee". The taxes and fee were not broken out - just a total. Taking the Total, and dividing by 1.13 (both sales taxes), the price calculated was somehow $689 higher than the Advertised Price less Trade-In Value. I asked why. I was told: "That's the Administration Fee". We decided to not sign the document, and to take some time to think about it. Our research found the CBC report referred to above. We made a phone call to the Consumer Protection Office to confirm that the tactic attempted on us was, in fact, illegal, and they confirmed that it was.

When we went back to the dealership, we went over the numbers again, and it was only when we pointed out the illegality of charging Administration Fees, and that we had been in touch with the Consumer Protection Office that the salesman very quickly removed the $689 from the Offer Sheet. Needless to say, we were not impressed.

The CBC report seems to imply that the majority of dealerships still attempt this illegal practice, so while Waverley Mitsubishi may be no worse than the others, this experience was certainly not a good one, and was made more stressful for us than it needed to be.