Sometimes good stories just fall in your lap. Recently, I returned my leased vehicle with over 13,000 km of unused mileage allowance left on it. Many of you I’m sure have heard of people who have had to buy vehicles at the end of the leases because of lease penalties related to excess mileage. For the first time in five vehicle leases I faced a turn in fee.... excess wear on the tire tread.... a reasonable $238 for two tires. I decided to try to see if I could get some customer satisfaction here seeing that the vehicle was so under used. Here’s the letter I sent.
"Please find enclosed my payment for a lease settlement invoice.
Although I don’t dispute the charge I feel that other matters should be considered. I have been a loyal Audi/VW lessee for many years and I have never had any lease end charges. What is even more upsetting in this situation is that this vehicle has been returned to you for resale with 13,251 km less than the allowed amount. At the 10 cent per km that you would have charged me this would equate to $1325 in improved residual value on the vehicle that you will get on the resale of the vehicle. This increased turn in value more than offsets the tire wear charge. With judicious use of snow tires, my records indicate only about 42,000 km on the installed tires and it would appear that their quality may not have met your normal high standards.
Going forward I have adjusted my lease from 25,000 km per annum to 20,000 km per annum to ensure that I don’t get caught in this situation again when my care for the vehicle ends up costing me.
Any relief that you would be prepared to provide will be appreciated."
Well I just received a phone call declining my request... "siting the rules"... basically it is a one way street, your best case scenario is a $0 charge and over the years I had four of them. However, VW Finance has obviously not learned the power of the Social Media and the internet. I can now go into a full blown VW rant mode and turn thousands of potential leasing customers away from them just by posting this story. The story title will facilitate lots of google hits and in the end will cost VW Finance much more than my $238 charge.
You can’t take advantage of your loyal customers. You have to work as hard to keep a loyal customer as you do to try to attract new customers. They will be resending me the payment form and I will be sure to include this blog story for their enjoyment. Who says you can’t fight big business.
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