Bait and Switch, as Reported on Reddit
A dissatisfied customer posted this on Reddit about an attempt to buy a 2022 Toyota Sienna Limited.
Here’s an older model of the vehicle in question.
Here is the poster’s account of the transaction:
Yesterday I purchased a 2022 Toyota sienna Limited. Very happy with the purchase until I went to figure out how the seats have the ventilated cooling feature and noticed that it isn’t there. I checked to see if the captain seats have the little foot rest that comes out and it also didn’t. This is when I used my detective skills to look at the back of the sienna and realized it’s an XSE. It was advertised as a Limited and all of my paperwork says Limited. I’m very non confrontational but I feel like I was mislead. I’m not a big car person but I would imagine a car dealership (it was a Nissan dealership) should know the difference and advertise the correct trim level. Do I ask for a price adjustment? How do I figure out what’s fair? Thanks in advance for any guidance!
The original poster added an update:
VIN is correct, everything’s correct except it says limited instead of XSE. That’s what lead me to believe it was a limited. Even the description in the online ad says Limited and describes the ventilated seats which is not on the XSE. And of course this car doesn’t have them because it’s not actually a limited.
And this . . .
Update: after 11 back and forth emails with the sales guy trying to convince me it was the correct trim level because KBB lists it was a Limited Edition I demanded to speak to the manager. He called and would not acknowledge it was the wrong trim. Just kept saying he would look into it further. He offered me three years of oil changes instead of the one year it comes with. I said I want financial compensation and he said how much. I said I’d look into it and email him tomorrow. Then he was weird about giving me his email! I don’t even want this car anymore and they said they’d take it back and give me back my old car. This sucks because my husband does like the car. I’m just in tears at how poorly this had played out and all the time I spent to not even get an apology.
So, the original poster seems to have buried the lede. The dealer offered to void the sale and return the buyer to the ex ante position. Nothing posted on this Blog, including the following, is legal advice, but that offer seems to me, not having looked at the contract, consistent with what Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code requires. Buyer has received non-conforming goods. Buyer has a reasonable time to inspect the goods, and she discovered the non-conformity one day after purchase. The should be within the bounds of a reasonable time for inspection, and she is entitled to reject the non-conforming tender without penalty.
However, Article 2 provides the buyer with options. The original poster informs us that her husband likes the car. Keeping the car is also an option, and the buyer should have the right to do so and also bring a warranty claim. She would then be entitled to the difference between the value of the car she was promised (a used Limited) and the car she got (a used XSE). That amount ought not to be very hard to calculate. The dealer should be happy to refund that amount rather than having to void the sale entirely, and I would advise the dealer to throw in free oil changes for three years, just to keep the customer satisfied and to give the dealership time to mend fences. That’s business advice, but I’m a law professor, so my business advice is probably worth what I get paid to work on this Blog.
Hat tip to Elizabeth Winston for sharing this thread with me.