KIA Dealer Remotely Disables Car over $200 Fee

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A KIA dealership in Canada may have broken the law when it used a GPS device to disable the car of a client who was refusing to pay an extra $200 fee: when the car was bought outright after being leased, the dealership told the owner, Daniel Lallier, that he would have to pay an additional $200 to remove a GPS tracker that had been installed on the car. After Lallier refused, a mechanic notified him by text message that his car was being remotely disabled until the dealership recovered the device and fee.

"I went outside and tested my car, and it wouldn't work at all. It wouldn't start period, and I got angry," Lallier said. He said the text message was the only notice he received from the dealership that his car would be deactivated. Lallier had just started a new job and needed the car to get to work. "I let my mom deal with it because I would have blown a head gasket." His mother was able to reach an agreement with the dealership. Lallier said a salesperson reactivated the car with his smartphone.
 
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This something a dealer adds to their cars. Typically used car sell and is something for their protections against people that default on their loan. The dealer is a shit bag for charging the customer to remove their equipment. My friend bought a used car with something like this installed years ago. Once he paid it off they took off the device at no charge.
 
Dick move by the dealership, especially since the fee wasn't in the contract. That's attempted extortion and tampering with private property...lawyer up and take them to the cleaners.

It technically was in the contract, per the article, he was a high-risk lease and the dealership uses the device to ensure payments are on time. It should have been included in the buy-out portion of the contract and wasn't. Non-disclosure is a big no-no in Canadian contract law and the dealer is going to get burnt by the court over it.
 
It technically was in the contract, per the article, he was a high-risk lease and the dealership uses the device to ensure payments are on time. It should have been included in the buy-out portion of the contract and wasn't. Non-disclosure is a big no-no in Canadian contract law and the dealer is going to get burnt by the court over it.

The removal fee wasn't...

Lallier said there was no mention of the removal fee in the contract and he disputed having to pay it.
 
I hope he ends up owning the dealership.

These types of dealers pull this stuff all the time and do it because they know people just want the burden to be over with (not the stress of dealing with it). They're essentially holding him up for $200 he never agreed to - instead of a gun, they used a remote backdoor.

I'm sure what they'll claim is that they "disabled the GPS Unit because he didn't get it removed from the vehicle in time" and it subsequently disabled the car as a side effect.
 
My point was that, as the car was being bought outright, the need for the device is gone and it is incumbent on the dealer to remove it on their own dime. Deliberately overlooking it during the buyout process and then charging for it after the fact is 'unjust enrichment' and will get the dealer spanked.

Exactly, then using said device to disable the car after refusing to pay for removal of it... Well like you said.. I hope this guy is smart enough to lawyer up and take them to the cleaners.
 
My point was that, as the car was being bought outright, the need for the device is gone and it is incumbent on the dealer to remove it on their own dime. Deliberately overlooking it during the buyout process and then charging for it after the fact is 'unjust enrichment' and will get the dealer spanked.

That was exactly my point in my first comment to this thread.

especially since the fee wasn't in the contract.
 
Exactly, then using said device to disable the car after refusing to pay for removal of it... Well like you said.. I hope this guy is smart enough to lawyer up and take them to the cleaners.

Also covered in the article was that they did the removal free of charge. He may not end up getting rich but the dealership is in for it as they violated Quebec law that regulates these devices as well as the Consumer Protection Act that prohibits charging undisclosed fees.
 
The article never states whether the device removal fee was actually in the contract (the guy may have been mistaken about it). If it *wasn't* in the contract, then the dealership should be punished. If it *was* in the contract, then the guy can be (or rather could have been) nailed for breach of contract by not paying an agreed upon expense. OTOH, usually when fees like this are in a contract, the contractor makes sure the signee knows about it. Sounds to me like shenanigans by the dealership.
 
Looks like the dealer is the one who will be paying a fee and probably more than 200$.
 
Bah! Fake news... :whistle:

In any event, since they did, eventually, do the work without charging the customer he won't be able to sue for much, if anything. Canadian law doesn't allow for punitive suits.

True, but what about the actual disabling of the vehicle...if it can be proven that the disabled vehicle inhibited him from partaking in activities of personal well-being (like getting to his job), then would he have a case, using that angle?
 
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True, but what about the actual disabling of the vehicle...if it can be proven that the disabled vehicle inhibited him from partaking in activities of personal well-being (like getting to his job), then would he have a case, using that angle?

It's definitely possible but you have to exceed a certain monetary value to not get shunted into small claims. He's a shoe-in to win since the dealship broke the law and the courts don't mess around either. When my Dad's car was totaled by a driver he sued in small claims and won. When they defaulted on the court-mandated payment they sent a Bailiff to the guys house with my Dad and gave him the option of taking either his TV or Fridge (this was back in the 60s so not a small amount of cash to replace either). The guy paid promptly at that point!

Otherwise, Quebec law is a tad different than the rest of Canada so there may be other Acts he can rely on.
 
why did the vehicle have a gps tracker in the first place? sounds like this guy may have been on shaky credit terms and the gps device was put on to make the repo easier.
 
Sue the dealer for pain and suffering of missing said family member's wedding and any lost income from not being able to get to work while vehicle was inoperable. asshats
 
Honestly sometimes the buyer is the jerk. We've just sold a car with a gps tracker and told the buyer that we would disable the device or give the credentials to him free of charge, he just had to come into a shop so the device can be re-programmed. He gives zero fucks and never even contacted us about it. Now every time he forgets to disable the alarm I get a text message about it. I was thinking I should remotely disable the car just to spite him. I feel like I'm being harassed by my old car.
 
note to self - check that any future car I buy doesn't have this *feature*

Crazy...

A ton do these days - plenty have said that the car industry is the new mortgage crisis. Previously people would pay off cars in a couple years, now the average loan is for 7+ years. People are incredibly stupid and get underwater with their payments as they trash one car and buy another while STILL paying off the loan of the previous.

So a lot of dealerships realize this - and unless someone has amazing credit they will install these devices on the cars that allows them to easily repo the car since they won't be able to move it. This isn't new.
 
The first thing wrong with this is he bought a kia.
http://southpark.cc.com/clips/382786/you-didnt-read-it

Asinine. If we were discussing this 10 years in the past, then I'd be right there with you.
Hyundai/Kia hired German engineers and designers back in the early/mid 00's. The first Hyundai/Kia vehicles that had design and manufacturing elements from said German engineers started appearing in '08/09.
Long-term thinking that has paid off:

http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/2017-us-initial-quality-study-iqs
http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/2016-us-initial-quality-study-iqs
https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...che-top-jd-power-car-quality-study/103050990/
http://www.autonews.com/article/20170621/OEM01/170629948/2017-j-d-power-iqs-kia
 
I don't get it, a guy that obviously has money issues buys a $13000 car? Why not buy a $5000 car instead?
 
JD power owned by XIO Group where there biggest investors are from south korea and china. Funny how kia and other south korea cars are in the top these days.
Yet they have many problems. follow the money.
 
JD power owned by XIO Group where there biggest investors are from south korea and china. Funny how kia and other south korea cars are in the top these days.
Yet they have many problems. follow the money.

That acquisition happened last year in 2016. Go back and look at the initial quality studies prior to that, and you'll still see Hyundai/Kia earning high rankings and climbing the standings with each subsequent year.
 
He leased it.
Then lost his job.
A family member offered to buy it outright for him.
Yes but he was a high risk leasee and had bad credit, some foresight would be nice. The dealership seemed to have it.
 
Yes but he was a high risk leasee and had bad credit, some foresight would be nice. The dealership seemed to have it.

I think you're missing the point of the story, here.

The dealership was at liberty to install the tracker on their LEASED vehicle.
When leasee lost his job, a family member purchased the car outright.
Dealer says they must pay an additional $200 to have their leased vehicle tracker removed.
Removal fee wasn't in the purchase contract, so they didn't pay that fee.
Dealer remotely disabled the vehicle, despite this.
Lawsuit against dealer incoming.
 
JD power owned by XIO Group where there biggest investors are from south korea and china. Funny how kia and other south korea cars are in the top these days.
Yet they have many problems. follow the money.

I know plenty of people that have a kia from teh post '09 push to make them not suck. They have all proven to be good value for money and reasonably decent.

I know a few people who have early kias form before hundai bought them out. and... well just DAYUM. I'm not sure I would cal them cars. Car shaped objects maybe. All of them didn't last 2 years without a major power train failure requiring very expensive warranty work the dealers wouldn't perform becuase kia was in massive arrears to them on warranty service reimbursement. I knew the service manager that got stuck in the local franchise by the owners back then. From the dealer standpoint, they weren't real cars or a real manufacturer either.

So I understand the sentiment, but it's not justified for the current vehicles in the least.
 
These kill switches are pretty common now with leases and people who finance a car purchase but have bad credit. Simple solution: buy your car outright with cash, even if it means buying an old clunker instead of something new. Then you'll never have to deal with the dealer killswitching your car because you missed a payment.
 
I would have just removed the device. We are talking about a dealership who installs these so they probably just bypass the starter wire somewhere and use a cellphone type receiver to send and receive commands. Like allow car to start or don't allow car to start. Remove the device and reconnect the starter wire. I would take the GPS device and leave it at the dealership on the doorstep with a picture of a penis.
 
These kill switches are pretty common now with leases and people who finance a car purchase but have bad credit. Simple solution: buy your car outright with cash, even if it means buying an old clunker instead of something new. Then you'll never have to deal with the dealer killswitching your car because you missed a payment.

Except they used it to kill the car for not paying to have it removed, which is all kinds of illegal in Quebec. They just opened themselves up to all sorts of fines and the possibility of a civil suit.
 
note to self - check that any future car I buy doesn't have this *feature*

Crazy...

It's not a car feature, it is a dealer feature. You see this shit on leases sometimes. When you lease a car, it is still their car and they wanna be able to recover it. So sometimes dealers will do this shit, usually the shadier ones that deal with people with poor credit. The car manufacturers don't install shit like this. They have no interest in this, they get their money regardless.
 
I think you're missing the point of the story, here.

The dealership was at liberty to install the tracker on their LEASED vehicle.
When leasee lost his job, a family member purchased the car outright.
Dealer says they must pay an additional $200 to have their leased vehicle tracker removed.
Removal fee wasn't in the purchase contract, so they didn't pay that fee.
Dealer remotely disabled the vehicle, despite this.
Lawsuit against dealer incoming.
And you're missing my original point on why he bought a car he couldn't afford and not go for a cheaper one.
 
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