Would this Car Advertisement be legal in your State?

[XDCX]

While most of my experience has been on the West Coast I've noticed there's a large variation between what's acceptable/legal for car advertisements. In my opinion, Washington and California are the most restrictive and Nevada and Arizona are the least restrictive.

With that said, listed below is an ad that's running in Arizona - would it be legal for a dealer to run this ad in your state?

As you've likely determined, the "Drive Home For" price is a 39 Month one-pay lease through Ally. The payment quote is the monthly cost for a 39 Month Ally lease with $2,599 due at inception.

The image that I included above is from the dealership's website. Their print ad is even more intriguing and features six new vehicles with very low prices/payments and has the disclosures written in small print at the bottom of the ad.

Would your state allow this ad, and if so, how would your customers react to it?

[XDCX]

Here's a copy of the dealership's print ad:

I think the ad looks great and I bet it draws a lot of traffic. That said, I wonder if most customers figure out the price listed is for a 39 month lease or if the salespeople have to deal with some heat as they explain the ad to their customers?

[XDCX]

I thought I'd "bump" this thread in an effort to see if I could get any comments.

Would a "One-Pay" lease ad be legal in your state and if so, would your store ever run an ad like the one above?

To be clear, I'm not implying the dealer above did anything improper I'm just thinking most State AGs would try to make an issue that the ad was "confusing" to the customer.

Then again, the dealer's ad is no more "confusing" than the ones the Cable companies run when they advertise low prices for Internet service that only last for three months and then get jacked up to a higher rate that's rarely disclosed in the ad.

[crowe]

These ads would not be legal to run in our state.
However in last few years ½ the car ads that ran around here are illegal.
The TV ads here are the most deceptive.
I’m not sure what our AG has been looking at but it sure hasn’t been car ads.
We still play by the rules & would not run these ads.

[XDCX]

Originally Posted by crowe

These ads would not be legal to run in our state.
However in last few years ½ the car ads that ran around here are illegal.
The TV ads here are the most deceptive.
I’m not sure what our AG has been looking at but it sure hasn’t been car ads.
We still play by the rules & would not run these ads.

Thanks for the input.

In Washington State the AG's office has been a stepping stone for aspiring Governors and playing hardball with the car dealer has always popular with the voters. I guess that's why I'm so surprised when I see ads like the one I highlighted above.

That said, I like the idea of marketing the "one-pay" lease and bet it's an option most customers never knew existed.

[57years]

Each state has one of two processes to find a violation of an advertising law:
either, a "consumer complaint" where the consumer alleges he was misled; or "state investigative" where the state "looks for" violations, then enforces the law. Most (almost all) states act only upon consumer complaint, and most act through a "motor vehicle licenseing commission" or such, where the fines are minimal and the "board" rarely revokes a dealer license on a repeated offender. There never seems to be an action by an Attorney General to "cease and desist" against a auto dealer because the customer who complained is "satisfied" between the mutual agreement of dealership and consumer.

The AG really only gets involved when there looks to be "Fraud" to a class, in which he, the AG, can get political points, instead of political contributions from successful business people.

[XDCX]

Originally Posted by 57years

The AG really only gets involved when there looks to be "Fraud" to a class, in which he, the AG, can get political points, instead of political contributions from successful business people.

Thanks for the information.

Maybe Washington State is the exception, but it was always my impression the AG wanted to take an aggressive posture with the car dealers because that's what the voters liked. Granted, car dealers make political contributions but it pales in comparison to the number of votes that can be attracted by having the AG take a tough stance with dealers and appear to be "pro-consumer."

To that point, I think Washington was one of the first states where the AG sued a F&I vendor because part of the vendor's training program encouraged dealers to "pack payments" to increase F&I sales.

To complete the picture, one of Washington's former AGs, Ken Eikenberry, used to have ads placed on the back of city busses (paid for by the taxpayers) that promoted the state's Lemon Law program. Not surprisingly, Eikenberry always managed to include his name in the ad.