They represent it as Kia but in actuality, it’s a third party. I made the mistake of letting myself be talked into both the maintenance plan & extended warranty, with the understanding that I could cancel at anytime. Well, when I got home after purchasing my Telluride and looked over the fine print, almost everything that the finance manager told me that he used justify the cost of the plans was contradicted by the contract. I purchased my vehicle on 7/1 and emailed the finance manager the same night that I wanted to cancel both since what he told me was incorrect regarding the plans.
Long story short, I had to drive the 52 miles down to the dealership today to FINALLY turn in my written & signed cancellation request because I couldn’t get any response from Kia of Irvine that they had received my email, even after sending 3 different times AND even including the General Manager. I think they were trying to ignore my request until a specific number of days before letting me cancel so that they got paid for the contracts.
I’ll post the contract paperwork & fine print later today.
Here’s the paperwork from the maintenance plan that I was offered. I was told that oil changes were required every 3-4K miles. I questioned this because my BMW was every 10k. He insisted the engine wasn’t as advanced as BMW and still needed to be changed every 3-4k. The finance manager justified the cost of the plan by saying that it paid for itself just in oil changes alone based on the math of needing 5 oil changes a year (1 oil change every 3,000 miles @ 15,000 miles per year). I think he said that each oil change cost something like $100 each, so I’d be getting the equivalent of $500 of benefits every year. This plan would pay for itself in just over 3 years but I’d be covered for 6 years. To be honest, I haven’t paid for an oil change in the last 13 years since I’ve only owned BMW’s that included them at no cost and a Volvo that I got rid of at 10k miles. (Traded it in for the Telluride).
When I got home, I see that the owners manual says oil changes are needed only every 7,500 miles. When I confronted finance manager about this, he told me he said that he only suggested oil changes are needed every 3-4K miles. I responded that we both knew what he says because I questioned it at the time and reiterated the nonsense of needing them every 3-4K.
As you can see from the attached paperwork, this specific plan that was checked isn’t even eligible for oil changes less than they 7,500 miles interval. Even though there is that option for getting them every 3,000 miles. So he was selling me the benefits of the highest premium plan but actually selling me the one with the least benefits, hoping that I wouldn’t notice the difference.
Btw, I never saw this document until I got home. He had me sign an iPad with just a signature box, so I never reviewed this written document. Once I got the car, I was told that printed copies for the maintenance & extended warranty plans were already in my glove box. My bad for not immediately looking at the paperwork. I had a hungry & tired 2 year old with me and we had spent over 2 hours in the finance managers office so I was ready to start the drive home.
I’ve also attached the cancellation form that took over a week for me to receive. It looks like a bad photocopy from a form that was previously used but then used “white out” in the answer lines. It doesn’t even refer to Kia or have the contact info for Fidelity Warranty Services. I filled out the form and saved to PDF, then emailed it a total of 3 different times over a 10 day period requesting acknowledgment of receipt and processing of the cancellation. I sent to the finance manager and copied his assistant plus the General Manager. The last time, I actually sent directly to the GM but NEVER received and acknowledgment that the dealership received it.
So today, I drove the 52 miles to the dealership and found my salesperson who found a finance manager to sign it and gave me a copy for my records. He also asked the GM to speak with me about the service I had received from finance but she refused. He said she simply put the signed form in the box for the office manager to (hopefully) process on Monday.
I’ll post the extended warranty paperwork separately.