A customer alleges that Nissan dealerships are scamming their customers, and she asks viewers for advice on buying a car in 2023.
The video, from TikTok user Cerina (@cerinapocino) exposing Nissan dealerships for scamming their customers has garnered over 594,000 views as of Thursday.
@cerinapocino I wanna cry #carmarket #car #buyingacar #storytime #nissan #cardealership #fyp #grwm #skincare ♬ original sound – cerina
Cerina says that finding a car has been “literal hell.” After almost six months of car shopping, Cerina chose to go to a Nissan dealership because they are the cheapest vehicles on the market right now.
She says that when she got to the dealership, she found a 2023 Nissan Sentra. “Literally the base model,” she says, “the only upgrade it has is the interior.”
Cerina says the car was priced at $25,000. “$25,000 in my f*cking mind, for a Nissan, is pushing it,” she says.
Once she sat down with the salesman, the price “magically” jumped to $29,000. She explains that she understands registration fees and dock fees, but adds that she demanded to see a cost breakdown.
The salesman said, “We don’t give out a cost breakdown sheet.” Cerina responded that if they couldn’t give her a cost breakdown, she wasn’t interested in the car at all.
She says the salesman took 10 minutes then came back with the cost breakdown sheet. As Cerina and her brother looked through the sheet, she says they found items listed that they didn’t even know one could charge for.
“There’s $300 listed for window tint, but I didn’t see any tinted windows in the car,” her brother says. Cerina goes on to show a picture of the car interior to viewers. “Do y’all see any tinted windows? Cause I don’t,” she says.
Cerina says that the Nissan salesman had told her monthly payments for this car would be $485. Cerina and her brother decided to press the salesman since the monthly cost seemed suspicious. “What about [with] $15,000 down?” they asked. She acknowledges that she doesn’t have $15,000, but that they wanted to see if the monthly payments would go down.
In a second video, Cerina continues to say that she would still be paying $350 a month with her increased deposit. She thinks the salesman was just wasting their time.
Once the siblings left the Nissan dealership, Cerina says she started sobbing in her car because she “can’t justify buying a car at that astronomical price.”
“Anyone who has any advice for me, please send it my way,” she pleads. Cerina says that while leasing is an option for her, at this point, she doesn’t even want her own car. “I’ll just Uber everywhere, because that’s more economical.”
Some viewers left advice in the comments section, while others criticized Cerina for taking the wrong approach.
“Why are you looking at a 2023 car then? Get a 2013 and you’re golden,” one comment reads. Cerina responded, “Babe, I shouldn’t be putting $15k down and still be stuck with a high payment.”
One supporter added, “We gotta stop normalizing these prices tbh. It’s so out of pocket to pay $400/500 a month plus insurance just to have a car.”
Another supporter said, “$485 is a pretty standard finance payment now, it’s such a terrible market.”
One viewer told Cerina to try again at the Nissan dealership after going “through a credit union and then see if the dealership would go lower.”
As most viewers agree this is just the market right now, one commenter added, “Another problem is dealers are adding their own fees because they lost so much money during Covid.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Cerina via TikTok direct message and to Nissan via email.
